El Salvador plans LV consulate

By Timothy Pratt

Monday, May 5, 2003 | 9:04 a.m.

El Salvador will open a consulate in Las Vegas by the end of the year, an official from that country said Friday.

It would be only the second consulate to open in Nevada, following the arrival to downtown Las Vegas of the Mexican consulate early last year.

Other countries may soon join Mexico and El Salvador. Oscar Benavides Gutierrez, El Salvador's consul in Los Angeles, said that other Central American countries have also expressed interest in establishing a diplomatic presence in Las Vegas.

"Guatemala and Honduras have said they will begin talking with their chancellors to open their own consulates," Benavides Gutierrez said.

The new consulate and the possibility of more coming soon brought local academics and politically active Hispanics to speak of a trend that could have far-reaching effects.

"Up until now, the Hispanic community here has maintained itself under the radar politically and culturally in many ways," said Douglas Unger, professor of English, translator from Spanish and member of a group of professors at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, seeking to open a Latin American studies center.

"But these consulates should prove to be a wake-up call."

Benavides Guiterrez said the Salvadoran government is waiting for permission from the U.S. State Department to open the consulate at a site near North Nellis Boulevard and East Bonanza Road.

The consulate will offer services such as passports and other documents to an estimated 40,000 Salvadorans living in the valley, as well as serving 30,000 in Utah and 30,000 in Arizona. Currently, Salvadorans from all three states must use the office in Los Angeles.

The consulate also will pursue business contacts between the United States and El Salvador, support cultural activities locally, and protect the rights of Salvadorans living in the three states.

But Tom Wright, professor of history at UNLV and author of an upcoming book, "The Peoples of Las Vegas" -- which includes a chapter on the local Salvadoran community -- said the consulate's presence will also bring other benefits to Salvadorans. And ongoing diplomatic arrivals from Latin American countries influences the relationship between Hispanics and the rest of the population, Wright said.

"The Salvadoran consulate could be the anchor for a lot of things that, together, would assert more the identity of Salvadorans," Wright said.

"And the other consulates would make the Hispanic community more visible, through such activities as putting Las Vegas on the map for touring cultural groups from the different countries."

Andres Ramirez, a Las Vegas political consultant, said the consulates also could influence local politics.

"Local government has direct communication with the governments of these foreign countries and learns more about the needs and concerns of the constituencies from these countries," Ramirez said.

One service the Salvadoran government will begin offering nationwide about the same time the new consulate opens its doors could bring political controversy, Ramirez said -- the so-called matriculas consulares, or consular identification cards.

The Mexican consulate has issued more than 25,000 of these cards since opening last year. The cards are issued to legal and illegal immigrants alike and are accepted as a means of identification by banks and law enforcement authorities statewide. They have drawn criticism here as well as elsewhere around the nation from groups that say illegal immigrants should not be allowed access to such services as bank accounts with the identification.

"You're going to have some detractors as always who don't understand the usefulness of this system for both countries," Ramirez said.

"It's a way of legitimately identifying people, and the benefits severely outweigh the costs."

Ramirez also said having two Latin American consulates is a sign of growth for the Las Vegas urban area as a whole.

"The consulates make people no longer feel they have to hide in their own community ... and allow them to express pride in who they are," he said.

"You need this for any metropolitan community to come of age."