Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

In 2009 Tour Of West Miami, Marco Rubio Shows Pride In His Community

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Back in 2009, our colleague Robert Siegel got a tour of West Miami from Rubio himself.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

MARCO RUBIO: See that little wood swing?

ROBERT SIEGEL, BYLINE: Yes, yes.

RUBIO: That's where my West Miami campaign was run out of, right there. This is the house I grew up in. If you look down there in the cement - I don't know if you can see where I carved our family's last name right there on the - do you see it, Rubio on the ground there? That's our family's home. That's kind of where we grew up here. It was good. I liked living here.

CORNISH: Rubio showed great pride in his community.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

RUBIO: And this is just a working-class neighborhood. One of the decisions we made to stay here was 'cause just we just like kind of being surrounded by folks that get their hands dirty for a living.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

And he had to take us into a Cuban bakery there.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

RUBIO: (Speaking Spanish). You guys want something - coffee? (Speaking Spanish). You want some Cuban coffee? Try it.

SIEGEL: Sure. That'd be great.

RUBIO: Do you guys want to eat something? Do you want to sample one of the pastries? Are you sure?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: This guy has a lot of good pastry here.

RUBIO: He sure does. That's why I brought my friends here so they could try some.

CORNISH: A tour of West Miami with Marco Rubio before he became a U.S. senator. Now he's a presidential candidate, and we've been exploring the places the 2016 hopefuls call home. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.