Peter Guzman interview, September 10, 2018: transcript

i AN INTERVIEW WITH PETER JAMES GUZMAN An Oral History Conducted by Claytee D. White Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada Oral History Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas ii ©Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2018 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV – University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Project Manager: Barbara Tabach Transcribers: Kristin Hicks, Maribel Estrada Calderón, Nathalie Martinez, Rodrigo Vazquez, Elsa Lopez Editors and Project Assistants: Laurents Bañuelos-Benitez, Maribel Estrada Calderón, Monserrath Hernández, Elsa Lopez, Nathalie Martinez, Marcela Rodriquez-Campo, Rodrigo Vazquez, Raul Gonzalez iii The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of a National Endowment for Humanities (NEH) Grant. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank University of Nevada Las Vegas for the support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader’s understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases photographic sources accompany the individual interviews with permission of the narrator. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada. Claytee D. White Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas iv PREFACE Peter James Guzman was born in south Florida in 1966 to Pedro and Lydia Guzman. While he was a toddler, his parents and three older sisters relocated to Nevada when they had heard of employment opportunities, especially for those of Cuban ancestry, in gaming and tourism. In this oral history, Peter recalls the story of his father’s career trajectory from busboy at the Sahara Hotel to a longtime maître d' on the Strip and a Culinary Union member for thirty years. When he was fifteen years old, Peter attended a Chaparral vs Bishop Gorman football game where his heart was captured by a beautiful girl named Mercy Guzman. Years later the two would marry and have their two daughter, Jovani and Tatiana, in Las Vegas. The couple have built successful lives: Mercy is Executive Director of Hotel Operations at Golden Nugget, and Peter is President of the Latin Chamber of Commerce. As a young man, Peter crossed paths with mentors who would help him traverse the job opportunities. From car valet to successful real estate agent, Peter’s gregarious personality has been a beacon. By the time he was recruited to become the President of the Latin Chamber of Commerce, he had a network of colleagues and friendships that have built upon the success of the founders. Today, Peter participates on a number of community boards and remains a vibrant leader for both the Latinx population and Las Vegas as a whole. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Interview with Peter James Guzman September 10, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Claytee D. White Preface…………………………………………………………………………………………..iv Talks about family history of his father emigrating to the United States from Cuba as a teenager, first to Florida, then New York and back and forth, during which his parents met and married, had three daughters born in New York and their son born in Miami. Explains how his parents moved to Las Vegas. When jobs in Florida dried up, he was among the Cubans who heard about jobs in Lake Tahoe and then Las Vegas. Mentions that his own father-in-law came directly from Cuba to Las Vegas for work. Speaks more about his father working as a bus boy at the Sahara Hotel and how he had the created the great opportunity to have a “captain’s book” and become a maître d’; his father’s depression during a Culinary Union strike, and then a series of jobs, and his dream job at the Hacienda Hotel working for Paul Lowden……………………………………………...1 – 5 Explains the Culinary Union experience, sitting with his father waiting for job postings; implosion of Hacienda and coincidence of his father’s failing health, drying up of maître d’ positions. About being the only son, and youngest, of the four children; family dynamics raising him. Recalls ninth grade at Chaparral High School, a football game at Bishop Gorman, where he would meet his future wife Mercy Guzman; their fathers knowing each other in Cuba; been married thirty years. Talks about growing up on 28th Street and Bonanza, marrying young, car valet job at to real estate, wife worked at Circus Circus…………………………………………………………………6 – 9 More about building his real estate career; top producer at Coldwell Banker for nine years successively, only Hispanic/Latino in the office; how he built his clientele. Shares an example of client relationship building; being a residential and commercial real estate agent. Talks about Tony Alamo giving his wife, Mercy, her first job at Circus Circus; she worked there twenty years. Talks about parenting, family history, courting of his wife at age 15, experiencing “traditional Cuban” family style with is in-laws, including their cooking; mentions Tony Alamo Sr, Otto Merida, and Circulo Cubano [Cuban Circle] a clubhouse for Cubans, and its roots for the Latin Chamber of vi Commerce; mentions Celia Cruz, a performer at the Frontier Hotel and queen of salsa; Italian American Club………………………………………………………………………………10 – 14 Talks about St. Anne’s Catholic Church, Cuban children attended school, site of his wedding; his involvement in his two children’s childhood; Sundays with family; dinner at their home. Talks about local neighborhoods where he has lived: Concord Apartments, La Embaiador, and more; bought a house behind Showboat, then near Sam’s Town, then near Washington and Buffalo, buying and selling homes since he is in real estate. Shares of end of life conversation with his father, caring for his parents. Details about the Latin Chamber of Commerce Foundation, assisting college bound children, example of Martin Ventana; Workforce Connections, Nevada Partners, Hope for Prisoners and Jon Ponder, former Sheriff Bill Young; working with Gaming Control to allow hiring of former felons..……………………………………………………………….15 – 22 Explains how he became involved in the Latin Chamber of Commerce; Otto Merida, Circulo Cubano, recession years; being asked to become president; staffing, very productive; Tom Rodriquez; Sen. Richard Bryan; raising money; Latin Chamber YouTube channel; Bagels and Politicos; Bagels and Businesses, seminars etc; Smith Center and Get On Your Feet musical support.……………………………………………………………………………………..23 – 29 Talks about his personal education experiences, mentors—Lynn Wardley, Dr. Feelen; explains relationship between LCC and Nevada Charter School. His vision for the Latin Chamber; elder center located on adjacent property………………………………………………………..30 – 32 Elaborates on 2008 housing crash; Senators Cortez-Masto and Heller; working in and with the community of Las Vegas, Labor Unions, Nevada Contractors Association Mentions Cuban restaurants such as Las Islitas, Carlito’s Cafeteria, among others………………………….33 – 37 vii 1 This is Claytee White. We're at the Latin Chamber of Commerce. It is September 10, 2018, and I am in the room with... Nathalie Martinez. Laurents Banuelos-Benitez. CLAYTEE: We're interviewing Peter. Peter, could you pronounce and spell your full name? My name is Peter James Guzman; P-E-T-E-R, J-A-M-E-S, G-U-Z-M-A-N. Thank you so much. Peter, we're going to start, and is it okay for us to call you Peter? Correct. I'll have them call you Mr. Guzman. No, no, Peter is fine. I want to start with your early life. I know that you really grew up in Las Vegas; so I want you to take us back to the beginning. Tell us about your parents and grandparents and how the family got to Las Vegas. My father is from Cuba. My mother was born in Tampa, in Florida. When things just started to change in Cuba, my father could kind of see the writing on the wall, but the reality is, is that a young lady that he was in love with in Cuba, her family left Cuba and came to the United States. My father at sixteen and a half followed her to Florida, alone. As love would have it, things didn't work out so great, but he stayed here. I'm obviously grateful that he did. Which year was it that he followed the young woman to Florida? Wow, the year. That would be difficult for me to answer right now. But was it well ahead of the Castro revolution? Not well ahead. It was about the same time. I think it was about the same time. 2 Do you think her family came to the United States because of that? I think so, yes. My father was a combination of both; he could see the writing on the wall as a young man, and my grandparents told him, "There's going to be some great big changes, so it might be a good idea," and so he did. How did the Cuban community see Castro before he actually came into the country? Were there signs? My understanding is that there was desire for change because Batista wasn't necessarily great either, and they thought Fidel was going to be the great change. As un-luck would have it, he became a dictator and great changes started to happen. Tell me the stories your father told you about Florida. My dad came to Florida, and I think stayed there for a few years, but then went to New York. He bounced around for jobs, New York, New Jersey. He did all kinds of jobs. Then he came back to Florida. I think at that stage that's when he met my mother. They fell in love, I guess, and got married. Again, because of jobs, he bounced back and forth. I have three sisters. They were born in New York. I was born in Florida, in Miami. Why Las Vegas after all of that on the East Coast? There was a period where the jobs dried up, so my dad was working at the Doral in Miami, famous place, the Fontainebleau, as a waiter and busboy; things of that nature. A lot of the Cubans heard about Lake Tahoe because of gaming. They were hiring Cubans because of their experience with gaming in Cuba. We went to Lake Tahoe and we landed in the summer in Lake Tahoe, which was awfully nice apparently for my dad. But when winter came, he had never really lived in snow. Again, they had heard about all the gaming companies here in Las Vegas hiring, and so 3 ironically—and I'm sure this will come up in the story—my father-in-law at the time was a man who came from Cuban directly to Las Vegas, and he would reach out to Cubans and say, "Hey, man, we've got jobs." He was one of the first ones here. I think he was the second one here. My dad heard about the jobs and said, "Come on, we're moving again." We landed in Las Vegas. What is your father-in-law's name? My father-in-law's name is Fidel. They knew each other in Cuba as well. Your father came down and went to work where? My father comes down and gets into the Culinary Union. After bouncing around a little bit, he gets a good job at the Sahara Hotel as a busboy. If you want to stay on that theme, I'm happy to stay on that theme. Yes, please. It's always a pleasure for me to speak about my father. He was my best friend, the best man at my wedding. He passed away. That's special. He was special to me. He was a busboy in the Sahara Hotel. The showrooms were a big deal in those days. You had captains, maître d's. Everybody dressed up. Dinner shows. My father looked at that captain's job. He had vision. His buddies would say, "No, no, no, nobody gets those jobs. That's big time." But in order to get those jobs you had to have this thing called the captain's book, which was at the Culinary Union you had to go through a course on service and how to treat people and all that. But my dad told a couple of his friends, "I'm going to go get the book anyway." They told him, "We're never going to get those jobs. For what?" It costs a little money to get the book, but he went and did it. Where do you get the book? 4 At the Culinary Union. My father used to tell me how the captains and the maître d's would never call in sick because they made a lot of money and you never wanted to miss. Now we fast forward, I think, six or seven years. Two captains called in sick. A third one is really sick. And the maître d', he asks all the busboys and waiters, "Does anybody have their captain's book?" My dad said, "I do." Wow, he got to be a captain that night and the rest was history. He ended up being a part-time captain. It never happened for busboys; it usually was a waiter, but he made that leap because nobody had their captain's book. He made that leap and it turned out to be really, really good for him. He loved that job. Tell me about the job. What did he have to do? We start with my greatest memories were at three o'clock in the afternoon every day I'd watch my dad get into a tuxedo. He didn't have to be at work until six, but I swear he loved the job so much he'd get that suit on at three, three thirty and go to the hotel early. It was a different era then. These guys kind of ran the place. I remember going to see my dad and he'd be in the back cooking himself a meal right in the kitchen, for him and the boys. He loved that job. It was a good time for a long time and then the strike came. I don't know why the year '72, but that doesn't right to me. It might have been '78. We'll have to look that up. But that was the big strike on the Strip. So '84, is that too late? Maybe. We'll check that date. I want to say I was about fourteen, fifteen. You might be right. That was devastating. Tell me what happened. I had never seen my dad down, ever. It was a life-changing experience to see my dad broken, 5 sitting in the living room, from captain to no job. It was just done. It was a tough time. He actually shipped me off to live with my grandfather in Miami for the summer because he knew it was going to be a hard summer. That was a tough time. Then the miracle call came, the Hacienda Hotel. My dad got the job at the Hacienda Hotel. Like I said, he had bounced around. He was a captain at The Marina for a little while, The Marina Hotel, which was a good time. I think when MGM took that over, he lost that job, so there was a little period there. Then the Hacienda came. Same thing, it was a waiter's job for a little while, but then again the captain's book came into play; he had it and he was made captain there. He ended up working for Paul Lowden. It's funny, I just had a conversation with Paul Lowden recently. Paul loved my dad and my dad loved Paul. That was his greatest job. He loved the Hacienda. My dad loved the Hacienda. It was better than the Sahara. He had a good time at the Sahara, but the Hacienda was just a dream job. It was a three-captain job, so they made a lot of money. They had Redd Foxx. They had these great shows. They made a lot of money. It was incredible. This was after the strike had ended? Correct. Why didn't he go back to the Sahara? I think with layoffs and things like that, that job didn't come back into play. He might have went back as a waiter for a little while, but I know the captain gig was over. Tell me about the Culinary Union itself. What was the process? I think my dad did thirty years with the Culinary Union. You had to go down. Again, now that it's all coming back to me, those were tough times. I remember we would sit at the Culinary Union, him and I, and wait for a job posting to come up and there would be nothing come up. 6 For his age and his experience, there was nothing. There were busboys at coffee shops and he was already so far beyond that. He couldn't believe he was starting from scratch again. I remember those times were tough. But you had to sign up. All the jobs, mostly food and beverage service jobs were all Culinary Union. He knew he had to sign up with the Culinary Union, so that was the first thing he did when we moved here. Then, like I said, he ended up at the Hacienda until the very, very last day. In my opinion it's no coincidence that six weeks after they did the implosion of the Hacienda where they knocked the building down—that was kind of famous for doing that; I don't know if you guys have seen that or you don't remember that, but they used to knock these buildings down with fireworks and all that. They knocked the Hacienda down. Six weeks later my dad had a massive heart attack. He knew he wasn't getting a job again. At that point he was probably in his sixties. Certainly maître d' jobs started drying up anyway, and captains. Then that hotel implodes. That really broke his heart. It really broke his heart to the point where I think it gave him a massive heart attack. It's not a coincidence in my eyes. That was his first heart attack. You as a young man, where did you go to school here? For elementary I went to Harley Harmon. For junior high I went mostly to Burkholder. Then I went to Chaparral. Did you do any college? I did about three months of college. We'll back up a little bit if it's okay so I can get into the story. Please. I have three sisters. They're all older than me. The youngest one is twelve years older than me. My dad, when he hit fifty-two, he told my mom, "I want to have a boy; I've got to have a boy." 7 So he has me. I really firmly believe that I was born, they handed me to my dad, he hugged me and he never let go. I feel like he never let go, to the point where he pretty much raised me. I guess we want to be honest in this thing, right? Of course. I didn't have much of a close relationship with my mother. She kind of came and gone. But my dad and I, we were very, very close. Was your mom working outside the home by that time? A little bit. But they had a strange relationship off and on as well. Most of my love and nurturing, quite frankly—I didn't know I was going to get this honest, but I might as well do it—most of the love—and it's unique because usually in the Hispanic Latino culture, it's usually a single mom doing the raising and the nurturing a lot of times. Mine was not like that at all. Mine was kind of odd, but in its own way very beautiful. My father did the best he could and gave me a lot of love and nurturing. But my middle sister, unfortunately or fortunately, had to step in, in a lot of ways, and some days take that motherly role for me and give me love and nurturing. It all turned out beautiful. You asked about college. In ninth grade at Chaparral High School, while I was in high school, we played Bishop Gorman in a football game. We had heard about all these Bishop Gorman girls, and I told my buddy, "Let's go to our game." It was incredible. It was apparently life changing for me. Back then you can walk to the other side. Now they don't let the kids walk to the other side because of gangs and all that, but back then you could. I walked to the Gorman side, I look up, and I literally see this girl, this beautiful blue-green eyes. Wow, it was incredible. She was sitting with an older woman who I assumed was her mother. I told my buddy, "I've got to talk to this girl. I've got to find out who this girl is." 8 I waited until after the game. She came down and her mother was with her. Her mother said, "Hey, I see you staring at my daughter. It's okay if you want to talk to her." I asked her name, and she said, "Mercy Guzman." I said, "Well, my name is Peter Guzman. If we get married, we won't have to change any of our IDs." I said that in ninth grade. But here is where it even gets more unique. Her father was Fidel Guzman. Her father is Fidel Guzman who knew my father in Cuba. It's crazy. They knew each other in Cuba, and here we are and we meet at a football game. That changed my life. We've been married thirty years this year. I often wonder, what if I didn't go to that game, would my life be as blessed as it is today? She was a strong woman. I did a lot of my growing up on 28th Street and Bonanza. Now we're going into a new theme. Twenty-eighth Street and Bonanza was a semi-challenging place, gangs and stuff. There was a lot of love there, a lot of Latino love, but there were definitely some gangs and a lot of other stuff. I went through that period where I was hanging out on 28th Street a lot. My girlfriend, who is now my wife, would pull up and say, "What are you doing? Don't hang out down here. Come on. Come to my house." There was a lot of that going on. We had this boyfriend-girlfriend thing and then we got married. We got married young. I tell people one of the things that the guys always thought is we were going to meet a Gorman girl and it was going to be a rich girl, right? Well, I met the one girl whose dad, Fidel, worked two jobs because he was told when he got here that the American dream is to buy a house and send your daughter to Bishop Gorman. All the Cubans tried to send their kids to Gorman for whatever reason during that era, a lot of Cubans, and he pulled it off. I often tell her, "Out of all the girls I met, I met a middle-class, hard-working." And then she reminds me, "Well, I met a boy from Chaparral. He didn't have no money either." 9 I love it. But we got married at twenty, twenty-one. We didn't have a lot of money, so we had to live our first six months with my dad. He had a two-car garage that was kind of converted; he let us live there. He said to me, "Son, this is no way to start a marriage. I'm not going to charge you any rent. Save every dime you can and go get a house." My wife was at Circus Circus. I was going through the motions. It didn't feel like college was really for me, but I hadn't figured life out really. I just knew I needed to get married because it felt like my wife was not going to wait around forever for me. That's how it kind of feels when you're young like that. We were about six months into living at the house, and she had a good job, so we put a lot of money away in those days, a lot in those days. One day I'm out in the circle and this gentleman starts talking to me and saying, "Hey, man, I'm getting divorced. I'm going to lose my house." I was like, "Okay, I want to talk to you about that." I went to the library and I rented a book on how to do a real estate deal. I ended up negotiating for that house. Man, it was like a light bulb lit up. I was so passionate about doing that deal that I went home, and I said, "Honey, I think I found what I want to do." I was valet parking, making pretty good money. I had the valet parking job at the Sahara Hotel. How did you get a valet parking job? Through my father. One of the Lowdens owned it, so there was a little connection there. You had juice. I had juice. We call it juice; that's right. I made supervisor there very quickly. I loved the job. It was a good job. It paid well. We were making a lot of money. But I knew that's not what I wanted to do forever. I hadn't figured it out yet. 10 Once I did that real estate deal, I changed my shift at the Sahara and I went to real estate school. I went to Coldwell Banker Real Estate School, about a two-year program. I got into real estate and that was the greatest thing I ever did. What is your area of concentration in real estate? Residential and commercial. I started in residential and then built a big team. I don't know if I sent you my bio, but I'm very proud to say that—so I got into real estate. I was the rookie of the year my first year. I ended up being top producer nine years in a row. I became top one percent in the country for Coldwell Banker. I sold over 650 million dollars of real estate. It was crazy. There wasn't another person that looked like me in the office. There were no Hispanic/Latinos in the office. Did they compose your clientele? I was so hungry and motivated. I had to make this work. At this point now my wife is pregnant. For me there was no turning back, so I took any clientele. It just seemed like one domino fell after another. I often tell this story to young people. When I got in the office, I kind of spent some time observing, listening and looking, and I realized that the front desk girl was very, very valuable. Nobody really realized it, but all the phone calls were coming to her. She could send those calls to whatever agents she wanted to. After I was there about a month, I remember buying her a gift card. She was so moved that she said, "Nobody ever did that." All of a sudden, a lot of phone calls started coming my way. It was awesome. But here is a game changer. There was a top producer in the office, and I will never mention his name. He was extremely arrogant, very dismissive. The front desk was told, "Hey, he has seniority; make sure that he's getting a lot of the calls or the walk-ins." We would get 11 walk-ins. True story, one day I walk-in came in and he got the call. He went out front and saw her. Apparently, she didn't fit the mold of somebody who would turn into making deals. Basically, he thought it was going to be a waste of his time. This was an African-American lady. She's still a client of mine. I shouldn't mention names without asking her. She had long nails, a lot of jewelry. She's awesome. He kind of dismissed her and he actually came over to me and said, "Hey, man, I'm extremely busy right now. There's a walk-in over there. Why don't you handle it?" He thought it was funny. Well, I've done twenty-two deals with that lady. When I met her, she had eleven fourplexes on the Westside. She predominately did low-end Section 8 investment properties. She was so intelligent. She had this little niche in this little market and kept growing. We've done twenty-two deals together. That was not only an education for me on how to treat people and how not to underestimate anyone, it happened at the right time. I was only seven months into the business, and it taught me so much. I really consider that a game changer in my life. I love that story. Yes. So, we're married, we've got two kids, real estate is doing well, and she's doing well. We've had a blessed life. Wonderful. Did your wife stop working at some point? No. At this point she starts at Circus Circus with our very dear, good friend Tony Alamo, Sr., who gave her her first job. These are his word, not mine. He says, "Peter, Mercy, you give me too much credit. I just opened the door, but you, Mercy, have done the rest." She stayed twenty years with Tony Alamo, Bill Bennett, that whole group. She opened Mandalay Bay for the company. That's when she reached the highest level of her job—she just loved it—was opening the Mandalay Bay. Tony cracked the door open. He put her on graveyard because she was still 12 going to school. They call it the graveyard because that's where you'll end up if you do it too long, but she did it. I remember our proudest moment, and we got to share this with Tony Alamo who was right there, she got the Executive of the Company of the Year at the Mandalay Bay, and they gave her a big, big check for that and a big gala and Tony Alamo gave a big speech. It was a beautiful thing. But ironically, can you imagine? Her dad gave my dad his first job. It's amazing. Tell me about your own child rearing after you were reared by your father in such a special way. Yes. In retrospect—and I know this is really personal stuff, but this is good—the closeness that I did not have with my mother is not all her fault either. Literally my dad did grab me from the hospital, and it felt like he never let me go. I think that created some jealousy and animosity. It's kind of weird because your parents shouldn't be jealous but looking back and learning more—I never got to meet my grandparents on my father's side; they died in Cuba, so they never came here. I never met my grandmother on my mother's side because she passed away young, so I only met my grandfather. I think there's issues there with my grandfather and my mother and my uncle who he gave a lot of love to. I think my mother saw the same thing happening again and maybe that created a little animosity. For whatever reason, there wasn't a real warm and fuzzy feeling growing up. Honestly, I can't say that I remember a lot of warm and fuzzies from my mother. I just remember them from my dad and from my middle sister a lot. But they were still great years. We had great Christmases. My dad did the best he could. We didn't have a whole lot of money until much later when he got that captain maître d' job. By then I was already a teenager and doing my own things. I had a good childhood. I had good Christmases. I always felt like there was a little something missing, especially after I met my wife 13 because we were fifteen years old when we met and it was old-school traditional, man. The first year I was only allowed to see her Saturdays and Sundays at her house. Her dad made me come to their house and I would spend Saturday and Sunday with them. Ironically, it was some of the most beautiful times that I ever had, like things that we just weren't doing at my house so much because it was just my dad. I would go to church. They introduced me to church mostly, Saint Anne's. Sunday was just a blessed day for my father-in-law. It was a traditional day. He never worked on Sundays. He always made sure he had Sunday-Monday off. I remember these great meals at my in-laws' house. What kind of food? Arroz y pollo, rice and chicken. Picadillo, which is a ground beef dish. Frijoles negros, black beans. There was Salsa music always playing in the house. My sister-in-law, she was just the biggest dancer you would ever see. It was a real traditional Cuba. The most traditional Cuba family style stuff that I saw was actually at my in-laws', as boyfriend and girlfriend, a little more than at my own house. A lot of it, the age difference, too, with my sisters. By then my oldest sister had already gotten married and moved out. My middle sister is just kind of doing the mom thing, but still has her life. My younger sister, who is twelve years older, she had a boyfriend, and so she was into that. I didn't see some of the same traditions that we saw at my in-laws'. Since we are talking about traditions, what were some of the others, like festivals and other things like that that you participated in? There was a thing called Circulo Cubano. Circulo Cubano, remember that word. Otto [Merida] talks a lot about Circulo Cubano. If you (talk to) Tony Alamo, Sr., and please mention to him that I did this, he could talk about Circulo Cubano. Circulo Cubano translates to Cuban Circle. It 14 was a clubhouse where all the Cuban families would meet and hang out and play dominos. I remember the original one was on Maryland and Tropicana. I don't know where it went after that. Trop and Maryland Parkway, there was a little strip mall that's still there and there was a Circulo Cubano there. We'd all show up there and we'd run around. I know that I ran into my wife many, many times as little kids, six, seven years old. We'd all be running around this place and the old guys would be playing dominos. That was very traditional. That was cool. Circulo Cubano actually was the energy in Otto forming the Latin Chamber of Commerce. The building was owned by whom? I think they just rented. You paid a fee. Everybody paid an association fee to be Circulo Cubano. I don't know how the rules and regulations and all that were. Tony Alamo, Sr., or Otto would be definitely good at that. Tom Rodriguez will probably know a little about Circulo Cubano, so you might want to mention that to him. Good, I will. It was a tight-knit little group. The Cubans that came here were a little less political and a little more under the radar than the Miami Cubans. That's why a lot of the Cubans that landed in Miami, the ones that didn't want to be so political, they came here. Otto, then, starting the chamber, what about his politics? Otto came over here on a Peter Pan program. There was a program called Peter Pan. He was political. Yes, he was political. He was instrumental in Circulo Cubano. That was a great little festival. Out of that they would bring dances here. Celia Cruz, I don't know if you've ever heard of her, Celia Cruz. You've got to look her up. That's the queen of salsa. We'd bring her here. I remember seeing her at eight, nine, ten years old at the Frontier Hotel, great, great concerts. Then we'd meet a lot at the Italian American Club. There was a time where we lost the 15 location, so then it all moved into the Italian American Club and hanging out there an