Nevadans stand ready to help Cuba join 21st century

By Otto Merida and Peter Guzman

Sunday, Sept. 20, 2015 | 2 a.m.

In observance of National Hispanic Heritage Month, Brian Greenspun is yielding his space in today’s paper to two community leaders for their thoughts about engaging with Cuba.

No one knows tourism better than the people of Las Vegas, and Latinos make up an important and significant portion of those who work in and around the service industry that keeps our state humming. As relations between the United States and Cuba continue to improve, the Latin Chamber of Commerce of Las Vegas can seize the opportunity that presents for Nevadans to help that island country move from the mid-20th century to a booming and prosperous nation of 11 million people. We also see it as an opportunity to help our members tap into an emerging market that is sure to grow in the coming years.

For more than half a century Cuban exiles fleeing the island’s communist regime found their way to Las Vegas and made their mark here. One of the co-authors of this open letter, Otto Merida, was himself one of those refugees brought as a child without his parents through a humanitarian program called Operation Peter Pan (Pedro Pán in Spanish). By and large, those children and other Cuban refugees who came here became Americans and developed a great love for this country and its unique ability to create opportunity for all.

For those reasons and many more, it was an honor for us to be invited recently to a Cuban policy briefing in Washington, D.C., interacting with senior officials who are part of this history in the making, such as Valerie Jarrett and Ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis. It was a moment that Peter wishes his father were alive to see. For much of his life, Peter had listened to his father talk about the beauty of Cuba and its potential, and with his father’s blessing before his death, he went to see where his father, his hero, had come from.

That was when the realization set in that we must allow freedom to hit the shores of Havana for change to occur. This isn’t a position taken lightly, and it is with much respect and admiration that we will always be mindful of the pain Cubans went through, and many continue to live. But as Peter realized on that trip, “our love for the Cuban people must always be stronger than our anger for the past.”

Like so many immigrants before them, Cuban-Americans have always recognized they have a unique role to play in helping those left behind. As embassies reopen, Cuban-Americans and other Latinos who share a similar culture and language stand ready to help them define a new and better future for themselves.

The Latino community in Las Vegas comprises more than 30 percent of Clark County’s more than 2 million people. We know that Cuba and its emerging class of independent entrepreneurs are ill- equipped to manage the growth that will come with this new relationship. This year has seen a record number of travelers from the United States to Cuba already, and that number will certainly increase exponentially over the coming years. Cuban entrepreneurs who have already opened their own restaurants, or bed and breakfasts, or taxi services, not to mention those who aspire to, would benefit tremendously from American know-how and Nevada’s unparalleled experience in what to expect and how to scale quickly for what’s to come.

We recognize that the Cuban state stands to benefit from greater engagement, but not as much as the Cuban people. We think that connectivity, people-to-people interaction and growth will spell change for the island, strengthening Cuba as a society and opening the doors to economic and personal freedom. We believe in the entrepreneurial spirit and capacity of the free market to accomplish great things, just as they’ve done here in Nevada. More engagement will help us soon welcome Cubans, not as refugees but as tourists.

This past month, Sen. Dean Heller signed on as a co-sponsor of a bipartisan bill aimed at ending the ban on travel to Cuba, and a Senate panel passed an amendment to end the ban for one year. It’s a reminder that momentum is building, and there isn’t time to waste after half a century of a failed policy. Sen. Heller deserves a lot of credit for co-sponsoring this bill, and listening to him talk about his recent experience on a recent trip to Cuba can only reinforce that change is coming.

The Latin Chamber of Commerce is a dynamic group of business and community leaders focused on promoting commerce, our community and culture among the state’s Latino community and every community in Nevada. Our goal is to help our members, and by extension, our state, thrive. Helping the Cuban people now helps us meet those goals, and it’s also the right thing to do.

Otto Merida is president of the Latin Chamber of Commerce in Las Vegas, and Peter Guzman is president of the Latin Chamber of Commerce Community Foundation in Las Vegas.