Dennis Martinez Miranda, a chef at the fashionable Cuban restaurant Cubanidad 1885, said that it was financial alternative that first introduced him to the Las Vegas space.
Like many Cubans, Martinez Miranda initially came to the U.S. because he was fleeing political turmoil. In the early 2010s, he first settled in Miami — a metropolis recognized for its enormous Cuban diaspora — but it was Las Vegas that afforded him the alternative to open his own restaurant with his buddies.
“Around eight years in, I moved to Las Vegas because I met my business partners,” Martinez Miranda, 47, said in a Spanish-language interview with The Nevada Independent at one of his three restaurant places. On a late weekday afternoon, the restaurant was sprinkled with prospects and cooking smells wafted from the kitchen. Martinez Miranda would sometimes stop to communicate with workers in Spanish, asking them to put together espresso or help with other duties.
“It was a challenge, but really it was an opportunity for us to prosper, as we Cubans like to say,” he added.
Martinez Miranda is one of hundreds of Cubans dwelling in Nevada — a development that has taken off across the previous decade. The Associated Press not too long ago launched information from U.S. Customs and Border Protection on the self-reported locations of 4.5 million migrants after crossing the Mexican border between October 2018 and September 2025.
A Nevada Independent evaluation of that information discovered that Nevada had the second highest share of Cuban migrants at 41 %, trailing only Kentucky.
Valerie Lacarte, a senior coverage analyst at the Migration Policy Institute who research Cuban migration trends, said the numbers do not shock her. Recent adjustments in U.S. immigration coverage have made it so more Cubans are migrating to the Southwest, instead of conventional hotbeds such as Miami, she said. A collapsing financial system has also pushed more Cubans to migrate in current years, main to one of the largest exoduses in the nation’s historical past.
“There’s the economic condition that deteriorated…That was accompanied by political dissatisfaction,” Lacarte said. “There were a lot of factors in Cuba that have provoked the outflow of Cubans all over the region.”
In explicit, Lacarte pointed to the finish of the longstanding “wet foot, dry foot” coverage in 2017. Under that coverage, any Cuban that touched U.S. soil was allowed to keep and ultimately become a legal resident. The finish of that coverage and other components shifted the essential portal of Cuba-to-U.S. migration from Florida to Central America and Mexico.
She added that many who have not too long ago come to the United States may not have the same ties to the Cuban diaspora in Florida, and may be more open to financial alternatives elsewhere.
That dynamic is at play in Houston, another space that Lacarte studied. Houston has become home to one of the nation’s most vibrant Cuban communities, something that has been partly pushed by Houston’s affordability, an attribute that could also account for Clark County’s attraction.
A signal of this financial optimism is Nevada’s Latin Chamber of Commerce. The chamber was based in 1976 by Cuban entrepreneur Otto Merida as a method to help the Latino neighborhood in Clark County construct its political and social energy. The chamber’s present president is Peter Guzman, who migrated from Cuba at 2 years previous after his father lost his job.
“What I hope for the next 50 years to the Latin chamber is continue to push a dignified life for all Latinos, for all immigrants, to help them reach the dream, the American dream,” Guzman said at a current celebration of the chamber’s fiftieth anniversary. The Latin Chamber of Commerce did not reply to an interview request from The Indy.
All of the Cuban migration to the Silver State has occurred in Southern Nevada. More than 50 % of Las Vegas’ migrant population is made of Cuban immigrants and they make up about 45 % of that population in Henderson.
Martinez Miranda said that he has been afforded quite a few financial alternatives while dwelling in Southern Nevada. His restaurant not too long ago supplied catering providers to the Las Vegas Raiders and he has been in a position to open a number of places thanks to the restaurant’s success.
He said that he knows of many other native Cuban companies that are likewise thriving, including the close by restaurant Carlito’s Cuban Food. He said that he’s been happy to uncover that Las Vegas is as welcoming as Miami.
“I’ve been surprised,” Martinez Miranda said. “There’s been a lot of Cuban community here.”