In most parts of the United States, even those voters who could be numbered among Ronald Reagan's most enthusiastic supporters removed the 'Reagan-Bush '84' bumper-stickers from their cars fairly soon after the 1984 Election was safely in the bag. No one thought the things were supposed to adorn the family automobile in perpetuity in the way that Saint Christopher medals adorned the dashboards of Catholic drivers all over America in the simpler days before Vatican II. Things are different in Miami, though. There, almost three years after the Reagan victory, a significant number of cars in the Cuban-American sections of Dade County (and to refer to 'Cuban' Miami is, in 1987, all but redundant - the city proper is well over 70 per cent Cuban, while the rest of the county teeters around the 50 per cent mark) seem to sport at least one of these iconic references.

LRB 5 February 1987 | PDF Download