A Peruvian Immigrant Recalls Working in Las Vegas Hotels and Casinos (2019)

Jaime Cruz immigrated to the United States in 1987 from Lima, Peru. In Peru, Cruz earned a mechanical engineering degree and worked as a merchant marine. When he arrived in Las Vegas, Nevada, Cruz found it difficult to secure an engineering job, since his degree was from another country and because of the language barrier. At first, the only job he could obtain was being a dishwasher at a restaurant. In this excerpt from an 2019 oral history interview, Cruz recalls his attempts to support his family on low-wage work within the city's booming tourism and service economy. Cruz names several Las Vegas institutions that were important to his success, including the University of Nevada at Las Vegas (UNLV), the Culinary Union, and a couple of large hotels and casinos where he worked. The Culinary Union, which formed in the 1930s, helped ensure the creation of programs like First Shot, which Cruz describes as important for his professional mobility.

When you first got here, what was your first job here?

That job I will never forget because it taught me a lot, not about thermodynamics or combustion or things that an engineer like me knows, but about humility, first of all, gratitude for what you have, and resilience...Just a few months before I got here, I was on a ship as an officer, a low-level officer because I had just graduated, but still in command of people twice my age. The workers that worked under my shift in the engine room, I was giving them instructions because I was trained and educated in that field and the company made me responsible for that equipment. But when I came here, none of those things mattered much....I had training or a certificate that did not carry much weight here because it was foreign; I was an engineer from a foreign country. I didn’t have any other stuff that they called work experience. I would walk the casinos and the utility companies, and they would all say, “Come back when you have some experience here in the U.S.” And I said, “How am I going to get it?” I said, “That’s what I’d like, some experience.”

Because of all that, after about four weeks of trying and trying, I had to get to work, and so my first job here in the States was as a dishwasher at a restaurant.... 

The Irishman who ran it, Jack Sheridan, he told me—because I came in there actually asking—I saw that there was an air-conditioning truck outside the mall fixing his air conditioning. I walked up and said, “I know how to do that. I’m an engineer.” And he said, “yes, but you don’t have a business license and I can’t trust you to...” He said, “I have a job, but you’re way overqualified for it.” And I said, “No, give me the job.” He gave me the job.... I think within all the span of six or eight months I went from dishwasher to busboy to waiter. I thought I had arrived. At least I had cash in my pocket every day.

One day Jack called me and said, “You need to get out of here.” And I said, “What do you mean? I love this job.” He said, “No. I can’t provide benefits. You need to go have a union job. If you’re going to serve food, you need to have a culinary job....” I was really thankful that he pushed me like that, both to go take ESL [English as a Second Language classes] at UNLV and to push me out of a job that didn’t have the kind of insurance or benefits that a family needs. He knew I wanted to start a family.

After that I got married. My ex-wife and I both ended up working at the Mirage [Hotel and Casino].... It was insane when the Mirage was going up.They were saying a Kobe steak was going to cost a hundred bucks, all these expensive restaurants. People really said, “Don’t go work there. That place will never last.” But I did; I went and worked and the place broke all records. It changed our town forever.... 

I started as a food server. If you fast forward, I think it took me four years, but eventually I returned to engineering. In ’93, they had a program called First Shot. When they opened Treasure Island, they said to the employees, “You have the first shot to a better job...”  Basically the idea was if you were working graveyard, this is your chance to get on swing or day. If you were a supervisor, it was your chance to shoot for a manager’s job. If you were a food server and wanted to be an engineer, this is your chance.

At that time I had moved up that food service ladder pretty high....a banquet waiter. It’s not easy. You work long hours. You work Sundays, Mondays, holidays because that’s when the functions are. You work chopped up days, not like you go for eight hours. You come in and work a breakfast, go home, come work a lunch, go home, come work a dinner. It’s not easy work and it’s not the most family friendly, but you can definitely support a family....

For this Treasure Island thing, the forms said, “What’s your dream job? Go for the moon, shoot for the stars, and then if you don’t get your first choice, what else would you like?” I said, “This will never happen, but I want to be an engineer.” I had been conditioned that in this country I wasn’t going to have that anymore; I had this other life. Okay, the moon: engineer, but since that’s not going to happen I want to be on the A list; that will happen... It did. Within the hiring process, the new banquet manager at Treasure Island knew me from the Mirage. He called me and he said, “You’ve got one of the spots.” I went home and... I said, “We’ve arrived. We’ve arrived, the American dream. We’re probably going to buy the minivan, the house.” Happy, happy, happy.

Two weeks later, the chief engineer for the property calls me. He also knew me because I served him food at company events. He was one of the executives that sits at the head table. He calls me and says, “Hey, I saw your application. I didn’t know you were an engineer.” I said, “Yes, that’s what I did in Peru.” He said, “Well, would you like to come work for me at the TI [Treasure Island]?” I said, “Yes, I’d like to.” He said, “But I’ve got to be honest with you...I know how much you’re going to make because I’ve been told now you’ve been offered a banquet job over there.” He said, “I can’t pay that. You come in at the bottom.” Which was a fifty-thousand-dollar job, or sixty thousand. That was a hard decision: make the money or return to what I went to school for and chose passionately all those years ago.