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The plaque beneath the statue reads, "La Libertad no se Mendiga. Se conquista con el filo del machete. [Freedom is not begged for. It is conquered with the edge of the machete]".

Accompanying note: "In the heart of metropolitan Miami is a city within a city known as 'Little Havana.' Over five-hundred thousand Cuban-Americans have settled in the Miami area since the first large exodus of 1959. This number has swelled by over fifty thousand with the new exodus of 1980. Cubans flee their homeland for the same reasons immigrants have fled to the United States since the time of the Pilgrims."

"'I left Cuba with my husband and my daughter, on June 2, 1962. The same, the very same day that my sister also left Cuba with her family, her husband and her two children. And then, you know we, I know you see, that we had to leave. I know that, you know, that was no political system for me. I love freedom, you know. I respect very much the rights of others. I think, you know, the only thing that a human being needs to live, besides air and water and food, is freedom, you see.'"