Luis F. Valera interview, January 23, 2019: transcript

i AN INTERVIEW WITH LUIS F. VALERA III An Oral History Conducted by Nathalie Martinez & Laurents Bañuelos-Benitez 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 Luis F. Valera during his oral history interview in the Oral History Research Center at Lied Library, January 23, 2019. Luis F. Valera III is the Vice President for Government Affairs for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. As a member of the UNLV President’s cabinet, Valera is an integral part of the administration leadership team, holding decision making authority over major university-wide initiatives, budget priorities, and implementation of the institution’s vision and mission. He is charged with planning, developing, and executing, through multifaceted collaborative efforts, the strategic advocacy plan for the university at the county, state, and federal levels and promoting excellence at UNLV through public policies, equity, student and faculty diversity programs, and inclusion. In this oral history, Valera shares the incremental steps, experiences, and relationships that have prepared him for this role. Valera’s background is rich with stories from his Venezuelan father, Luis, a chiropractor, and his Cuban mother, Ruth, a business manager. Growing up, he astutely navigated the bilingual world and adjusted whenever the family relocated, whether it was in Los Angeles or Miami. v His aspiration to pursue a medical degree changed after attending a political fundraiser in south Florida and he switched his sights to a law degree. In 1994, he moved to Las Vegas and enrolled in UNLV. He was active leader in many organizations such as SOL, Latin Youth Conference, and M.E.Ch.A., and became UNLV’s student body vice president. Along the way, his mentors grew to include a long list of local Latinx leaders, and eventually Valera served as Chairman of the Board of the Latin Chamber of Commerce (2010-2012). In 2011, he was honored as the Arturo Cambeiro Hispanic of the Year. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Interview with Luis F. Valera III January 23, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Nathalie Martinez Preface………………………………………………………………………………………..iv - v Ancestral roots in Venezuela (father) and Cuban (mother) talked about; father used a scholarship to study chiropractic medicine in Davenport, Iowa in 1968; mother received a communications degree; recalls the immigration stories from Cuba, settling in Los Angeles; parents met in California when his father received a sports medicine degree from Pepperdine. Father’s profession takes several turns, served as a personal physician to Venezuelan President Jaime Lusinchi in 1980s. Reflects on the inspiration of his Uncle Eduardo on both him and his father; remains politically active in Venezuela. Talks about his bilingual challenges when school aged and moving multiple times between Los Angeles and Miami; moves to Las Vegas in 1994 to attend. Chavez regime’s impact on his family………………………………………………………………....1 – 6 Talks about being raised with both Cuban and Venezuelan cultures; their similarities; dealing with being a non-Mexican Hispanic in Los Angeles, not being welcomed into the student organization M.E.Ch.A. while attending College of the Canyons in Valencia, CA. Speaks about importance of religion—considered Catholic, though his mother was raised a Baptist and he attended Baptist schools; about Baptists in the Hispanic community. Holidays, bilingual family, favorite foods served at home………………………………………………………………………………..6 – 10 Talks about his college career, thinking he would be premed, attending a Miami fundraiser for Lincoln Díaz-Balart (former U.S. Representative for Florida’s 21st district); and making the personal decision to get into politics and to pursue a law degree; decision to attend UNLV in 1994; and making Las Vegas his home, surprised by the size of the local Cuban population. Move to Washington, D.C. [1998-1999]. Describes 1994 Las Vegas that he moved to; billboard anecdote from an experience lobbying for UNLV funding at the State Assembly and learning how the northern Nevada perceives southern Nevada. Mentions Hispanic leaders he encountered: Fernando Romero, Otto Merida, Manny Cortez, Eddie Escobedo. Mentions his roles in youth leadership as vice president of SOL; Latino Youth Leadership Conference; Latin Chamber of Commerce; friendship with Mateo Nares who was local leader of M.E.Ch.A. Talks about becoming UNLV Student Body vice president; Carol Harter, Terry Moore; value of CSUN experience.…...11 – 17 While a UNLV student, worked retail at Caesars Palace; story of father’s contributions; talks about his time in Washington, DC working for congressman John Ensign and then a lobbying firm; national pride instilled by his parents; entered Boyd Law School and worked as a financial planner when he returned to Las Vegas; gaming lobbyist by end of law school; invitation to apply for his vii current position in government relations for UNLV. Provides detailed overview of his vice president position…………………………………………………………………………....18 – 21 Describes family visits to Venezuela while growing up, Cuban visits came starting in 2010; convinced his mother to return for a visit to Havana; her observations. More about Boyd Law School, being one a few Latinos there; his path to becoming chairman of the board of the Latin Chamber of Commerce [2010-2012]; important friendship with Tony Sanchez; Hispanics in Politics. Describes challenges during the recession that coincided with his LCC tenure; impact of recession on Latinx community, story from Gov. Kenny Guinn…………………………...21 – 24 Talks about his work as the Public Utilities Commissioner in 2011; Gov. Brian Sandoval interrupts his plan to work in Foreign Service in the US State Department; describes his duties in that position; about being president of the Nevada Tourism Alliance; about his current position as vice president of Government Affairs for UNLV and the priorities such as funding for medical school, a new building for the College of Engineering; meaningfulness of being a top tier research institution to alumni; a look at next goals for the university, Hailey’s Hand……………….24 – 29 Shares his humbleness of receiving the Arturo Cambeiro Hispanic of the Year Award; subtle relationship with LCC today as a past leader; initiatives specifically for UNLV’s Latinx students and what he would like to see done, unique challenge to reach out to the parents of future students; how Latinx student organizations are helping find potential future leaders. Talks about importance of travel and exposing his children to different languages and culture; using family time with his parents…………………………………………………………………………………...….30 – 34 Conversation turns to current events in Venezuela, corruption of Nicolás Maduro and Hugo Chavez. Talks about local Venezuelan restaurants and community; feeling of safety in Cuba when he visits, though you know you are being watched. Describes the multi-cultural world of his older children, involving them in Latino Leadership Conference. He shares his thoughts about the value of the Latinx Voices Project…………………………………………………………………33 – 41 viii 1 This is Nathalie Martinez. The date is January 23, 2019, and we’re here in the UNLV Oral Research History Center. Today we are here with Luis Valera, and we are here also with… Laurents Bañuelos -Benitez. And Barbara Tabach. Could you please spell your name and introduce yourself? My name is Luis Felipe Valera Diaz, III. L-U-I-S. Felipe, F-E-L-I-P-E. Valera, V-A-L-E-R-A. Diaz, D-I-A-Z. Thank you. For the first question I’d like to ask you, how do you identify yourself ethnically? Ethnically I’m Hispanic. I am the son of immigrants. Where were your parents from? My father was born in a small town in Venezuela in the eastern part of Venezuela in Barcelona, and my mother was born in Havana, Cuba. What can you tell me about them and their childhood in Venezuela and Cuba? My father grew up in very humble surroundings. He was actually born in the house that he was raised in. He was physically born in the house. My grandmother actually had thirteen children, seven of whom lived, and my father is the oldest of his siblings. He grew up wanting to become a civil engineer, but there weren’t very many opportunities to do so, and he eventually found a scholarship through the federal government of Venezuela and came to study chiropractic in Iowa, of all places. BARBARA: Des Moines? Davenport. Palmer Chiropractic College, which is the first chiropractic school in North America; that was where he went to school, Davenport, Iowa, on a scholarship. 2 LAURENTS: What year was that? That would have been 1968, I want to say, 1967 or ’68. Obviously, he immigrated as a student and eventually became a citizen. My mother, from Havana, Cuba, came over with her parents as a child and stayed permanently right after the revolution, the Castro revolution. After I graduated from high school, my mother went back to school and finished her degree in communications. How old was she when she immigrated here? My grandfather was the first one to come. Actually, her father, who grew up on the easternmost side of Cuba in Santiago de Cuba was a farmer, a rancher, and he also had a lot of siblings. He wanted to come to the United States, and so he got a degree in mechanics through a correspondence course and eventually became a mechanic for—I don’t know how you say it in English, but it’s (Spanish/3:52). I’ve actually seen them. It is a massive structure. It is literally about half the size of this building and it is a massive machine that grinds the sugarcanes into the puree. But these machines are constantly breaking down and constantly needing maintenance and fixing, and so he went to school for that and then went on to get certification to work on planes and ended up coming to the United States to finish out a course and worked on planes during the Second World War and during the Korean War for American planes and the back and forth. He had his own business in Havana; had his own taxicab company. Eventually they immigrated here permanently with my mom and my uncle. Did they go to Florida? They didn’t stay in Florida. They went to L.A. Like any good Cuban, I have plenty of family in Miami, but they never stayed there. They went to L.A. and made their home in L.A., in the San Fernando Valley. 3 How did your mom and dad eventually make their way to Las Vegas? They met when they were in their early twenties. My father had graduated from college and eventually went on to get an additional degree in sports medicine in L.A. in Pepperdine University. At one point, after I was born in L.A., moved back to Venezuela when I was about three months old and we lived there until I was six or seven before moving back to the United States. With his degree and because of his profession, he was actually the physician for the Venezuelan Olympic team in the 1984 Olympics in L.A. and, obviously, we ended up staying in L.A. We somehow moved back and forth between L.A. and Miami a number of times because he got licensed in both California and Florida, and so he had his practice in both. What was it like growing up in Venezuela? At the time it was great. At the time it was the wealthiest country in South America because of the oil production and a lot of the commerce that was happening there. It was a very different time. Caracas was a very modern city and there was very little distinction between L.A. and Caracas, all the modern comforts. It was fun. I was a child, but I don’t remember going without. It was a comfortable living for the time. But when we moved back to L.A., it was a little bit more challenging. We lived with my mom’s parents until I was about twelve or thirteen. We all lived in the same house, a very small house, while my dad was finishing up school. What part of L.A.? In the San Fernando Valley. We lived in Mission Hills for a number of years and then finally, when my parents were able to afford it, we moved into our own house. LAURENTS: Who was in power while you were in Venezuela? 4 I believe it was Pérez Jiménez, I believe so. Then in the early eighties when Jaime Lusinchi came to power, my dad—and I don’t know how this happened—but he ended up becoming the president’s personal physician. Your father. My father. Reflecting on it now, it was just amazing. But he was his personal physician for a number of years while he was president. The president would come to L.A. to come see my father sometimes, which is a tremendous privilege for the whole family. How did he get into that position? My uncle who was the one who inspired me, my father’s brother Eduardo was the one who inspired me to go to law school. He was very politically active. He had a lot of political connections. I think he made that introduction for my father to have that opportunity, and so he took it. Going to school there, what was daily life in Caracas? Like I said, I was a child, so I don’t remember a whole lot. It was very normal. It was a lot of the same routines that one would have here because, again, Caracas being just a modern city, very wealthy country at the time. There weren’t any safety issues. There weren’t any issues of resources; everything was available at the time. We lived in an apartment. Everything seemed normal, nothing strange about living there. I didn’t learn English until later in my childhood. But it was a comfortable life. Being the only grandchild for a long time, I didn’t have any cousins. Growing up with my dad’s side of the family and his brothers and sisters, so I was kind of spoiled in that sense. What was it like coming to the education system in L.A. not knowing the language? 5 Again, I don’t have any direct memory of it. I remember my teacher when we first moved back to L.A. My teacher approached my mother, concerned that I might have a learning disability and proposed that I be put in a special needs class. My mother responded, “No. He doesn’t have any mental handicaps; he just doesn’t speak English.” At the time there wasn’t ESL or anything else or ELL or any of that stuff, so I just had to figure it out. It was a little bit harder than it should have been, but I got there eventually. It was a little bit of a culture, just as a child and not really knowing what’s going on, but I eventually learned. How long were you in L.A. until you moved to Miami? We moved four different times throughout elementary school, junior high school, high school; we moved back and forth several times. My father wanted to really launch a practice in Miami so that he could be closer to Venezuela, and for a period he was able to do that so that he could see his family, because his dream was always to move back eventually, obviously to return victorious; to come back with an established profession and money and all that, and that never really happened. In fact, he was in Caracas at the time, in the same apartment that we lived in, when the Chávez coup happened. I guess he was standing in his apartment near the window, watching what was happening, when a bullet came through the window of the apartment because of the fighting that was going on in the streets. That definitely made things a lot more difficult, if not impossible, to move back. We ended up staying in Miami, and then I eventually, having grown tired of moving back and forth, I moved to Vegas in 1994 for school. 6 LAURENTS: Because your family was involved politically in Venezuela with your uncle and your father being the physician for the president, what impact did the Chávez revolution have, especially on your uncle that was more involved? Today my uncle is part of the resistance movement in Venezuela. He has remained somewhat politically active. He is still a practicing attorney there. It made things very difficult for my father and his family, our family, in the sense being—and I actually have two aunts that were supporting the Chávez government and their spouses were members of the military, so they were in support of the revolution. That obviously had a pretty serious impact on the family and how we were able to share time together. Yes, it made if tough. It made it very tough because not being supporters of the Chávez regime, a lot of things were taken away, property and land and things. Your family lost property? Yes. Growing up in Los Angeles, how was the mesh between Venezuelan culture and Cuban culture growing up? Obviously, a lot more of my mom’s side of the family was in L.A., so I grew up with a lot of the Cuban customs and the Cuban heritage in that sense. The Venezuelan culture and the Cuban culture are very similar, food, the accent is a Caribbean accent, and a lot of the same words for things. There wasn’t so much of a clash between the Venezuelan and the Cuban cultures. It was more being the anomaly; being Hispanic, but not of Mexican descent being in L.A. I think that was probably what I remember most. 7 What experiences do you have with that? When you communicate in Spanish with other Hispanic folks and your accent doesn’t sound like theirs, or you don’t have the same words for the same things, or the same customs, and so that was a stark contrast for me growing up. I remember shortly after high school being attracted to a student organization, M.E.Ch.A., which you may be familiar with. But as soon as I spoke Spanish, they knew I was not part of the group, and being asked to leave because I wasn’t a member, so to speak, so that was impactful. They didn’t let you in the organization? No, because they felt that I was just not to be included. Was that M.E.Ch.A. in L.A.? In L.A. I was in a community college at the time. I just wasn’t invited back. What attracted you initially to the organization? Just the message of being more politically active and being a voice for the Hispanic community and learning things that I wasn’t taught in school whether it was Native American history throughout Latin America or a different perspective on Columbus and the Spaniards and all those things, I think just initially attracted me. Were there any other organizations prior that you had been involved with? No. Which community college was this in L.A.? College of the Canyons in Valencia, California. If you’ve ever been to Magic Mountain that’s where it is. Was religion a big part of your life growing up with your family? 8 Very. I was baptized in the Catholic Church as soon as that was physically possible. Actually, my mother grew up in a Baptist home. The Protestant movement was a major movement in the Caribbean, especially in Cuba before the revolution. She grew up Baptist and it wasn’t until later in life that she converted to Catholicism. But, yes, through elementary school and part of high school, I went to a Baptist elementary school and I went to a Baptist high school even though my father’s side was practicing Catholic and we all end up going back the Catholic Church. It was kind of a strange path. Was there Sunday mass every Sunday? Sunday church because we would go to a Baptist church. Yes, it was almost every Sunday. We grew up in a church home. My grandfather started a Baptist church in the Hispanic community. This pastor was a gentleman from Costa Rica. It was a pretty large church that my mother’s father funded. It was around for a long time. The Latino population in the Baptist Church, what was the community like? In that church it was a lot of what my grandfather’s family, his brothers and sisters and their families, but certainly we had a lot of Central American and Mexican families that would attend the church as well, so it was diverse in that sense in that the nationalities were diverse. The name of the church Sinai Baptist Church. Were there any other Latino traditions that you had growing up? For example, I know primarily Mexico and Central America celebrate quinceañera. Did you ever attend a quinceañera? Yes, we certainly had quinceañeras. We would celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve; Nochebuena was more important than Christmas Day itself. That was the night that we would get together and have dinner and then stay up until midnight and open presents and all those things. 9 Yes, we had a lot of the same traditions that you all might recognize in most Latin American countries. We spoke Spanish at home. We didn’t speak English at home. Even in L.A. and Miami, we didn’t speak English at home, really. Are your parents bilingual? Yes, they are bilingual, yes, they both are. What did you have for dinner for Nochebuena? My grandmother would always make arroz relleno, which was what she enjoyed making. We would always have porco; we would always have pig. It was very well processed. LAURENTS: Could you describe those dishes, especially arroz relleno? Yes. It’s kind of like a rice with mayonnaise mixed with peas and chicken, but it’s baked. It would take her a long time to make it. Then on my dad’s side we would always have what is traditional in Venezuela, which is a lot of the same dishes, but it’s called ayaka, but basically it’s like a tamale and stuffed with green olives and chicken and raisins. They come in a different assortment. You keep going back to Venezuela and Cuba have almost the same culture. Is there historical context for that or coincidence? I think it is geography mainly and climate. They are both tropical countries. They both have a lot of the same industry, as far as agriculture, a lot of the same exports. Obviously, what makes Venezuela stand out is the oil reserves. My grandfather, even as a child, would accompany his father on ships from Cuba to Venezuela because they would trade livestock. Ironically, he would got to Venezuela as a child to accompany his dad for those commercial trips. Like I said, he grew up as a rancher, as a farmer. 10 Do you think politics played a role in Venezuela as well? It was documented that Fidel and Hugo had this close relationship. Did that play a role in those two countries coming closer together in cultures? Well, no. I think the cultures were independent. They were very similar, but definitely the politics—without going too deep into all of that I think Venezuela suffered from a lot of class warfare and the corruption within the two main parties really made it ripe for the type of revolution that happened. When the socialist revolution happened in Venezuela, Hugo Chávez found himself a bit over his head and I think the natural step was to go to Fidel—both of them, both Castros—for guidance, kind of, how do you do this? They certainly taught him how to do it. A lot of the same formulas were applied and a lot of the same measures were applied to the revolution and the governing part of it, so there was certainly a close tie that still exists today. You touched on this briefly just a moment ago with the language; some of your words would be different. We like to capture that in these interviews, especially from other countries. What are some of those words that Venezuelans or Cubans have that other countries don’t use and you found yourself…? Black beans. In Cuba you say frijoles negros, but in Venezuela they say caraotas. I don’t know why. It’s just called caraotas; that means black beans. Popcorn is palomita in Cuba. In Venezuela they call it cotufa. I could go on. It is little things like that. Sometimes you have to straddle both cultures and know who you are talking to so that you can communicate effectively. But there is more overlap than there are distinctions between the Cuban and Venezuelan cultures in language, customs; things like that. 11 After graduating from high school, what happened after that? I was premed. I had convinced myself that I was going to go to medical school. I think I was doing it more to please my parents more than anything else. Was that here at UNLV? No. That was in a community college where I was taking a lot of science courses, obviously, because it is for premed. We had moved back to Miami. I don’t remember how we got there, but I attended a fundraiser for a member of congress; his name is Lincoln Díaz-Balart, a former congressman. His brother is still a congressman in Miami and his other brother is actually the news anchor for Telemundo in the evenings; that’s Mario. But Lincoln Díaz-Balart is actually the nephew of Fidel Castro, but he was a staunch Republican, longtime member of congress. Anyway, we attended this fundraiser where he gave a thundering speech. He clearly was coming from his heart. He was very inspired in that moment. It was weird, just kind of a switch went off and I realized right then and there that I wanted to go into politics; I didn’t want to go to medical school. I struggled with that internally because I was afraid of disappointing my family. But I remember when I told parents, I said, “I don’t think I want to go to medical school.” You could kind of feel the oxygen leave the room. My asked calmly, after she collected herself she said, “Well, what do you want to do?” I said, “I’d rather go to law school.” And then everybody exhaled. It was kind of like, okay. “Why?” “Well, I want to go into politics. I’d rather be in the political arena than go into medicine.” And off I went. I changed majors. I knew I needed to move out of the house and leave Miami. I had actually been accepted to a couple of schools on the West Coast. I wanted to come back to the West Coast. I had been accepted to some schools in California: UCLA; Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo; and a school in San Francisco, also; and UNLV. But they all had me starting for the 12 fall of the next year, but UNLV accepted me for that spring. I came here and I figured I’d probably do a semester and then move on to California. I never left. Why? I liked it here, I really did. To my surprise, it was a pretty healthy Cuban population that I didn’t expect. I got immediately involved in politics here in Nevada and stayed. I ended up living in the dorms and getting involved in student government and being a student lobbyist for the university, going up to Carson City to lobby for the students. I stayed in student government where I was elected student body vice president. Looking back on it and how silly it was, but we actually impeached the student body president at the time. Anyway, after graduating I moved to D.C. to work on Capitol Hill for a couple of years where I worked for the congressman who was representing Southern Nevada at the time, John Ensign. He was a House member. I worked for him for a couple of years and then came back for law school here. What year did you start your studies here? In ’94. I moved here in ’94 and switched to political science. You mentioned that there was a more concentrated Cuban population. Yes. I wasn’t expecting it, yes. What did you expect, actually? Just more of what I would expect out of L.A., just a stronger Mexican, Mexican American population, Central American. I certainly didn’t expect the number of Cubans and Puerto Ricans that I found here and that I connected to pretty quickly, not too long after moving here. That was a pleasant surprise, I guess, in a way, because I was embraced. 13 LAURENTS: What were your first impressions of the city when you got here? It was small, very small. Having grown up in L.A. and Miami, I thought, wow, this is a really small place. You’ve got to remember when I moved here, the edge of town was Rainbow. You could get to Charleston and Rainbow and after Rainbow, Charleston was a two-lane road that you could take all the way to Red Rock. That was a long time ago. BARBARA: Yes. In ’94, we weren’t even a million people. No. We were barely a million. We were scraping a million. LAURENTS: Could you describe the area around UNLV? You said you lived in the dorms, right? I lived in the dorms. I lived in Boyd and then I lived in the D Building; I don’t know if it has a name now, but we referred to it as Balconies. Could you describe the university and the surrounding area at the time? Yes. It was a lot less traffic, a lot less people, a lot less students here. It just felt like a smaller community. To watch it grow, especially in the period that I watched it grow where it just boomed, it was fascinating. It was fun to watch the expansion of the city and the sophistication of the city, both good and bad. But it was a very small-town mentality. I remember one time as a student we went up to Carson City to lobby for funding for the university. It wasn’t too long after the Excalibur had been built and the Luxor was coming online. We went up to Carson to lobby the legislature for more funding, and on the way from Reno to Carson, I saw this huge billboard with this beautiful view of the snowcapped mountains and the lake. Across the bottom it said, “Build this, Las Vegas,” kind of taunting that we have natural beauty that you guys don’t have in the south. That was kind of the “welcome to the north” that I received and I thought, wow, they’re not too friendly up here; they don’t like us 14 southerners too much up here. To see how we were perceived, I think that was a culture shock, too. Watching how Northern Nevada just perceives the south and continues to was fascinating. But that was one of those moments where the boom was still happening here and we were building casinos like there was no tomorrow and the housing market was just going crazy. Watching that growth was fascinating. But to answer your question, it was a much smaller community then and the Hispanic community certainly was much smaller, the leadership structure was more identifiable, there was a clear short list of community leaders. I don’t know if it was more through tradition or other things, but they identified themselves as the leaders of the Hispanic community. Could you mention them? Sure. Fernando Romero. I’m sure you guys either have interviewed him or— BARBARA: He’s up here. There he is. There is Fernando. Fernando is the head of Hispanics In Politics. He was a leader at the time and still is, I think. Otto Merida was at the time the CEO of the Latin Chamber of Commerce. I think those are the two principle leaders. Manny Cortez, obviously, who has since passed away, and given his political history and his position at the time with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, he was almost one of those people that you heard about a lot, but you never actually got to see him. I think I met him twice. It was just a unique experience to actually see him because people talked about him so much and in such a way, so that was interesting. LAURENTS: What would they say about him? He was clearly an authority. He was somebody to be respected and to be appreciated. Of course, Eddie Escobedo, having the newspaper at the time, which was really the only newspaper in 15 Spanish, the only major news publication in Spanish at the time, was very much seen and respected as a leader of the community. Knowing these names, did you interact with these people frequently? I interacted fo