Join us for the release celebration of Flies in the Tropics with debut author Niki Franco. A memoir about growing up in the backwards heart of US imperialism, this book is a letter to all those searching for their role in the fight for a better world.
Niki and her family packed up their lives and moved to Miami, hoping for a change. The daughter of two working-class Caribbean immigrants, she begins searching for belonging in her new home, the USA’s very own tropical paradise. But what unfolds is the entangled story of the Caribbean, the CIA, US intervention, and her own duty from the history she learns.
Grocery store gossip, an abuelo who worked his whole life for Caribe Hilton, trips to Puerto Rico and Cuba, hurricanes, activism, and doxxing. These are the memories that come into focus and reveal how the ghosts of exploitation haunt the lives of those who come from countries ravaged by US intervention. And so Miami’s beautiful façade reveals its cruel face through the machinations of US foreign policy, political pundits, and a long history as a base for CIA interventions in the Caribbean. The shadow of the US is inescapable, and it becomes clear that Cuba and Puerto Rico are las dos alas de un pájaro. Two wings of a bird.
Niki will be joined in conversation by fellow political educators and cultural workers maya finoh and Tahia Islam. After the book talk, we will have an author signing, music by DJ RAQX, and wines provided by Terra Sancta Wines and Spirits and El-Sabban Wine.
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NIKI FRANCO is a queer, Marxist, Black Caribbean organizer from Miami, Florida. Her work is an attempt to disjoint, at every node, the normalcy of assumed Caribbean subservience to empire.
She has spoken at universities and museums across North America, including Brown, RISD, Dartmouth, UCLA, USC, MoMa PS1, University of Miami, University of British Columbia (Vancouver), and Boston University. Her writing has appeared in Essence, Scalawag, and the Miami New Times, and she’s been interviewed by Dazed, i-D, Upstream, and Belly of the Beast.
Through her writing, scholarship, and organizing work, she illuminates + builds off the legacies of the Global South, insisting on life and socialist reconstruction.
Niki is the host of the podcast show Getting to the Root of It with Venus Roots and her debut book, Flies in the Tropics (1804 Books, fall 2026).
MAYA FINOH is a political educator and cultural worker based on Canarsee Lenape land in Brooklyn, New York. maya has spent the last decade engaged in writing, critical consciousness raising, and organizing rooted in Black decolonial feminisms, abolition, and self-determination. A child of the (Global) South, maya was born and raised in Durham, North Carolina, and has lineage with the Kono, Mende, and Sherbro peoples of Sierra Leone.
TAHIA ISLAM is an anti-war and cultural organizer, lead of Artists Against Apartheid, attorney-in-training at CUNY School of Law, and was previously on the education team at The People’s Forum and helped dream up 1804 Books. She’s proudly born and raised in the international Queens, New York City.
DJ RAQX is a DJ, event producer, and educator from New York with Puerto Rican and German roots. Her music selection is heavily influenced by her hybrid cultures, playing vinyl and digital sets exploring ’90s NY house, latin deep cuts, all varieties of old dance music with new club and reggaeton sounds. She’s been DJing and producing events in Brooklyn with Misschief Collective for 9+ years as well as playing frequently in Puerto Rico. She has been collaborating with Radio Red to bring Puerto Rican artists to New York for Puerto Rican day parade afterparties and radio red takeovers in Brooklyn.
