When the mayor of Miami learned that the German Consulate General in Miami wanted to gift a piece of the Berlin Wall to the city, he knew where it ought to go — right in a central plaza at Miami Dade College’s Wolfson Campus in Downtown Miami. Consulting with Miami Dade President Dr. Eduardo Padrón he found immediate and enthusiastic support for the proposal.
“It was given to me as the mayor of the city, and I said to Eduardo that I thought that the best place for this piece of the Wall should be at Miami Dade College, because the students will be able to remember history,” Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado says.
“It’s a constant reminder of freedom, and freedom of speech and the fight for human rights.” The German consulate gave the segment of the Berlin Wall as a commemoration of 25 years of liberation after the Wall fell and as a gesture of gratitude toward the United States for its support in the two subsequent decades of reunification between East and West Germany.
For Mayor Regalado, however, the Wall is emblematic of so much more.
“Miami is called the Magic City, the Gateway to the Americas, but the unofficial name of Miami has been and is the Capital of the Exiles, because you have the waves of Cubans, and then Central Americans, and now you have Venezuelans, so these are the people that create a city that is the most diverse city in the U.S.,” Regalado says. “Miami Dade is a mirror of the city. The student body, the students that attend Miami Dade College, are a mirror of our society.”
In Regalado’s view, Miami is a gateway for immigrants fleeing oppression and blighted prospects in their home countries. Just as the fall of the Berlin Wall opened up the wider world to East Germans, so Miami represents the hope of the freedom to pursue a destiny of one’s choosing. Central to this vision is the community college, Miami Dade, and the visionary leader at its helm, Padrón.
The fall of the Berlin Wall also represented the transformation of the former society and the brightening of prospects for its citizens. Angela Merkel, for example, was a research scientist in East Germany before the Wall fell. Now she is the chancellor of Germany.
