Worldandnation: 'Little Buenos Aires' booms in Miami

[Times photo: David Adams]
"Argentina is like the Titanic," said Roberto Brignes, owner of the It's sinking fast and everyone is jumping overboard. People are looking for a life jacket and for many of us that's what Miami has become.

By DAVID ADAMS

MIAMI BEACH -- When deli owner Roberto Brignes left Argentina with his wife a decade ago, he turned his back on government promises of a bright economic future.

"Now all my friends back home tell me they are just beginning to realize how right I was," he said. "We were visionaries."

Brignes might have been a pioneer among his countrymen, but no longer is he alone.

Almost unnoticed, Argentines have been arriving in Miami in dramatic numbers in recent months. Fleeing a 3-year-old recession, they are the newest -- and perhaps least expected -- arrivals on Florida's shores.

[AP photo]
Adela Walberg, left, and Juan Pablo watch a soccer match on satellite at Baires Grill, a South Beach bar that is a popular meeting place for the growing Argentine population in Miami.

The Argentine invasion, as some are calling it, is almost imperceptible except to the trained ear. But up and down Miami Beach the distinctive accent of Argentine Spanish is increasingly evident, from the valet parking attendants at the beachfront condos on Collins Avenue, to the young men and women waiting tables on trendy Lincoln Road.

One night last week, a crowd of 50 Argentine soccer fans packed into the Baires Grill, an upscale Argentine restaurant in the heart of South Beach, to watch a satellite broadcast of a club match in the capital, Buenos Aires.

"It's amazing," co-owner Marcelo Ferreiros said. "The other day I went to the car wash and there must have been 20 people working there -- all Argentines."

The new arrivals have carved out their own turf, turning a less fashionable part of north Miami Beach into "Little Buenos Aires."

Business is booming at Brignes' 73rd Street store, Buenos Aires Market, where the shelves are stacked with Argentine products, including the essential ingredients for a traditional parrillada, or barbecue with imported sea salt and special, slow-burning vegetable charcoal.

Brignes predicts the flight from Argentina is just the tip of the iceberg.

"Argentina is like the Titanic. It's sinking fast and everyone is jumping overboard," he said. "People are looking for a life jacket and, for many of us, that's what Miami has become."

Nearby at Cafe Prima Pasta, Argentine-American owner Gerardo Cea, 35, can hardly believe the changes.

"I always dreamed of opening a restaurant on Miami Beach," he said. "But I never imagined that I would have so many Argentine clients."

To meet the demand, he has adapted the menu to include a few national favorites, including dulce de leche (caramel) flan, a typical Argentine desert.

The restaurant's success has made it a point of pilgrimage for visiting Argentines, tourists and job-seekers.

Cea used to enjoy sitting with a coffee on the sidewalk outside the restaurant after the lunchtime crowd was gone. "I can't anymore," he said. "So many people were coming up to me for help it was driving me crazy."

Now Cea is concerned the exodus is getting out of hand.

"It's very sad," he said. "People are coming from everywhere. Before it was just Buenos Aires. Now it's the provinces, too -- Mendoza, Jujuy, Salta. They are escaping, terrified of the future at home."

Cea also worries that people are leaving without giving their future enough thought, selling homes, cars and other possessions. He recently went on national radio in Argentina to warn potential emigres to study their options carefully before selling.

The other day a man in his 60s showed up at the restaurant straight from the airport, with two suitcases, looking for work. Cea explained to him that the job market was tight and that a man his age would have trouble finding employment.

"We got him a room in a hotel and I think he flew back to Argentina the next day," Cea said.

While most of the arrivals tend to be young middle-class professionals feeling the economic squeeze back home, some are wealthy businessmen looking to transfer their investments out of Argentina.

With the Latin American real estate market booming in Miami, property investments are a favorite. One Argentine-American lawyer described a slew of projects backed by $50-million from Argentina, including hotels, condos, office buildings and warehousing. The recently completed 85-unit Golden Bay condo in Sunny Isles, where two-bedroom units go for $220,000, is 80 percent Argentine occupied, one resident said.

The Argentine exodus seems to have caught immigration officials unaware. Although local immigration lawyers say they are swamped with new clients from Argentina, the Immigration and Naturalization Service says it has no up-to-date figures.

Unlike other Latin Americans, Argentines do not require a visa to enter the United States, beneficiaries of a visa waiver program offered to countries with strong economies and low emigration.

No reliable statistics exist on how many have come. But press reports in Buenos Aires estimate as many as 100,000 Argentines might be living in South Florida.

A recent poll published in Argentina showed that 33 percent of people aged 18 to 24 would like to leave the country. Some of the biggest lines are at the Spanish and Italian consulates in Buenos Aires, where descendants of the millions who emigrated to Argentina are seeking to reclaim their citizenship and a European Union passport.

Over the past four decades, Miami has become a haven for large exile populations. First came the Cubans in the '60s. Then the Nicaraguans and the Haitians. Civil war and drug violence also have caused a recent exodus of Colombians.

The map of South Florida is continually changing to accommodate the arrivals, creating neighborhoods, such as Little Havana or Little Haiti.

But few imagined there would be a Little Buenos Aires. With a strong economy and a population of 36-million, Argentina is one of South America's most prosperous countries. It has had its share of problems with military dictatorship and death squads. But it has never experienced the poverty, revolution or civil war that tore apart Cuba, Central America and Colombia.

Instead, with its sophisticated cultural life, grand boulevards and belle epoque neighborhoods, Buenos Aires likes to think of itself as "the Paris of Latin America."

"Argentines have always considered themselves to be more European than the rest of Latin America," said Eduardo Gamarra, an expert at Florida International University.

Things started to unravel in the late 1980s when the government lost control of the economy and inflation hit 200 percent. Former President Carlos Menem tamed inflation by privatizing a bloated public sector and by pegging the Argentine peso to the dollar.

For a time it seemed to work. Argentina became a model of market reforms and foreign investment.

But the bubble burst three years ago. In part because of an overvalued currency, the economy began to stagnate. Menem ended a decade in office in 1999 with rising unemployment and mounting allegations of corruption.

Since then, things have gotten worse. Unemployment stands at 15 percent. Homelessness, prostitution and violent crime are rising.

On June 7, the national airline suspended operations because of billowing debts. On the same day, Menem was arrested on corruption charges involving illegal arms sales.

"It's not an economic crisis. It's a moral crisis," said Andres Oppenheimer, an award-winning Argentine-born journalist at the Miami Herald. "People are leaving because they have lost faith in everything. There's an absolute sense of hopelessness."

Oppenheimer blames the country's woes in part on massive tax evasion and official corruption that has weakened confidence in government and public institutions.

He recently published a book in Spanish, Eyes Blindfolded, detailing a U.S. Senate investigation into $4.5-billion from tax evasion and drug profits allegedly laundered through Argentine and U.S. banks.

"Things are getting worse every day," said Juan Herrera, 25, who arrived in Miami last year and makes bread and pasta at Prima Pasta.

Herrera used to help out at his family's bakery 60 miles outside the capital. Spurred by the new Argentine economy in the early 1990s, the family invested in new, modern equipment. Herrera trained to be a pilot. Then recession hit and the family business was forced to close.