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This page was designed to guide teachers in supporting Nicaraguan families to increase parental involvement and participation in their children's educational lives. Through this website, teachers and families will find useful and valuable information and resources to effectively collaborate.

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10 Recommended Practices for Nicaraguan Families 

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10 Recommended Practices for Nicaraguan Families 

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Helpful links are highlighted in pink
1. Translators readily available- A translator or a system to translate conversations is vital when working with parents who do not speak English.
2. Copies of documents in English and Spanish- Providing documents and important information in both languages (or any languages needed) reduces any confusion and embarrassment.
3. Parent information sheet- Asking for information about the families gives the opportunity to learn about the family and their home life.
4. Monthly calendar- To provide an overview of the upcoming month by giving insight into the monthly activities and allows parents to take off work, if needed, to be involved.
5. Frequent communication- Communicating often with the parents via emails, phone calls, and applications (Remind, Class Dojo).
6. Volunteering- Inviting parents/families to join and participate in the school environment such as helping with dismissal, cafeteria duty, field trips, and/or joining the school's PTA.
7. Hosting Parent Nights- Host events such as Donuts with Dad, Coffee with the Principal, and Multicultural Night to celebrate the different cultures represented in the school to make connections between the school and family.
8. Class websites- A landing page with contact information, suggestion boxes, and the option to schedule a meeting with the teacher. As well as important dates, photos, information on parent workshops, tips, and resources for the parents.
9. Check-Ins- The teacher initiates a monthly parent contact to 'check in' on the student and family.
10. Homework Support- A set time period where the student and/or family can reach out with any questions or support needed for the homework assigned.

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Reading Night
Each grade level has an assigned book where the child may read the book to their families or if they are too young to read, this encourages the parents to read to their little ones. A book about a culture is recommended.

Donuts with Dad
All students are able to bring their father figure and enjoy a nice breakfast. This provides one-on-one time with their child and encourages more moments that are similar.

STEM Night
All grade levels are encouraged to bring their parents to collaborate with other students and their families in their class to create a project that includes science, technology, engineering, and math.

Talent Show
Students and their families are invited to participate and watch the talents of their school. This provides a night out with parents and entertainment. This encourages creativity and the chance to explore and provide ideas of hobbies.

Field Day
All grade levels participate in this fun, physical day where they compete with other classes amongst their grade level. Parents are welcomed to attend to support their children competing and presenting their physical abilities.

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An organization devoted to helping create sustainable life change and long term impact in Nicaragua

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Nicaragua, which means, "here united with the water," is a sovereign state whose people love freedom and independence.

The western region of the country was colonized by Spain, where the east was once a British region with a culture similar to that of the Caribbean nations. Examples through history include the fight led by the "general of the people" Augusto C. Sandino against the intervention of the United States in 1927, and the Sandinista People's Revolution against the Somoza dictatorship, which led the way to democracy and solidarity in Nicaragua. Today the country is a democracy, with elections and a government dedicated to social justice and peace.

The merging of different cultures within Nicaragua has caused the dawn of a creative, lively and blissful culture. Nicaraguans are appreciated for their natural warmth, hospitality and wisdom. The country is known as the land of poets, and Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío is the father of Spanish-American literary movement, Modernism. The rhythmic marimbas and folkloric dances give vibrancy to our fiestas across the country and the beautiful work of our skilled artists spreads an understanding of our history and nature.

Religion

Religion plays a momentous role within the Nicaraguan culture. Religious freedom and tolerance are promoted both by the government and the constitution, there is no separation. Religious authorities lend their guidance in key state developments and they often mediate between parties during political crisis.

Many religious celebrations take place throughout the country. These events are often loud, joyous celebrations that attract large crowds with dance, music and traditional interpretations.

Each city and town has an official Saint, also known as the 'Santo Patrono', which have been designated since colonial times. As well as honoring these Saints with gifts in exchange for blessings, celebrations take place called 'Fiestas Patronales' that can last several days and are colorful, folkloric events. The highlight of these festivals tend to be the philharmonic bands called 'chicheros', where trumpets, clarinets, drums and a cymbal come together come together to create an energetic melody.

Music

Nicaragua is a country keen on their music and dance, a product of the different heritage and cultures from before. It is as if each region gave birth to a different music and dance, yet still come together to mesh perfectly creating this one cultural identity. Following is a break down of the regions:

Pacific - A mixture of the indigenous and Spanish culture resulting in a wide range of diverse music and dance with flutes and drums accompanied by dancers in Spanish garb demonstrating the duality of cultures.

Masaya - Here the cultural feature is referred to in the Latin American term 'mestizaje', a mixture of culture. Dances are expressed with soft movements as guitars strum lightly in the background with the national folklore instrument, the wooden marimaba, painting the picture of a dance between man and woman.

North/Central - The European heritage brought by the Spanish and German descendants is prominently displayed in this region. Dances known as the 'polcas' and 'mazurcas'

Caribbean - Though the African culture plays an integral role in this region, influencing both the music and dance, the contribution of the native indigenous tribes can not be forgotten. The dance of choice is the 'palo de mayo', crafted in Bluefields, an energetic dance which highlights the role of the body with sensual movements.

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Nicaragua, which means, "here united with the water," is a sovereign state whose people love freedom and independence. The western region of the country was colonized by Spain, where the east was once a British region with a culture similar to that of the Caribbean nations.

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The Parent Academy – Connecting & Inspiring Families, Schools, and Communities

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Be the Link to Your Child’s Success 305-271-8257

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Finding the motivation to make positive lifestyle changes can be hard for anyone. For teenagers, it can be especially difficult when parents are the ones telling them to do it. But if they've fallen into unhealthy habits like vaping or alcohol abuse, change can be beneficial. Motivational interviewing is a form of therapy that creates a safe, non-judgmental environment for teens to establish their own goals and values and see how changing unhealthy behaviors can benefit them in the long run.

This series of articles comes from the Child Mind Institute, with most available in English and Spanish. Why might teens be resistant to therapy and how can parents and others to help them get the treatment they need? The articles explain how motivational interviewing can help teens gain the self-confidence to make important behavioral changes. To read more about motivational interviewing, and to connect with the articles in both English and Spanish, please visit CPIR's abstract.

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Center for Parent Information and Resources | Your Central Hub for Parent Centers Serving Families of Children With Disabilities

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Finding the motivation to make positive lifestyle changes can be hard for anyone. For teenagers, it can be especially difficult when parents are the ones telling them to do it. But if they've fallen into unhealthy habits like vaping or alcohol abuse, change can be beneficial.

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By Katherine Borland. Published in 1993.

The Nicaraguan community in Miami is comprised of three distinct culture groups: the Creole peoples of the southern Atlantic coast, the Miskito population of the Rio Coco and Puerto Cabezas area, and the Mestizos of the Pacific Coast. These communities do not have much contact across cultural lines. No overall Nicaraguan cultural organization unites them, and, though they share some foodways, their cultural heritages are quite distinct.

The Creole population is perhaps the oldest Nicaraguan population in Miami. Most are professionals-nurses, teachers, accountants-and many came to study in the United States as early as the 1950s. Others have worked on ships that have taken them around the world. Like other Caribbean rim populations, they are a mixed race people. Their sense of independence and separateness from the Pacific coast Nicaraguans is well described in A. Sambola (1984).

English-speaking Creoles find it relatively easy to adjust to North American culture, as historically, American influence through trade and missionary work has been long standing. Institutions like baseball, Boy Scouts and Girl Guides constituted an established part of Atlantic Coast town life by the 1930s.

In Miami, the population is concentrated around the Moravian Prince of Peace Church in Carol City, and scattered through the Jamaican and Spanish Nicaraguan neighborhoods of the west and southwest. For churchgoers, the Moravian church provides a strong unifying influence. Non-churchgoers gather to drink and socialize at the ball fields around the Carol City neighborhood on Sundays. Yet, Bluefieldians, regardless of their religion, know each other and keep in touch in Miami.

The Miskito population is estimated to be from 3,000 to 5,000. Some are professionals, but most have found work as janitors, cleaning women and guards in Miami hotels. Miskito families are concentrated in particular apartment complexes throughout Miami Beach and Miami Shores. Although an indigenous people of Nicaragua, they are typically of mixed blood and quite westernized in their living habits. Many of their traditional cultural practices were supplanted decades ago by Moravian and other missionary church traditions. As Mary Helms points out (1971), ever since their first contact with Europeans, Miskitos have engaged with cultural outsiders, trading their labor for foreign goods or wages in a variety of commercial ventures. Their most binding cultural traits are a common language and the Moravian religion.

While Miskito people expressed no strong political views, they are generally bitter about the Sandinista and Somoza "Spanish" exploitation and destruction of their Atlantic Coast communities. The Contra War severely affected the Miskito community and forms an important reference for many of the young men who fought in it. Jorge Jenkins Molieri (1986) gives an excellent history from the Sandinista point of view of the "Spanish" and other foreign incursions in the life of Miskito communities.

Enerio Danny tells an unfortunately typical story. In the late 1970s he worked with the Sandinista indigenous movement, Misurasata, and served in the Literacy Crusade in Miskito. Increasingly suspicious of Sandinista policies, he eventually joined a Contra military band. He now expresses disillusionment with the Miskito leaders, who drew a peace-loving people into armed conflict but subsequently failed to honor promises to promote community improvements.

The Pacific Coast population, the largest in Miami, has been reported as high as 400,000 (Estrella de Nicaragua, Nov. 30, 1991). It is concentrated in the middle and upper class neighborhood of Sweetwater and in the more working class areas of Little Havana and Hialeah. Most cultural organizations are run by professionals and business owners, as working class people generally complain that the demanding American work schedule prevents them from participating in cultural activities. Married women voice particular frustration at being isolated in their homes by husbands who resist their attempts to establish new contacts or join outside activities. Most Pacific Coast Nicaraguans arrived in the years after the revolution of 1979. Nevertheless, they have already made a definite mark on the city.

Primary genres of Nicaraguan folklife in Miami include music, patronal festivals, Moravian church celebrations and foodways. Material culture traditions outside the festival context have generally become latent as craftspeople enter new lines of work.

Patronal Festivals

Nicaragua is a predominantly Catholic country. Patronal festivals for each town constitute the major folk expression of this religiousness and provide a context for artistic practices of all kinds, as well as for the expression of local identity. In Nicaragua, these festivals are organized by traditional mayordomias and cofradias, which are charged with shouldering the expense of festival celebrations. Members have usually made a promise to the saint to join a mayordomia after having been granted a favor (a family member's or farm animal's miraculous recovery from a serious illness, for instance).

Patronal festivals are processional in nature. After a mass, the saint is paraded through the streets of his town accompanied by brass bands called chicheros, dancers, fireworks and devoted followers. After the processions mayordomos host public feasts or give away food and drink to festival participants. Individual families who own their own image of the Saint may host a private procession and feast as well. Often the festivities will include carnivals, big social dances, crafts fairs and traditional games such as a corrido de toros or the palo lucio. Moreover, in recent years, elite groups have introduced horse shows at these festivals. Thus, the patronal festival involves a series of activities that span from eight days to, in the case of Masaya's San Jeronimo, over three months. (For more information see Enrique Perez Estrada, 1986.)

Although the baile de la marimba has become the national folk dance and is performed at most patrons' festivals throughout Nicaragua, each town typically has its own set of traditional festival dances as well. Dancing is an important expressive form for Nicaraguans, as dancing for a saint is a primary form of devotion. The original significance of costume, dramatic miming and dance step, however, has been lost over time.

The degree to which dancers are organized into formal groups varies in the different towns. Normally, though, a patron will organize the dance and sponsor a series of rehearsals in order to prepare for a street performance. Traditional festival dance groups should not be confused, however, with the more recent folk ballet groups that arose in the 1950s. These folk ballets combine traditional and modern classical dance forms to provide interpretations of the folk tradition for large stage or televised environments.

The Miami Nicaraguans continue to celebrate many of their patronal festivals, but with some differences. Small businesses and professional organizations have taken an important role in fostering and organizing the festivals in the absence of mayordomias. Given the more rigid North American work schedule, festivals are held on the Sunday closest to the actual saint's day, and all festival activities occur in a single day.

As recently arrived immigrants, Nicaraguans are intimidated by Miami laws requiring parade permits for street activities. Additionally, the former residents of any one town tend not to be concentrated in a single area. Therefore, celebrations are located in rented park areas or halls, and their processional character has been modified to fit these new spaces.

Finally, the prohibition against fireworks in Miami has fostered some creative adaptations. At the Fiesta de San Sebastian and at many home Purisimas multitudes of balloons are strung overhead. At a certain moment in the festival when firecrackers would be set off, a signal is given, and adults and children furiously pop the balloons, simulating this important festival sound.

Cultural activities are also reduced in the Miami celebrations. While a mass and modified procession are usually performed, the variety of dancing and masking traditions that adorn any Nicaraguan town festival are represented by just one or two symbolic enactments. Some festivals have included horse shows, but the palo lucio and corridos de toros games appear impracticable in Miami.

San Sebastian

Diriamba's festival of San Sebastian is known throughout Nicaragua, especially for its street dance-theatre performances: El Gueguense, El Toro Huaco, and El Gigante (David and Goliath). In 1990 Pedro Facundo Pomar and Horacio Gonzalez, both former mayordomos, got together to organize a patronal celebration in Miami, complete with the traditional tope that marks the formal beginning of the festival. In Nicaragua San Sebastian is taken to the village of Dolores, where he is met by the patron saints of the nearby towns of San Marcos and Jinotepe. This tope constitutes a ritual invitation to Diriamba's neighbors. When Santiago's (Jinotepe) and San Marcos' festivals approach, their mayordomias also stage a tope, inviting San Sebastian (and Diriambans) to attend. (See the work of Leopoldo Serrano Gutierrez, 1960 for a fuller description.)

In Miami each of these patron's festivals is celebrated with a symbolic tope staged at the festival site. San Sebastian occurs on the closest Sunday to January 21st, Santiago is in July, and San Marcos, only recently organized, is in April. Each group of townsmen parades with their saint's image from a given corner of the grounds. When they all meet in the center, the saints are made to bob a greeting to one another.

At the San Sebastian festival, the Silva family presents the Toro Huaco, the dance that traditionally "breaks" or leads the procession. Dance director Jose Silva says that this dance constitutes a family as well as a town tradition. His wife makes the colorful costumes, while the wooden masks of Spanish colonial soldiers and the chichiles (tin rattles) are imported from Nicaragua. The dancers, mostly children, form two lines facing one another. Between them twirls a man sporting a cow's mask attached to a kite-like structure he holds over his back. The dancers alternately charge and retreat from this cow, employing a methodical stamping step.

The Toro Huaco is the only large-group traditional Nicaraguan dance performed in Miami. It employs the ancient indigenous music of flute and drum. While the slow, repetitive, ritualized steps of the dance make it somewhat monotonous, the elaborate masks, peacock plumed hats, and costumes provide a feast for the eyes.

Santa Ana

Santa Ana of Nandaime has been celebrated occasionally in Miami on the Sunday closest to July 26th. The festivities were organized by a family, Maria Teresa Chavarria and her son, Ismael Lopez, who own a painting of the saint. Some years many Nandaimenos prefer to return to Nicaragua for their hometown festivities, so there are only occasional celebrations in Miami.

Unlike the Diriambans, Nandaimenos have no organized dance performance groups. Their traditional festival dance, Los Diablitos, is a simple hopping step that anyone who has made a promise to the saint must learn. On July 24th, hundreds of these promesantes, dressed in brightly colored silk capes and wearing wire mesh masks, go to the valley where Santa Ana is said to have first appeared. On procession day the dancers escort their patroness the several kilometers back to town, accompanied by the music of chicheros. Auxiliadora Acevedo explains that in Miami, participants reenact this form of devotion and express their local identity by dancing Los Diablitos in their street clothes on the festival grounds.

Santo Domingo de Guzman

Reportedly the first Nicaraguan patronal festival organized in Miami, Santo Domingo of Managua draws on participation from all Spanish speaking Nicaraguans. The festival is held in August and was originally hosted in 1987 by a group of professionals who were looking for a way to unite the community. Unfortunately, as in Managua, the Miami festival has fractured into two celebrations, one among the elites, and one among more working class Nicaraguans.

The elite celebration generally constitutes a party with a horse show and represents an opportunity for socializing. The other festival, which takes place in the Nicaraguan part of Little Havana, is a rowdy affair. Young men paint themselves with black and red grease and then dash through the crowds smearing this noxious substance on unwitting members of the public.

Managua has its traditional dances as well. Chony Gutierrez has organized a performance of Las Vacas for the Santo Domingo festival since 1988. In this dance women wearing hoops around their waists designed to represent cows, mimic a bullfight with companions holding colored scarves.

San Jeronimo

Masaya's festival of San Jeronimo is known as the longest of Nicaragua's patronal festivals. Beginning the 30th of September, festival activities continue every Sunday to the beginning of December. Two major traditional events are the Torovenados, carnival-like processions in which masked participants mock local and national personalities, and the Bailes de la Marimba. The most elaborate of the Masaya marimba dances is Las Negras, an all-male masked dance in which half the men masquerade as women. In Miami, natives of Masaya have recently begun honoring San Jeronimo with a one-day celebration at the end of September. After an outdoor mass and short procession at the festival site, marimbero Alonso Montalvan provides the music for participants, who are invited to dance on a raised stage, either in costume or in their street clothes. Additionally, a group of friends, organized by Alma Vega and Chester Carrion, have formed a dance troupe that performs Las Negras, La Mama Ramona (a humorous marimba dance), as well as the more standard Baile de la Marimba. The other great Masaya festival tradition, the Torovenado, has not taken root in Miami, perhaps because emigrees are embarrassed by this boisterous, somewhat bawdy display.

La Purisima and La Griteria

Of all the patronal festivals, that of the Virgen de la Asuncion, patroness of Nicaragua, is the most widely and most traditionally celebrated here in Miami. Purisimas are private parties, to which guests are invited to recite the rosary and sing villancicos to the virgin. They are then thanked for their participation by being given traditional foods and presents: el paquete. Most are held in the early evening on the host's lawn during purisima season, which lasts from 26th of November, the first day of the novenario of the virgin, through January. The public Griteria is held on the final day of the novenario. In Miami the Purisimas are usually hosted weekend nights, and the Griteria falls on the Sunday closest to December 7th.

On this night, altars are set up outside homes, churches and stores throughout Little Havana and Sweetwater. People, especially children, roam from one to the other singing snatches of villancicos, "shouting" the traditional phrase: "Quien causa tanta alegria? La concepcion de Maria!," and receiving their "paquete" in return. (For a description of these festival events in Nicaragua, see Edgardo Buitrago, 1959.)

Dona Elvia Vega, an ardent celebrator of the Griteria, claims she hosted the first family-sponsored Griteria in Miami in 1982. After being disappointed that friends, busy with work, didn't attend her Purisima, she decided to move her altar onto the street and reward passersby who would sing. From that time on, more and more of her neighbors on 103rd Avenue began setting up altars, until this street became a major focus of Griteria activity.

Another cluster of Griterias are held in the residential neighborhood around 95th Place. One hostess, Gloria Ortiz, emphasized that she held a party every year por promesa after the virgen helped cure her son of a serious illness. Dona Socorro Castro de Sevilla, on the other hand, who hosts a yearly Griteria in Little Havana, said she does so because she enjoys the custom. Centro Comercial Managua and the Holiday and Laguna Plazas in Sweetwater provide a concentration of Griterias, as shop and restaurant owners host their own festivities. Moreover, San Juan Bosco Church and the Church of the Divina Providencia erect large platforms on their grounds with altars for an outside mass and group singing. At some of these locations the crowds of carolers number in the hundreds. Listings of at least some of the addresses for Griteria altars are published in both La Estrella de Nicaragua and La Prensa Centroamericana newspapers.

Griteria altars in Miami are relatively simple compared to those erected in Nicaragua. For instance, Chony Gutierrez remembers designing a model of an active volcano for one particularly elaborate altar in Managua. Churches in Nicaragua often contract professional altar decorators to paint telones or backdrops with scenes of Jerusalem or Nicaragua. In Miami, private home altars often display the virgin surrounded by potted plants and flowers or cleverly nestled in an existing tree or shrub on the host family's lawn. Christmas lights and balloons provide additional decorative elements.

Storefront and church altars are somewhat more elaborate. For instance, in 1991 Fritanga Monimbo on North 12th Avenue displayed the virgin in a skyscape of blue and white tissue paper. Rincon Nica and Nicaraguan Grocery in Little Havana contracted Douglas Barrios, a specialist in altars and religious floats, to construct altars in which the virgin stood on a tin foil-wrapped crescent moon among painted styrofoam clouds.

Fine artists have also been inspired by the purisima theme. In 1991, Donald Estrada, a noted primitivist painter, depicted the virgin against the Miami skyline with a logo thanking the United States for its hospitality to Nicaraguans. Like much of his other work, this painting reflects a unique blending of the traditional and the new that strikes a chord with the Nicaraguan community in Miami. (For an illustration of this work, see La Prensa Centroamericana, 11/29/91, p. 7.) Petronio Caldera, a painter and world renowned caricaturist, painted the virgin surrounded by angels, each of whom wears the face of one of Caldera's nine grandchildren. This very personal work was intended for his daughter's purisima party.

Atlantic Coast Festivals

Unlike the Mestizo Pacific Coast Catholics, Creole Moravians celebrate most of their religious holidays within the church. A special mass and beautiful Moravian hymn singing are the standard festive practices. At Christmas, for instance, a candlelit mass is held. At Advent, many Moravians still make or purchase a many-pointed paper Moravian star to hang over their porch lights. The old Watch Night custom, in which church members gather and sing hymns together all night to herald in the new year, is also still observed. Yet other social events related to new years-a dory race and games of kitlaly, or outdoor bowling-are impracticable in Miami. As will be described later, Harvest, the Moravian version of Thanksgiving, is perhaps the most distinctive and beautiful of all Moravian church celebrations.

One non-Moravian festival of the larger Atlantic coast towns, May Pole, represents a local Creole version of the English May Day rites. Discouraged by Moravian missionaries because of the erotic dancing and heavy drinking associated with them, May Pole parties were avoided by Moravian Creoles. Nevertheless, Maggie Harrison fondly remembers slipping out secretly to watch the dancers as a child. She describes make-shift bands of banjo, guitar, and home-made drums accompanying dancers who executed a subtle dipping step similar to a limbo.

Miss Maggie complains that with the popularization of May Pole music and dancing throughout Nicaragua in the late 1970s the dance has become exaggeratedly eroticized and has strayed from its original local form. In Miami, Creoles still tend to have parties during May, and they may even play records and dance May Pole, but the event as festival is not ennacted.

Moravian Miskitos celebrate the same traditional church festivals as the Moravian Creoles, but they hold their services in Miskito, and sing the old Moravian hymns in translation. Their church band includes some traditional Miskito instruments like the grater, shake shake, and a homemade bass, constructed of a piece of string, a broom handle and an overturned wash pan. George Dixon and Mary Bushy, who organize both the choir and band, also sponsor a youth fellowship, which presents a nativity play for Christmas.

Ironically, while the Moravian church provides an important outlet for artistic expression, it has worked to obliterate other forms of native artistry. Mary Bushy speaks of the sukias, old women who acted as midwives, shamans and storytellers in the more remote villages. Their kisi, or animal tales, are no longer a part of living Miskito folklife, and Mary cannot tell these stories herself. Yet she collected and wrote down some of these stories while she was working for the Ministry of Culture in the early 1980s. Thus, adult Miskitos, while devoutly religious, remain interested in exploring and preserving lore from a more remote past.

Foodways

One need not look far to find the influence of Nicaraguan foodways on Miami. Along the streets of Little Havana and in the Sweetwater shopping malls Nicaraguan food establishments abound. Most characteristic, the fritanga, is a good place to start sampling this satisfying fare. The word refers to streetside, open-air grills that serve inexpensive meals to hungry passersby. In Miami, fritangas have moved indoors, and refer to both take-out and sit-down cafeterias. Fritanga Monimbo, with three locations, is popular among working people and families. The Cuban-owned Yambo Restaurant is a fritanga that doubles as a nightclub. But perhaps the most interesting place to visit is La Fritanga in the Centro Comercial Managua shopping center.

Owner Emelina Tellez opened this Nica version of a fast food stand because of her own nostalgic longing for things Nica. The walls of her shop are lined with old photos of Managua before the earthquake. Two carved coconuts, humorously labeled Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, dangle from the ceiling. While there are no tables, her shop forms a natural gathering place for the local community. Dona Emelina's quesillo, soft white cheese wrapped in a corn tortilla and topped with Nicaraguan sour cream and pickled onions, is an excellent alternative to a sandwich.

While staple items like fried plantains and green bananas, broiled chicken, beef and pork, and fried cheese are prepared on location at fritangas, the specialty meat dishes-chorizo, moronga, and nacatamales-cheeses, tortillas, and baked goods are prepared by cooks working in their homes or in cottage food industries. The nacatamale, a combination of cornmeal, pork, rice, potato, onion, tomato and green pepper packed in a banana leaf and boiled or steamed, is considered Nicaragua's national folk food. While cottage industries have sprung up throughout Miami specializing in this product, Nicaraguan housewives also run smaller nacatamale businesses out of their homes, just as they did in their native towns.

Other kinds of Nicaraguan tamales (the word refers to any cornmeal based food wrapped and steamed in banana leaves) include tamal pisque (made with lime), tamal relleno (filled with brown sugar and aged white cheese), and yoltamal (made with fresh instead of dried corn and packed in the original corn husk). One adaptation that Miami Nicaraguans have made in cooking these tamales is to substitute aluminum foil for expensive banana leaves. Most cooks also use packaged cornmeal, rather than grinding the dried corn themselves.

One interesting foodways development in Miami is the ubiquity of vigoron at any activity identified as Nicaraguan. This snack food consists of fried pork rinds arranged on a bed of boiled cassava and topped with cabbage and tomato salad. In Nicaragua vigoron is often eaten for breakfast on weekends, but the meal is not considered culturally emblematic. Nicaraguans in Miami explain, however, that the ease and rapidity of preparing vigoron, especially since the fried pork rinds are available in packaged form, makes it more compatible with their faster-paced Miami life-style. Thus, this snack has been declared "a little taste from home."

Traditional sweets like homemade cahetas de coco, coconut bars, cosas del horno, cornmeal-based pastries and sweet breads, sopa borracha, a sponge cake soaked in a rum syrup, and tres leches, a custard cake made with three kinds of milk, are also frequently displayed in groceries and fritangas. Some sweets are especially related to particular holidays. During Easter season bunuelos, fried dough made of cassava, white cheese and egg, topped with hot sugar syrup are traditional. Almivar, grated candied fruit, is a Christmas delicacy. Purisima specialties include the gofio or alfajor (a crumbly bar made of ground corn, ginger and sugar), ayote en miel (autumn squash cooked in honey), and espumillas (meringues).

Pacific coast Nicaraguans also have a strong tradition of consuming grain-based drinks. Cereales y Cafe El Vencedor, a small cottage industry owned and operated by Ramiro and Helen Alvarez, specializes in beverage mixes. One room houses several small electrically powered mills, sacks of corn, cocoa beans, barley, oats, jicaro (gourd) seed, and the cartons that Don Ramiro and Dona Helen hand pack themselves. The popularity of Pinol, a hearty beverage made from toasted corn, as an early morning pick-me-up has earned Nicaraguans the nickname, "Pinoleros."

Nicaraguan tortillas, larger and thicker than their machine-made Mexican cousins, are also available in Miami. Ninosca, a family operation run by Perla Marina Castro in Little Havana occupies what looks like a converted garage. Walk by any day and you can see young women standing around a large table, hand-palming tortillas that are baked on a huge griddle.

Small, inexpensive, homestyle restaurants serving Nicaraguan food also abound. Two excellent examples are El Masayita in Little Havana and El Taquito in Sweetwater. Try the baho at Masayita, a weekend specialty dish of seasoned pork steamed with vegetables, cassava, plantain, green bananas and Nicaraguan potatoes, and topped with fresh cabbage and tomato salad.

Nicaraguan high cuisine is also plentiful in Miami. Perhaps the most famous elegant dining spot, Los Ranchos, is one of the most successful Nicaraguan businesses in the United States. Other restaurants include The Galloping Lobster and La Parilla, both in Sweetwater. All these restaurants offer a mixture of Nicaraguan and continental cuisine. Nicaraguan specialties include churrasco, a perfectly grilled steak or pork cut served on a wooden block with a special dipping paste made of ground herbs. Puntitas a la Jalapena (strips of sirloin topped with a creamy sauce laced with hot peppers) is another more spicy selection.

While sharing many Pacific coast foodways, Creole and Miskito Nicaraguans also preserve many distinctively Atlantic coast dishes. Perhaps the most emblematic of these are run down (pronounced "ron don") and rice and beans. Similar to baho, run down is a one-pot meal in which seasoned fish or meat is boiled atop a bed of local vegetables and tubers. As it slowly cooks, the flavor of the meat is said to "run down" into the vegetables, thus giving this dish its name. What makes run down distinctively rich is that coconut milk is added to the water halfway through the cooking. Similarly, rice and beans are boiled together in coconut milk to make a delicious variation of Pacific coast gallopinto.

Coconut milk constitutes the secret ingredient in many Atlantic coast breads, tarts and biscuits as well. The milk is extracted by grating and squeezing ripe coconut meat, either by hand or with an electric food processor. Atlantic coast cooks are emphatic about the medicinal qualities of this favorite ingredient, claiming that coconut milk acts as a purgative for parasites and generally eases digestion.

Among the Creole population traditional drinks include sorrel wine and ginger beer, a peppery beverage made of mashed ginger root boiled in water, then cooled and sweetened with sugar. Perhaps the most distinctly indigenous Miskito specialty, wabul, is a drink made of pounded breadfruit or other tubers, mixed with coconut or cow's milk.

In contrast to the Atlantic coast communities, Pacific coast peoples have not established their own food businesses in Miami. However, informal food sharing and selling does take place within the communities. Rosa Lau, a Miskito Indian living in Miami Beach, explained that when someone in her apartment complex had time to make a traditional dish, they often made enough to sell or give to their enthusiastic neighbors.

One place where the outsider can sample native Atlantic coast cuisine is at the November Harvest festivals of the Prince of Peace and New Hope Moravian Churches. At these thanksgiving services, church members place home-grown and store bought fruits and produce, home-canned pickled vegetables, baked goods, plants and flowers around the altar in an elaborate display of ethnic food traditions. Palm fronds and sugar cane decorate the church walls, and after a service embellished with beautiful Moravian Harvest hymns, the offerings are sold off, and churchwomen dish out Nicaraguan, Creole, Jamaican and American hot foods.

The culinary contribution of Nicaraguans to Miami is rich indeed. Representing the most pervasive and forceful retention of native country traditions within the community, Nicaraguan foodways are also slowly becoming popular among outsiders. In fact, a recent Washington Post article announced that Nicaraguan delicacies appear to be Miami's next dining craze (Feb. 6, 1991. "The Latest in Latin-Miami's Explosion of Nicaraguan Cuisine.").

Material Culture

Although Nicaragua, and especially Masaya, boasts a rich tradition of crafts and festival arts, and though many emigrees formerly practiced one or more of these arts, the handcrafts industry remains undeveloped in Miami. Most craftsmen arrived with few financial resources, often without their tools or work companions. As a result, most seem to have found factory or service jobs and are making the difficult adjustment to a more demanding schedule that allows little time for leisure.

Many Nica groceries and fritangas, however, import artisanry directly from Nicaragua through informal trade networks. The best quality items can be found at the Mercadita Nicaraguense and La Fritanga in the Centro Comercial Managua at 104th and Flagler, and at El Pinolero at 16th and Flagler. Here one finds children's machine embroidered clothing, embroidered cotton shirts and "maxi" dresses, wooden bowls, spoons and decorative dishes, small baskets, carved jicaros (gourds), leather and reptile skin belts and wallets, and small oil paintings. Moreover, two Nicaraguan-owned furniture shops imported sillas abuelitas, a fancier version of the Cuban rocking chair with a decoratively carved backboard and lathed dowels. Merchants remark that it is cheaper to buy in Nicaragua than to produce in Miami.

Nicaraguan goldsmithing is another trade that has suffered from the transition to a new setting. Several goldsmiths reside in Miami, but the old, hand-crafted colonial jewelry famous on the Pacific coast and the delicate gold filigree work from the Atlantic coast are not being produced. Independent goldsmith Enrique Robleto and jeweler Jose Miguel Chow explain that these arts demand a high degree of hand-crafting and are thus more expensive and less marketable than the machine-caste gold jewelry available in most Miami shops.

Likewise, among Creole and Miskito populations, traditional fishing crafts, and mahogany and rosewood carving and furniture making have proved impracticable. For instance, on the Atlantic Coast the dory or dugout canoe remains the major means of transportation. Thus, any adult male who grew up there knows how to build a dory. He simply goes to the forest, chooses a suitable tree, and starts chopping. As retired Miskito-Creole carpenter Sydney Willis queried, "Where would you get the tree trunk around Miami without getting arrested?" Nevertheless, a fine example of this native boat making is on permanent display at The Galloping Lobster Restaurant in Sweetwater.

One set of crafts that has continued to thrive in the new environment, however, is Moravian Creole women's textile arts. Hardangar, a form of embroidery originally from Norway, is perhaps the most distinctive of these arts, and many Miami Nica Creoles still make elaborate hardanger altar cloths, table runners and doilies. Lillith Robinson, an accomplished embroiderer, learned the technique as a schoolgirl from her home economics teacher, but said that her mother and grandmother also embroidered in hardangar.

The embroidery involves delicacy and precision, but Miss Lillith insists that the actual technique involved is very simple. Initially, one makes the border of a design, counting fabric threads carefully to insure geometric accuracy. Once the solid work is finished, one cuts and removes some of the threads inside the pattern. Finally the remaining threads are woven together in new open patterns with a finer strand of embroidery thread.

Tatting is another textile art practiced by many Moravian Creole women. Using a crochet hook and a shuttle, one knots fine threads into lacy patterns at lightning speed. Joyce Bradford, an adept tatter, says Bluefieldians used to make tatted collars for dresses when these were popular, as well as doilies and decorative pieces. In Miami, Joyce has creatively experimented with the form, tatting snowflakes to use as Christmas tree ornaments. She has even decorated stationary with delicate tatted flowers made of regular sewing thread.

Fine, lacy crochet and cross-stitch embriodery are other textile arts brought to a high degree of refinement by Creole Moravian women. Perhaps one reason for the survival of these textile arts is that, unlike other Nicaraguan crafts, none seems to have been practiced as a means of earning money. While they represent European and North American traditions brought to the Atlantic coast by missionaries' wives, they have, over the years, become intimately associated with Bluefields women, forming a major part of their education and allowing for artistic expression and social interchange.

One versatile Nicaraguan folk artist, Chony Gutierrez, preserves a number of festival-related arts in Miami. Years of investigation and practice of her country's material culture have earned her an envious reputation within the Pacific coast community. She began her career in manualidades as a small girl, when an extended illness forced her to find ways to amuse herself. Her mother, who was a seamstress,later taught her to sew. As an adult, Dona Chony studied regional folk dance costumes of Nicaragua, and she even directed one of the first Ballets Folkloricos while working for the Ministry of Tourism. Dona Chony continues to make dance costumes, decorations for weddings, baptisms and communions, and paper purisima decorations on consignment. Congolomas, hanging paper chains, banderillas, little tissue paper or origami flags with cut-out patterns that are stuck into sweet lemons, apples or oranges for "paquetes," and tiny paper baskets and animal figures used to hold purisima sweets are just of a few examples of her delicate work.

Dona Chony is also an accomplished piñata maker. She explains that Nicaraguan piñatas differ from the Mexican variety because their skeleton is of cardboard or pottery rather than wire. Her tiny home on the edge of Little Havana is always crowded with projects and visitors who stop by for a cup of coffee and a chat or just to see what new creations Dony Chony is fashioning.

Folklife in the Miami Community

Despite dramatic changes in their work practices and general way of life, Nicaraguans in Miami have sought to retain those aspects of their cultural uniqueness that are most symbolically resonant. For Pacific coast peoples patronal festivals offer an opportunity to gather together and celebrate not only their religious devotion but also their sense of identity in their new, more ethnically diverse environment. For Atlantic coast peoples the Moravian church provides a center for religious, social, and artistic expression.

Fritangas, restaurants and groceries offer the much needed antidote to nostalgia for those who find it increasingly difficult to consider a permanent return to their native land. They also represent a burgeoning field of business opportunity both for the proprietors and for the home cooks who supply specialty items.

While taste in clothing, jewelry and furniture has shifted to American style, factory-made items, imported folk crafts have taken on symbolic significance as they become reminders of the home country rather than everyday items. A visitor to almost any Nicaraguan home will discover at least one silla abuelita, a decorative ceramic bowl or painted scene of the Nicaraguan countryside gracing the living room. With characteristic friendliness, Mestizo, Creole and Miskito Nicaraguans are eager to share their culture with those who show interest in things Nicaraguan. The contributions that this new community has made and will continue to make to the city are rich indeed.

References

Buitrago, Edgardo, 1959. Las Purisimas: su forma y sus origenes. Leon: Ediciones de Cuadernos Universitarios.

Cortazar, Julio, 1989. Nicaraguan Sketches. Trans. Kathleen Weaver. New York: W. W. Norton and Co.

Cuadra, Pablo Antonio y Francisco Perez Estrada, 1978. Muestrario del Folklore Nicaraguense. Managua: Fondo de Promocion Cultural Banco de America.

Cuadra, Pablo Antonio, 1976. El Nicaraguense. 7th ed. San Jose: Editorial Universitaria Centroamericana.

Helms, Mary, 1971. Asang: Adaptations to Culture Contact in a Miskito Community. Gainesville: University of Florida Press.

Jenkins Molieri, Jorge, 1986. El desafio indigena en Nicaragua: el caso de los Miskitos. Managua: Vanguardia.

Mejia Sanchez, Ernesto. 1946. Romances y Corridos Nicaraguenses. Mexico: Imprenta Universitario.

Pena Hernandez, Enrique, 1986. Folklore de Nicaragua. 2nd ed. Guatemala City: Editorial San Piedra Santa.

Perez Estrada, Francisco, 1971. Estudios del Folklore Nicaraguense. Nicaragua: n.p.

Sambola, A., 1984. Trabil Nani: Antecedentes historicos y situacion actual en la Costa Atlantica. Managua: CIDCA.

Serrano Gutierrez, Leopoldo, 1960. Folklore Nicaraguense: Cronica folklorica de las festividades de San Sebastian de Diriamba. Diriamba: Paco Aleman e hijos.

Sommers, Laurie Kay, 1991. Nicaraguan Traditions. Final report submitted to the Historical Museum of Miami, Folklife Archives.

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By Katherine Borland. Published in 1993. The Nicaraguan community in Miami is comprised of three distinct culture groups: the Creole peoples of the southern Atlantic coast, the Miskito population of the Rio Coco and Puerto Cabezas area, and the Mestizos of the Pacific Coast. These communities do not have much contact across cultural lines.