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Construction of the Miami hermitage to Our Lady of Charity began in 1967 in land donated by the Church and finished in 1973. The decision by 1967 to construct a "national shrine" in Miami is suggestive of the moment when Cubans who had fled the Revolution realized that the experience of exile would be indefinite. The sign celebrating the 40th anniversary of its foundation retrospectively confirms that realization.

The hermitage continues to be the expression of the (Christian) Cuban nation in exile but by now of a Cuban-American community as well. The hermitage became a particularly strongly politicized site during its early years. The annual festivities of the Virgin in September for many years were highly charged events for the expression of nationalism and militant opposition to the Cuban Revolution. By now, the site is, for the most part, a space of Catholic nationalist nostalgia, although the site remains a highly politicised place.