HIALEAH, Fla. — Worried about her son, Julie Quijano stopped by the Botanica Ochun on a recent Friday seeking help. "He's 16 years old, and a little wild," she explains. "I just want to calm him down."
The man behind the counter of the tiny shop crammed with religious statuettes, potions and amulets recommends a \o7 balsamo tranquilo\f7 , a calming balm. For $1, he hands her a small bottle of greenish liquid and gives these instructions: Write the boy's full name in pencil on a piece of brown paper bag, put the paper in a glass, add a capful of the oil, fill with water, ask the boy's guardian angel to intervene and then let the mixture sit in the house for a week.
"Yelling at a 16-year-old is no good, and it is hard to punish," says Quijano as she leaves the botanica. "So I try everything."
Like most in the Cuban majority of this blue-collar city on Miami's northern boundary, Quijano considers herself a Catholic. But Quijano's religious beliefs, like those of many of her neighbors, extend well beyond Christianity to embrace a mix of Afro-Cuban santeria and spiritualism that is as mystical as it is everyday.
Two years after a landmark ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court that struck down this city's ban on animal sacrifices associated with santeria, the pantheistic religious life practiced by many Caribbean immigrants in South Florida is flourishing as never before. From Miami's Little Havana and Little Haiti neighborhoods to the western suburbs that stretch to the Everglades, botanicas are thriving and babalawos, or priests, are booked solid performing secret rituals and offering private consultations.
Tony Pena, 28, worked as an air-conditioning repairman for a couple years after coming from Cuba in 1991. But since his initiation into the santeria faith, Pena has made a comfortable life for his wife, Zoraya, and their 2-year-old son by running a Hialeah botanica and conducting ceremonies and consultations for a growing roster of believers. "People feel freer now, less afraid of breaking some law," he said. "The image of santeria is improving."
Ernesto Pichardo is the santero whose 1987 lawsuit on behalf of his Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye led to the high court's decision calling the Hialeah statutes a violation of the American constitutional guarantee of religious freedom. Since that 1993 ruling, he says, "There is less hostility from some Christian denominations, fewer reports of discrimination against practitioners, and people are not as paranoid about seeking priests."
