Ask Tony Mendoza if he spoke English or Spanish last night, and chances are, he doesn’t remember. That’s because for this Miami-based visual artist, the American and Cuban cultures coexist in the same space, together, harmoniously and vividly.

The son of Cuban immigrants who left after its tumultuous revolution, Mendoza is the byproduct of a bilingual existence—one where his heritage’s viewpoints now lie in a foreign land among a similarly mixed audience that is fortifying its own culture. Luckily for us, it’s a beautiful and punchy vision inspired by Little Havana. 

Growing up in Union City, New Jersey—often referred to as “Havana on the Hudson” because of its large Cuban population—and then Miami, Mendoza lived among Cuban phrases. In Miami, where nearly two million Cuban Americans live, it was normal for Mendoza to read street signs in Spanish and to speak Spanglish, a portmanteau of Spanish and English, with his community. 

Idioms like cafe con leche and malas lenguas dotted his everyday life. Now, as an adult, he paints them. “I’m putting on canvas what it’s like growing up in a hyphenated culture among Latinos,” Mendoza says. “In my art, you will see different elements, products we see, jokes we tell, sayings that we tell.”

The acrylic piece “Malas Lenguas (Evil Tongues)” features caricatures of two women sitting side by side with serpent-like creatures extending from their mouths in place of their tongues, spilling secrets. Cuba’s robust coffee culture is often depicted in Mendoza’s work, including “My City Runs On Cafecitos,” which shows four massive stove-top coffee makers sitting atop the roofs of Miami buildings. 

One could interpret Mendoza’s upbringing as growing up between two cultures, but perhaps a more accurate narrative is that he grew up in a unified one. As a child, Mendoza and his two siblings were encouraged to seek creative expression, spurred by a mother who would often sit with her children and draw. “She would draw things from Cuba—a farmhouse, the farmer lady feeding the chickens, things like that,” Mendoza says. 

Despite a deep connection to art, including majoring in commercial art (what he refers to as the pre-graphic design days) at Miami Dade College, Mendoza enjoyed a long career in transportation, including working as an inspector with Florida East Coast Railway in the ’80s and as a logistics manager with Navieras de Puerto Rico. But when Navieras de Puerto Rico closed in 2002, art was the natural next calling. 

“I thought it would be a bridge until I got my next job,” Mendoza says of painting. “I thought that I could just do it and see what happened. Never did I expect it to take off and be my second career.”

Mendoza, an admittedly frustrated architect who loves the discipline but hates the math, began painting a series of local Miami homes. Bungalows, Old Spanish-style buildings and art deco-inspired edifices covered his workspace. Trips to Miami’s Little Havana, a neighborhood known for its Cuban influences, resulted in paintings of homes from that historic area. For this Cuban American, these depictions of his community not only felt good, they felt right. “It was my way of connecting art and the neighborhood that I grew up in,” he says. 

I’m putting on canvas what it’s like growing up in a hyphenated culture among Latinos.
—Tony Mendoza

Since then, Mendoza’s art career has taken off, with various solo exhibits throughout Florida and commissions from viewers who appreciate the vitality of the hybrid culture he puts on canvas. Visually speaking, the bold colors and clean lines on the canvases offer a glimpse into Mendoza’s technical skills. A playful reflection of something as banal as a cup of coffee showcases the artist’s humor, but it’s the spirit of the local people and landmarks that he captures that give Mendoza’s work meaning. 

“The best part of Miami is that it’s close to the United States, which is a joke,” Mendoza says, laughing. “It’s almost part of the atmosphere here to continue living in a hyphenated culture. I partook in all the American culture in school, its history, on TV, but at the same time, I’m Cuban.”

Today, as he sits in his Bird Road Art District studio in Miami, Mendoza is reflective of his oeuvre, with a distinct perspective that can only be created by someone with the heart and soul of a Cuban American. Still, despite the origins of its maker, Mendoza has a more universal end goal to his work: for it to cause anyone, Cuban-American or otherwise, to smile. “I enjoy watching people take in my art, and especially if they laugh,” Mendoza says. “There’s joy in their viewing, and that makes me happy.” 

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