The Cigar City

 

 Although Latinos in Ybor were working-class and union-conscious, their dedication to interracial coalitions and civil rights was nominal at best. When the city’s black women and men began to move into the neighborhood, La Gaceta started a campaign to raise awareness about plans for removal:

Gentlemen: The undersigned citizens, residents, and taxpayers of that portion of the city, which bounds on 14th Street between 9th Avenue and Columbus Drive do most sincerely petition your honorable body that some act or Resolution be adopted eliminating Negros living in this boundary. We respectfully solicit the aid of the authorities to stop the intermingling of Negros with the white population avoiding thus that our children, wives and immediate families be embarrassed with such a condition.329

This petition was sent to the board of city representatives and published by the Anglo press in the Tampa Morning Tribune. Both white Latinas and Latinos signed the petition in support of segregation within the Ybor City community, and they insisted on making this request publicly known…One of the most significant aspects of the letter is its use of racialized language by immigrant Latinos. This was the first time Ybor City residents described themselves as “white” in print. 

 

Mc Namara, Sarah. From Picket Lines to Picket Fences: Latinas and the Remaking of the Jim Crow South, 1930-1964. 2016.