Vegas hits a high note

Timothy Pratt, Las Vegas Sun

Saturday, Nov. 10, 2007 | 7:40 a.m.

Rene Perez, who goes by the name Residente in the reggaeton duo Calle 13, took advantage of his moment on stage at the Latin Grammys on Thursday night to broadcast a message about immigrants.

But he localized it, addressing "all those who mixed cement to build these buildings" - circling his left hand to indicate the Las Vegas Valley's ceaseless construction.

The moment could have been used to underline the importance of the Latin Grammys coming to the Strip in the first place - a sign, cultural observers say, that Las Vegas increasingly is seen as a Hispanic population center that belongs on the list alongside older cities with longer histories of immigration.

In its seven-year run to date, the awards ceremony had been staged in Miami, Los Angeles and New York City.

Holding it in Las Vegas was "a statement about the city, its growing significance for the steady emergence of a Mexican-American and Latino presence," said Vincent Perez, a UNLV English professor whose research interests include Hispanic culture.

Gabriel Abaroa, president of the Latin Recording Academy, said the organization chooses where to hold the event each year in part based on the idea of building relationships with Hispanics across the country.

"We want people to feel close to the event," he said.

Las Vegas was a natural choice, he said, "because it has the fastest-growing Hispanic population in the country." Clark County's Hispanic population is estimated at 26 percent - more than double what it was in the 1990 census.

Las Vegas' hotels and casinos and its reputation as an entertainment center also figured in the choice.

Apart from the national and international television audience the event might have garnered, Abaroa said, he considered the event a triumph because it allowed thousands of Hispanics in the Las Vegas Valley to spend a few days close to their idols.

He half-joked that "business would stop" locally during the Grammys, with the Mandalay Bay hotel drawing Hispanic "families, laborers, executives and tourists."

Javier Munoz didn't have to take time off from his job in sales at Caesars Palace, but he did set aside Thursday afternoon and night to be a seat-filler. These are people who apply online to fill seats for TV cameras in the moments during award ceremonies when stars and their friends are onstage, backstage or elsewhere.

For Munoz, who has lived in Las Vegas for seven years, the night had a special flavor that comes from "seeing so many of your own people."

That, he said, made the city feel a little different, even if only for a day.

At the ceremony Armando Macias was one of the hundreds of Hispanic hotel employees who enjoyed working the event.

He had seen all the faces linked to voices that form the soundtrack of many Hispanic lives - Ricky Martin, Juan Luis Guerra and others.

Macias, from Zacatecas, Mexico, has lived in the city for 14 years and has felt more at home over time as he becomes surrounded by more faces like his own.

He said the event also led him to feel a new sense of usefulness in the days before, because many non-Hispanic tourists would stop him in the hallway and ask what all the buzz was about.

"I could tell them all the names of the artists," he said proudly.

Hernando Amaya, one of the dozens of journalists in the media room in Mandalay Bay's basement, has reported for 5 1/2 years on the area's Hispanic population for the weekly publication El Tiempo.

He guessed that many local Hispanics might have ventured to a Strip hotel for the first time during the event, eager to see their idols.

He saw one family - grandparents, parents, cousins and children - wait seven hours to take a photo with Gloria Estefan.

Amaya said the Latin Grammys marked a moment for the city.

"The fact of having chosen Las Vegas," he said, "shows that, beyond the infrastructure ... and the glamour, Las Vegas is seen as a Hispanic city."