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About a third of the country's 50 largest Hispanic-owned firms are located in the Miami area. "No place in the U.S. has a Latin community like Miami's. Here we are members of the power structure," boasts Telemundo TV boss Joaquin Blaya, the Chilean-born executive credited with updating and reviving Spanish- language TV in the U.S. Increasingly that power is political too: two Cuban-born Americans represent the immigrant community in Congress. And the Metro-Dade Board of County Commissioners, recently reshaped by court redistricting, now has six Hispanics, four blacks and three "Anglos." One of its first acts was to repeal the English-only law that prohibited local government from conducting business in Spanish or Creole.
The prevalence of Spanish language and culture has become a lure to Latin visitors, who freely call Miami the capital of Latin America. In the past 10 years the Cubans have been joined by Puerto Ricans, Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, Colombians, Guatemalans and Haitians. The Brazilians, who discovered Miami with a vengeance two years ago, now jokingly call it "Brazil's fastest growing city." Last year they were so ubiquitous that Portuguese became the predominant language among shopkeepers in downtown Miami. This year it is the Argentines who have arrived in droves. "At any cocktail party in South America, if you mention Aventura or Dadeland, they know you're talking major shopping malls in Miami," says economist Manuel Lasaga, a Cuba-born immigrant.
But Miami is far more than just South America's shopping mall. From its Latin American headquarters in Miami, the telecommunications giant AT&T covers one-third of the world, reaching as far as South America and sub-Saharan Africa. All the major record companies have Latin offices in Miami, and dozens of Spanish-language magazines are based there. General Motors, Latin America's No. 2 automaker, moved its Latin headquarters from Sao Paulo to Miami two years ago. Disney moved its Latin American consumer-products office from Mexico City; Inter-Continental Hotels moved its base for the Americas down from New York; and Iberia Airlines left Los Angeles. Miami's success has been its ability to use its immigrant population to offer American products and business savvy in a Latin environment. "As the Western Hemisphere becomes more Hispanic, Miami has become the frontier city between 'America' and Latin America," explains Guillermo Grenier, the Cuban-born head of FIU's sociology department. The city offers not just trade but also services that range from banking and insurance to medical care. Miami remains Latin America's Wall Street, with about $25 billion in foreign deposits, but now Latin Americans also come for kidnap insurance and trendy laparoscopic surgery on their gallbladders.
With trade barriers falling and economies improving across Central and South America, economists are predicting that by the end of the decade, Latin America will be one of the fastest-growing markets in the world. And with 80% of Latin America located east of Miami, the city is poised to be a major beneficiary. "Miami's boom in the '90s will dwarf the flight capital from Latin America that came in the '70s," predicts economist Lasaga. "Real business is coming through now, not just bank deposits."