Miami Garage Sales: A Post-Modern Playground
of Cross-Culturalism, Gaspar González, Miami New
Times
Gaspar González of the Miami New Times posits an
interesting theory about Miami garage sales. In an age when many
college campuses and liberal workplaces make strident claims of
diversity, it is fascinating to see diversity naturally achieved
when people flock together to dig through a seller’s trash. At one
sale González recently attended, he witnessed ‘an eclectic
assortment of people: young and middle-age white couples, a group
of Haitian women speaking Kreyol, an elderly Hispanic woman, a
biracial lesbian couple, a black mother with her five-year-old
son.’ But the garage sale experience goes much deeper than a
Benetton advertisement. ‘The result, says González, ‘is that garage
sales often function as a kind of carnival, a temporary — and, for
participants, welcome — suspension of the rigid rules and social
circumstances that govern our lives.’
–Amanda
Luker
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