Amid the anti-Hispanic backlashes in the early 1980s, Miami鈥檚 then-clerk of courts made a decision that seems unthinkable today 鈥� the banning of marriages from being conducted in anything but English. Osvaldo Soto鈥檚 response: he set up an open-air wedding chapel in a Little Havana parking lot and offered free Spanish-language marriages.
鈥淎hora los declaro marido y mujer. Felicidades,鈥� Soto told the first couple there. I now declare you husband and wife. Congratulations.
The episode in 1984 was but one small fight in his lifelong crusade against discrimination in Miami, where over decades he became a fighting on behalf of Miami鈥檚 Hispanic and minority communities. Soto, who suffered from Parkinson鈥檚 disease, died Saturday of natural causes at age 91.
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