At 12 o’clock, the Miami sun at the beginning of February is strong enough to appreciate the hospitality of those who, as soon as they stepped foot in the Argentine Consulate – formally, the General Consulate and Promotion Center of the Argentine Republic in Miami – receive all visitors offering something to drink, and the right air conditioning.
The representation of the Argentine (what a challenge) begins with the smile of the staff, and the helpful disposition with which Juliana Hecker makes sure that you want to return tomorrow. “The Argentine Consulate is, in a way, your home, so welcome,” she, responsible for the promotion of national culture, had written to me days before, via email.
Now, waiting in a hall in front of the consul’s office, coffee in hand, next to the photographer, we managed to materialize that expression of desire.
The same comes from Leandro Fernández – Suárez. Except for the impeccable punctuality with which he receives us (perhaps that is not one of our outstanding features), everything in him reflects not only the intention of transmitting the warmth and simplicity with which we usually know how to be hosts, but also leaves reveal his extensive diplomatic career, which led him to live in different countries, always trying to disseminate the best of Argentina “to generate quality work and investment for our compatriots.”
In his own terms, he came to Miami surprising “because I realized that this city is much more than sun and shopping (…) and the Argentine community here is so large and well positioned, that the daily challenge is to see how we help to the almost eight hundred thousand Argentines who arrive in the State of Florida every year” –not counting those who do so with passports from other countries, even though they were born in the homeland of San Martín y Belgrano–.
Although the Consulate promotes Argentine business and cultural activity in all its range, the talk revolves around the political decision of the mayor of Miami, Francis Suárez, to turn the city into a technological hub.
In fact, that is what led entrepreneurs like Alejandro Resnik (Belong) and Juan Manuel Barrero (Lazo) to settle in the city that knew how to shelter tourists and basically real estate investment, but which, after the health crisis, turned around.
“I believe that the mayor’s decision goes hand in hand with what we are experiencing in a pandemic –analyzes Fernández-Suárez– because here the truth is that, as it is an open city, everything was experienced with fewer restrictions and less feeling of confinement than in other places; that will change internally, that is, many North Americans moved to this side at that time. And, without a doubt, the mayor’s policies in matters, for example, taxes, help us to receive Latino entrepreneurs of all kinds today”.
In this regard, it is enough to remember that in May of last year, while the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk was being completed, the mayor of Miami made public his desire that the company move its offices to Miami with the understanding that the turnaround Musk would give the company the blue bird “fits very well with the values of the Miami brand,” Suárez said in a television interview. Furthermore, the head of the Miami Executive assured that he also held talks with Apple and Cisco seeking to tempt their managers.
The open community where an event takes place almost every day, in which entrepreneurs in a certain field meet to meet in person and exchange ideas (what in business language is called networking, and which is essential for technological startups) is one of the factors that makes the migratory phenomenon pointed out by the consul noticeable, and not only by Americans.
Anabella Bergero, an Argentine fashion designer who has already been photographed in this series, had explained her relocation from New York to South Florida in those same terms.
“We take the country brand as high as possible, and in fact in the audiovisual field we are doing very well as a community –explains Fernández-Suárez without losing his smile– and I commented last week, in the fifth edition of the Ibero-American Film Festival , that with the premiere of Argentina, 1985 and the envoy of the World Cup, we could think of our third Oscar ”.
Because the Argentine celebration for winning the World Cup was seen in Miami Beach with drums, blocking avenues and all the color typical of fanaticism demonstrated by the five million people who took to the streets in the pampas of South America.
The conversation goes on calmly, in Brickell, with the imposing buildings looming through the window in one of the most opulent areas of this little piece of land on the Atlantic. Fernández-Suárez does not hide his pleasure in repairing part of his career as a diplomat, and his current vicissitudes.
However, he looks up and points to a photo on the shelf in the office. “One of the greatest pride I have been since I took on this challenge is having set up the Argentine School in Miami, which today is full of Argentine kids who go every Saturday to soak up the culture of the country of their origins,” he affirms.
No one is unaware of the vicissitudes of emigration, just as it is impossible to turn one’s back on the reasons that explain the movements of families that seek better lives.
But in those processes, thinking about those who have their whole lives ahead of them and whose hands we take them with tremendous responsibility, is no less.
In good time, the Argentine School in Miami offers a moment every weekend so that boys and girls of Argentine origin know that their identity is based on an idiosyncrasy that they do not experience on a daily basis, among palm trees, splendor and Spanglish, but that flows through their veins. by the force of history.
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