''The hoopla goes to Miami, but all of Hialeah is Cuban,'' says insurance executive Paulino Nuñez, who came to Hialeah with the first strokes of revolution in 1959 and became the city's fifth Cuban councilman in 1981.

Cubans who live in and love Hialeah know that this is where you find el pueblo, a smorgasbord of the working-class Cuban people. It is in this city of cafecito counters and front-yard religious shrines that the rank-and-file Cuban story unfolds everyday with the flair and intensity of a nightly telenovela.

''To live outside of Cuba, but to feel like you're in Cuba -- only in Hialeah,'' says Marta Garcia, 58, a seamstress who left the island in 1969 during the Freedom Flights. ''Igualito a San Juan y Martinez.''

Just like in San Juan y Martinez, her hometown in Cuba's westernmost province of Pinar del Rio, Garcia is surrounded by the warmth of Cuban friends.

Garcia, 58, and her husband Rene, 68, have lived in their east Hialeah house for 20 years. They bought the three-bedroom house for $38,000 in 1978 when white, non-Hispanics began to move out in large numbers and the Cubanization of Hialeah began to intensify. They chose Hialeah because home prices and taxes were low and the ride to la factoria was no more than 15 minutes.

With every non-Hispanic who moved out of their neighborhood near Palm Springs Elementary School, a Cuban family moved in, bringing old-fashioned, small-town Cuban camaraderie to their
block, which except for one family, is all Hispanic now.

''We are like family,'' Garcia says of her Cuban neighbors, the Bailons and the Garcia-Jahens.

The three families see each other practically every day. They have each other's house keys. They often share what they made for dinner, a spicy ox tail or a taste of black beans that turned out especially delicious.

''When we run out of something, we don't go to the store,'' Garcia says. ''We go to each other's house, just like in Cuba.''

On weekend nights, the neighbors gather on el portal, the front porch that Rene added on to the house.

Flanked by stately columns, the porch gave the house the touch of Caribbean life the family yearned for -- a place to sit and cubanear, as Cubans call the art of animated conversation.

On a recent Friday, Marta and Juana Bailon started the conversation after dinner. By 10 p.m., the crowd on the porch had grown to a dozen people. It was Isabel Garcia-Jahen's 48th birthday, and all the relatives and friends at her house found their way to the Garcia's porch.

Only Isabel, who was on the phone, was missing.

''Isabel! Isabel, ven pa' ca chica!'' people took turns calling her from across the street.

A round of applause

When Isabel finally made her entrance at the porch smiling like a quinceañera, the crowd broke into applause and a Cuban-accented version of Happy Birthday.

Then immediately, the conversation picked up again. Aging. Winning the lottery. Living in Hialeah. A little politics. The bond between Hialeah and Cuba.

''De Hialeah a Varadero,'' Bailon said, getting teary-eyed. From Hialeah only back to Varadero. ''I would only leave here to go back to Cuba. To me, these people are like the family I don't have in this country.''

Suddenly, someone uttered the word ''Cafe!'' And the nod was unanimous. Isabel's mother, America, went across the street to make Cuban coffee.

Eighty-year-old America returned with an oversized measuring cup filled with cafe cubano, foamy on top, and tiny plastic cups to serve it.

''I made it with my new American capuccino machine,'' America boasted. ''How about that?''

Basking in the conversation was the group's very own city councilman -- Marta and Rene's youngest son, Rene Garcia Jr., 25, a political science student at Florida International University elected to the Hialeah City Council in 1997.

When his parents are out of town, the neighbors cook for ''Renecito.'' When he forgets his keys, they pull out their copies and let him into his house.

'I love it here'

''This is the way it is with all my friends, people my age from Hialeah,'' Garcia Jr. said. ''I love it here. You always feel the cariño, the love. I don't want to be anywhere else.''

Outside the island, the city where the most Cubans live is Miami, the county's largest in population and size. Hialeah has an estimated 207,000 residents to Miami's 364,000, according to updated figures of the Bureau of Economic Research at the University of Florida.

But Hialeah has a much greater concentration of Cubans.

The 1990 Census counted 122,000 Cubans in Hialeah -- 65 percent of what was then a total population of 188,000. The same Census counted 139,000 Cubans in Miami -- only 39 percent. Demographers believe the same difference in percentage holds true today.

In fact, there are more Cubans in Hialeah -- a 90 percent Hispanic city -- than in many of Cuba's own cities. Only Havana, Santiago de Cuba, Camagüey and Holguin are larger than Hialeah.

Story largely unsung

Yet, the story of ''the Hialeah Cubans'' -- the anonymous seamstresses, handymen, beauticians and barbers, the mom-and-pop entrepreneurs operating bodegas, bakeries and botanicas who, although struggling, found a niche catering to Cuban lifestyles -- has gone largely unsung.

For the most part, the Cuban-American story has been told through the rags-to-riches accomplishments of the upper-class and professional Cubans who came to exile penniless in the 1960s. Many of them settled in Little Havana, worked their way into new prosperity, moved to up to the fledgling suburbs and graduated children who became professionals. Their rapid, upward mobility and America's welcome mat earned these Cubans the nickname ''The Golden Exile.''

It was the larger class of working-class exiles that interested Patricia Fernandez-Kelly, a professor of social anthropology at Princeton University, and in the spring of 1997, she came to Hialeah to study their culture.

Given Census statistics that showed substantial poverty in Hialeah, Fernandez-Kelly expected to find the kind of landscape such statistics telegraph in older cities of the North: homelessness, boarded-up housing, slum-like conditions, kids dropping out of school.

Informal economy

But in Hialeah -- where mean household income is $27,954, almost $10,000 less than the county's -- she found ''one of the meccas of informal economies,'' a city thriving on the entrepreneurial skills of its residents and ''clearly not operating by the standards of bureaucratic society.''

Take housing.

In a packed city with a vacancy rate hovering at 1 percent, Fernandez-Kelly found clean and neatly kept houses, even in the most modest neighborhoods. But many home improvements such as porches and additions were illegally built, much of it the work of ''Weekend Warriors,'' people who work in the construction industry and do this off-hours to supplement their incomes.

''In the case of Hialeah, the poverty figures conceal a different phenomena, unreported income and activity that takes place in the margins,'' Fernandez-Kelly said. ''Many Americans find this terribly objectionable because the informal economy means taxes are not paid. But the statement of one of my interviewees expresses it very nicely: 'Is this deplorable? Surely it is, but it does such great things for our city.' ''

Another troubling indicator, Fernandez-Kelly said, was the high drop-out rates. But she discovered that Cuban kids in Hialeah don't drop out of school from disillusionment with the educational system. They leave school because of the opportunities awaiting them in the Cuban-owned businesses in the city. They do it to make money.

Not becoming an underclass

''These are not folks who are becoming an underclass,'' she said. ''[Research shows] Cuban students exhibit one of the most robust indicators of self-esteem, but one of lowest grade point averages. I call it the Hialeah effect. A substantial number of second-generation Cubans are experiencing this lateral assimilation into a working-class Hialeah.''

It all adds up to a city with a staunchly individualistic character, ''a little Cuba,'' Fernandez-Kelly said.

In this little Cuba, street signs cry out with nostalgia and pride.

Añorada Cuba Place, Cuba of Our Yearning Place, runs along West 45th Place from Palm to West First Avenue. Cuban Cultural Heritage Boulevard is West 44th Place, where faded pink plaques erected along a canal-side promenade honor Cuban greats in the arts, both living and gone. The king of Cuban salsa, Willy Chirino, is, of course, represented here. But so are the lesser known Otto Sirgo, an actor of the '40s and '50s, and Rosendo Rossell, a staple of early-exile television and radio.

Some people think the monuments are tacky. In City Hall, the promenade has been dubbed ''el cementerio,'' the cemetery. But no one dares to criticize it out loud for fear of offending residents.

Even the city's motto -- La Cuidad Que Progresa (City of Progress) -- is a throwback to the island. In 1948, it became the slogan of Marianao, a large municipality adjacent to Havana that's often compared to Hialeah -- both of them cities eclipsed by their more prominent neighbors.

Cubanness everywhere

Unlike Miami where the cubania hangs on Calle Ocho like a postcard for tourists and where Anglo culture prevails in hubs like Brickell Avenue and Coconut Grove, in Hialeah the Cubanness is stamped on virtually every corner of the city's 22-square miles.

It is thick like a wake-up shot of cafe cubano. And like the Spanish.

While many other heavily-Hispanic cities sport bilingual signs, many of Hialeah's business signs and billboards are Spanish-only. ''Dinero al instante!'' (Instant money), a business on East Fourth Avenue calls itself. ''Medicinas y terapias'' (Medicine and therapy) advertises another. No translation. Even a city sign announcing a public project on West 12th Avenue and 29th Street (Jose Marti Boulevard) is all in Spanish. ''Tu gobierno en accion,'' it says. Your government in action.

Stand on any commercial corner in Hialeah, pull into any shopping center, and be greeted by blaring salsa music. Speak to sales clerks and the language of preference is likely to be Spanish.

Often, it's the only language.

''They don't have to speak anything else. Hialeah is the best example of a place where you can live out your life in Spanish. You work in the factory and everybody from the supervisor to the workers speaks Spanish, you shop at Sedano's, your Cuban doctor is right there,'' said Lisandro Perez, a Florida International University sociologist who grew up in Hialeah.

Santeria thrives

Hialeah is also the place where santeria came out of the closet.

The Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye took the ancient African religion imported to Cuba by slaves from the Yoruba nation out of the confines of home practice to a church at 357 Palm Ave. -- then all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Church leaders, brothers Ernesto and Fernando Pichardo, won the right to practice santeria, animal sacrifices and all, without interference from the city's almost all-Cuban City Council, which opposed them.

Earlier this year, the Pichardos launched Orisha Depot, Depot of the Gods, a store that sells everything from the ingredients for a ''trabajo,'' a santeria job, to reams of white material to make the traditional white garb of priests and priestesses.

Orisha Depot is also on-line. Its website services spiritual needs of believers around the world.

Football and Spanish

Hialeah's cubania sometimes surprises when the outside looks American. Take football. In the middle of the city, the all-American game commands the attention in the fall.

The stadium at Hendricks Park serves as the home field for Hialeah, Hialeah-Miami Lakes and American senior high schools. Practically every Thursday and Friday night, the field is awash in teenagers cheering for their team.

It's a crispy October Thursday, the season's first night of soothing breezes. The American Patriots in red, white and blue are in the home-team side of the stadium. Across from them, the Miami Lakes Trojans' stands are a sea of orange and blue.

Not long after the Patriots score, tying the game 3-3, a crowd of girls in red and blue T-shirts waving flag-like handkerchiefs break out in a chant.

''Arriba, abajo!

''Trojans pa' el carajo!''

Up, down. To hell with the Trojans.

It rhymes in Spanish. And it's actually an old favorite Cuban cheer. In the heady days when Fidel Castro's Revolution was popular, it went like this: ''Arriba, abajo, los Yankees pa' el carajo.'' Up, down. To hell with the Yankees.

Chant and giggle

The history is lost to this MTV generation. The girls know there's a curse word in the chant and that makes it a better cheer. They chant and giggle until a Cuban mother sitting nearby realizes what they're saying.

She hushes them. ''Niñas!'' Girls!

As Cuban as Hialeah is, there are no outposts of militant anti-Castro groups such as Alpha 66 and the Cuban American National Foundation.

''It's not that they are not interested in Cuba -- they are -- but there are a lot of Cubans who are not involved in political activities,'' Perez said. ''What they're involved in is getting up early in the morning, sending their kids off to school, going to work and making a living. Hialeah is the place people go when they want to concentrate on making their life in this country -- even if they keep the culture.''

Politics and life

Even in Chico's Restaurant -- the Versailles of Hialeah, the place where politicians go to get in touch with ''el pueblo'', the people, and where the media flocks to gauge public reaction -- the talk is about the shenanigans of Hialeah politics and about la vida, life. Keeping taxes low and los inspectores from cracking down on zoning violations is the order of the day on most days.

Only on exceptional occasions -- the Pope's visit to Cuba, renewed rumors of Castro's demise -- does Cuba take center stage. It's not that Hialeah Cubans have forgotten -- they never do -- but people here can't afford to indulge in nostalgia. Their view of Cuba is more grounded on their American reality.

''I know in my heart we will never be able to go back to live there,'' Marta Garcia said. ''My husband thinks different. He is still waiting for a miracle.''
Insider's view

The pragmatism also comes from the insider's view of Cuba brought by recent arrivals and by the exiles' own trips back to the island -- something many don't want to discuss because it's not politically palatable in the mainstream Cuban community.

But every travel-to-Cuba agency has at least one branch in Hialeah.

''Whenever I go to Cuba and ask people, 'Do you have family in the United States?', most of them will say, 'Si, en Hialeah','' Perez said.

The city is home to a growing number of unique stores that cater to the volume-shopping that a trip to Cuba commands.

Home-grown stores

In Hialeah, the battle for Cuban retail dollars is not between the big-name department store giants. The competition is between Tico's Fashions, La Ideal and ño, Que Barato! (Damn, How Cheap!) -- the latest newcomer to the Cuban version of American retail.

The giant, bright yellow store on Okeechobee Road and West 12th Avenue is named after the most celebrated expression in Cuban slang -- the endearing, shortened ''damn!'' coined by Cuban comedian Guillermo Alvarez Guedes as ''ño!''

ño, Que Barato! offers bargain prices on staple clothing people buy by the dozen to take to relatives in Cuba. It also carries the so-called gusanos (worms), luggage that can be packed to the hilt and still meet weight requirements, and the smaller bag used to carry the restricted amount of medicines. And the store sells at $5.99 mosquito nets, a staple of Caribbean living where screened windows are a rarity.

''We chose to open the store in the place where the most Cubans live,'' said owner Serafin Blanco. ''We sell at a price that working people can afford.''

In many ways, the Cubanization was foreshadowed in the beginning.

In 1954, the city put up its first official Spanish signs. The word Alto -- Stop -- was added to three stop signs after a Spanish-only speaker drove through a stop sign and killed his passenger. Hialeah became the only city in Florida with bilingual signs.

The first flamingos

The city's ties to Cuba go even further back -- to 1925, the day when the village of 600 was incorporated and a muddy racetrack opened its gates to the public.

To adorn its grounds, city fathers brought flamingos.

''The first Cubans in Hialeah were the flamingos,'' says Nuñez, the former councilman. ''They brought them from Cuba and put them on the racetrack.''

Their wings were clipped to keep them from flying off.

''When the wings grew back, they flew back to Cuba,'' Nuñez says. ''They had to bring in more flamingos and hire a full-time man just to cut wings. He was there until the second and third generation, when the flamingos finally stayed.''