Hialeah

Hialeah is a city located in Florida’s Miami-Dade County. With a population of over 200,000, it is the fifth largest city in the state. It is a part of the Miami metropolitan area and the Greater South Florida metropolitan area. Hialeah is found on the prairie between the Everglades and the Bay of Biscayne.

The interesting name “Hialeah“ is believed to have been derived from the Creek language, also known as Muskogee and Mvskoke. The language is spoken by members of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. When the Muskogee word for prairie – haiyakpo – is combined with the word for pretty – hili– it forms a word similar to Hialeah. An alternative theory is that the name is of Seminole origin and means “Upland Prairie” or “High Prairie”.

In 2007, Forbes name Hialeah as one of the most Livable Suburbs in the United States. Hialeah is considered a working class city and a large percentage of its population can trace its ancestry back to Latin America or the Caribbean. The city has been home to a Cuban community since the late 1960s.

The majority religion in Hialeah is Roman Catholicism, but the city is also the home to the headquarter of the Santería church “Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye”. Santería is an Afro-Caribbean religion based on the religion of the Yoruba people of Nigeria.