{"id":2518,"date":"2026-07-01T17:01:52","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T17:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/floridamovingchronicle.com\/?p=2518"},"modified":"2026-07-01T17:01:52","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T17:01:52","slug":"can-miami-embrace-a-july-4-milestone-like-this-family-did-a-lot-has-changed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/floridamovingchronicle.com\/?p=2518","title":{"rendered":"Can Miami embrace a July 4 milestone like this family did? \u2018A lot has changed\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n

Natacha Purvis was born in Miami during the nation\u2019s bicentennial. Her arrival 50 years ago wasn\u2019t the only big event for her family.<\/p>\n

Read more A fight over a parking spot at a Broward Walmart left a man dead, BSO says<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Just 12 hours before, her parents, Haitian-born Gerald and Mireille Delisfort, were naturalized in a July 4, 1976, ceremony alongside 7,200 other new citizens at the Miami Beach Convention Center. It was the second-biggest citizenship ceremony in history in a single venue that day, just behind New York\u2019s Polo Grounds, where people took the oath as tall ships paraded in the harbor on America\u2019s 200th birthday.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot has changed since way back then, for sure,\u201d said Purvis, born Natacha Delisfort at 3 a.m. July 5 at Mount Sinai Hospital in Miami Beach 50 years ago.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a few days before her birthday and the United States\u2019 250th birthday. The semiquincentennial has started to gain traction in South Florida. From Publix to PetCo, we\u2019re seeing store displays hawking merch with \u201cAmerica 250\u201d logos.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

There are America 250-themed festivities planned for Miami, too, including an ongoing exhibit of the nation\u2019s founding documents, on loan from D.C. And something you wouldn\u2019t have seen during the bicentennial, the year Purvis was born \u2014 drone shows.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Miami\u2019s 1976 bicentennial<\/h2>\n

<\/p>\n

In a front-page newspaper story in July 1976, Natacha was welcomed as Miami-Dade County\u2019s first baby of the country\u2019s third century, the Miami Herald reported.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The country, flush with bicentennial fever, featured televised \u201cBicentennial Minutes\u201d with celebrity hosts. They ran nightly for more than two years, starting July 4, 1974, to generate excitement for the nation\u2019s 200th birthday.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

President Gerald Ford officiated over a Miami naturalization service at the Dade County Auditorium for more than 1,100 new citizens on Feb. 28, 1976. And months ahead of July\u2019s bicentennial, Miami officials painted fire hydrants red, white and blue across the county. Ida Fisher Junior High in Miami Beach held a mock Ford-Carter presidential election with a ballot box in its recess courtyard to teach its students civics lessons. The South Beach school\u2019s 1975-\u201876 yearbook was a patriotic red, white and blue and illustrations of the Statue of Liberty, the Liberty Bell and the American Eagle.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

And a major new park was to open on Independence Day south of the MacArthur Causeway and sandwiched between Biscayne Bay and Biscayne Boulevard in downtown Miami. Its name: Bicentennial Park.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That didn\u2019t quite<\/i> happen as planned. The $4.2 million Bicentennial Park managed to gather a 350-member interdenominational chorus on Independence Day 1976 to sing \u201cOne Nation Under God\u201d before a gathering of elected officials to celebrate 200 years of freedom in America, but it was only two-thirds finished and didn\u2019t officially open until the spring of 1977.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Bicentennial Park quickly fell into disrepair through the tumultuous 1980s. In 2014, the park was renovated and renamed Museum Park.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In 1976, Miami Marine Stadium\u2019s bicentennial fireworks show drew a causeway-jamming capacity crowd of 15,000 while a downtown Miami parade attracted about 5,000 people. Today, the graffiti-stained marine stadium is shuttered from Hurricane Andrew in 1992.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But the downtown Miami\u2019s skyline has erupted with the rise of multimillion dollar condo towers that we couldn\u2019t have been imagined on Biscayne Boulevard 50 years ago. Still, America\u2019s 250th birthday this year hasn\u2019t quite matched the hoopla of that bicentennial year.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sure, there\u2019s World Cup mania in Miami. Seminquincentennial hoopla? Not so much.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Of course, \u201csemiquincentennial\u201d doesn\u2019t roll off the tongue as euphoniously as \u201cbicentennial.\u201d Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, officiating over the placement of a time capsule and the unveiling of a monument to celebrate America 250 at Tropical Park on Tuesday, as the holiday neared, joked at the start of her presentation that she\u2019s been \u201cpracticing\u201d saying the seven syllable mouthful.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

America 250<\/h2>\n

<\/p>\n

Still, there are some other key only-in-Miami events pegged to the semiquincentennial, beyond the annual Fourth of July fireworks displays in places including Bayfront Park in downtown Miami, Miami Beach, Tropical Park, Coral Gables\u2019 Biltmore Hotel, Hialeah\u2019s Milander Park and Fort Lauderdale Beach off Las Olas.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Ready to party for July 4? Get a rundown of events in Miami-Dade and Broward<\/b><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The National Archives sent nine founding-era documents on tour and on June 20 the \u201cFreedom Plane National Tour: Documents That Forged a Nation\u201d landed at The Museum of Miami. The exhibit, on display through July 5, includes an engraving of the Declaration of Independence, the 1783 Treaty of Paris, a draft of the Constitution, and Oaths of Allegiance by George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. Many of the exhibits haven\u2019t left the nation\u2019s capital in decades.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Levine Cava hopes that the Tropical Park time capsule and America 250 monument get tricentennial Miami residents excited in 2076.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to all the Miami-Dade 250 events, but perhaps the time capsule event is the one I\u2019m most excited about,\u201d the mayor said. \u201cThinking ahead 50 years of what will be meaningful to the leaders and citizens of my beloved Miami-Dade County to mark this particular moment in our shared history has been a lot of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Miami\u2019s bicentennial baby<\/h2>\n

<\/p>\n

Fifty years ago, the growing Delisfort family, which included toddlers Gerald, 3, and Muriel, 2, were among the millions nationwide swept up in the Spirit of \u201876. So much so, the couple, who bought a three-bedroom home in Miami after leaving Port-au-Prince in 1969, opted for citizenship in the bicentennial year.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A decade later, the family, which grew to include son Michael and, later, cousin Woosler Delisfort, an award-winning photographer and documentary filmmaker, was featured in a Miami Herald story that celebrated the 10-year anniversary of the bicentennial on July 4, 1986.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Natacha, about to begin fifth grade at St. Mary\u2019s School and already into math, watched the Fourth of July fireworks over Miami Beach. She eagerly awaited her birthday cake, \u201cas long as it\u2019s not pineapple.\u201d And the 85-pound, nearly five-foot-tall, hours-shy of 10-years-old girl proclaimed to a reporter, \u201cI\u2019ll probably be a doctor. I want to help people.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The now-49-year-old chuckles as she looks back.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cSo a lot of life has happened. I left Miami. I ultimately love it here in Tampa, and I met my husband here and had two kids, so I did not go continue along the lines of being a doctor, but I still love helping people.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

After attending the University of South Florida and graduating with a bachelor\u2019s from Strayer University in Miramar, Natacha Purvis is settled in the Spring Hill neighborhood of Tampa with her husband of 27 years, Cory, and their grown children Aryana and Izaiah. There, her grade school love for numbers and desire to help people was nurtured.<\/p>\n

Read more Coral Gables to get a new park as UM seeks to expand under new deal. What we know<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cI still have an opportunity to help people, and I\u2019ve been in human resources now for, let\u2019s see, 21 years,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been my desire to always try to help people in any capacity that I can. When my son was in high school, I helped while he was in his marching band. I volunteered even after he graduated high school, because I enjoyed doing it so much. And giving back to the community is just so important to those that need help. And being part of my church is something else that I enjoy doing,\u201d Purvis said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The couples\u2019 daughter recently graduated from USF. Their son is going to USF.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cMy children are kind of continuing along in my footsteps,\u201d Purvis said. \u201cMy daughter shares my passion for numbers and so she\u2019s going to be an accountant. And my son, he\u2019s still in the marching band at USF and he\u2019s still trying to figure out what he wants to be, but he\u2019s trucking along.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

And so, too, America is trucking along, from bicentennial to semiquincentennial, Purvis, the daughter of immigrants, believes.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like our country is evolving to where we\u2019re showing a lot more pride and sense of appreciation for the country, at least for me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cI truly appreciate everything that our country has gone through, and I am just exceptionally blessed to have had my parents come in and make a living, a career here, and to raise four children, and just instilled the importance of making sure that we not only look out for each other, but we look out for others too,\u201d Purvis said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cMy husband\u2019s the same way, we\u2019re like-minded, where we instill that to our children, to make sure that we\u2019re not only taking care of each other but taking care of others that are less fortunate than us and continue to try to volunteer and help in any capacity that we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This, despite a palatable wave of nationwide \u201cfrustration\u201d and \u201cdismay,\u201d and a sense of procrastination that didn\u2019t seem as such in post-Vietnam, post-Watergate 1976 Miami. It\u2019s enough so that Miami Herald Editorial Board member Mary Anna Mancuso wrote a column in June urging readers to get on board and get excited about the semiquincentennial. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to be satisfied with where America is to celebrate what America is,\u201d Mancuso wrote.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Purvis credits her parents \u2014 Mireille, who still lives in South Florida, and her father, who died several years ago \u2013 with keeping the spirit of that bicentennial baby and hopeful 10-year-old girl watching fireworks on Miami Beach alive.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cI love that my parents were just such good role models that they were able to help teach that to me and to where I can pass that on to the next generation. I feel like we, as a country, as we\u2019re getting older, we\u2019re learning from our mistakes. We\u2019re trying to do better, and we\u2019re trying to get to a place where we can all hold hand in hand. And though we all have different opinions, we can still get past that and be amicable and appreciate each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Revived local interest<\/h2>\n

<\/p>\n

Miami historian Paul George feels a similar sense of anticipation that we felt during the Spirit of \u201876.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cLike today, as July 4, 1976, neared, things really heated up,\u201d he said. \u201cMiami was selected as one of the country\u2019s three bicentennial cities. We painted fire plugs red, white and blue. We worked on a [Miami River] walk as a bicentennial City of Miami project \u2014 it was not completed till the mid-\u201880s. We welcomed the mobile bicentennial exhibit from the State of Florida. And we dedicated our new Bicentennial Park on the Fourth with plenty of politicians in attendance. We welcomed more than 7,000 mainly Cuban refugees as newly sworn in citizens that day.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it will heat more,\u201d George said. \u201cWe\u2019re confused a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A simultaneous World Cup may even help, Levine Cava said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cI think hosting the World Cup will help amplify the message about our treasured American ideals of freedom and democracy for all. People from all over the world are learning about American history at the same time as they learn about our culture,\u201d the mayor said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was such an exciting time in America. I remember the joy and patriotic spirit. It was the year I was learning all about democracy up close and personal,\u201d Levins Cava said about the bicentennial year. \u201cI was Student Council president in my first elected role at Yale University. I was learning to build consensus and taking positions on issues on both campus and the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

America 250 Host Committee members Rodney Barreto and former Coral Gables Mayor Don Slesnick also have opinions on bicentennial vs. semiquincentennial Miami.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThe World Cup is definitely a major event and, perhaps, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Miami I wouldn\u2019t say that much of the planning for the country\u2019s 250th birthday has been overshadowed by the World Cup; rather, the world is very different from what it was 50 years ago, Barreto, co-chair of the FIFA Miami World Host Committee said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cMiami is now a well-developed international city that is home to hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world. That simply wasn\u2019t the case 50 years ago. And politics may play a role to some extent. More than that, though, I think the fact that we have so many residents from other parts of the world \u2014 and simply so many more people than we did 50 years ago \u2014 makes things feel a bit more diluted. And sure, 200 may seem snazzier than 250, just as a 20th or 30th wedding anniversary often gets more attention than a 25th. That said, I expect people to enjoy themselves more than usual this Fourth of July,\u201d Barreto said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Slesnick, and his late-wife Jeannett, welcomed son Don Slesnick III in the Miami of 1976. Other favorite celebratory Miami memories, he said, include tall ship gatherings in Miami in anticipation of the millennium in 2000 and now for this 250th birthday.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd on each of those occasions the community put aside its differences for at least a while and came together to celebrate the good things in life,\u201d Slesnick said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Changing tastes<\/h2>\n

<\/p>\n

On July 4, 1976, Miami buried hermetically sealed time capsules that reportedly contained the city\u2019s $15 million budget and a 6-year-old\u2019s sugar cookie. On June 29, 2026, Miami-Dade buried a FIFA 2026 stole, an FIU Panthers mascot and memorabilia from historian Dorothy Jenkins Fields honoring her legacy in preserving Black history and culture including photos of the Historic Lyric Theater.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

And we have no idea if that youngster\u2019s 1976 sugar cookie endured its entombment, but at least one Miami bicentennial girl has had a major taste evolution.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Natacha Purvis enjoys pineapples in 2026.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cActually, yes!\u201d she says. \u201cMy favorite cake is the hummingbird cake. One of the main ingredients is pineapple. I also like pineapple in general.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Miami billionaire wants to add a private helipad to Miami Beach megayacht marina<\/a><\/p>\n

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