Cuban entrepreneur in Iowa: "If you have the idea to do something, do it."

Yanier Peláez has the blood of an entrepreneur. His journey began in his hometown of Bayamo (Granma), where he opened a pizzeria as soon as the government authorized self-employment. He was doing well, the establishment was well-received, but the flood of inspections, taxes, and demands from people who wanted to earn more than he did, as the owner, took away his desire to continue.

"The business in Cuba always goes wrong," he says in an interview granted this Tuesday to CiberCuba, in which he explains how at 34 years old, he is running three companies in the United States and has other investments in mind for the coming months.

Yanier Peláez arrived in the United States in 2015, by the border. In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic caught him in Houston (Texas), and when businesses began to close, he decided to move with his family to Iowa, in the heart of the U.S., where rent is more affordable, there is more security, and jobs are available.

But the cold pushed them towards Florida, where Yanier Peláez was involved with a company dedicated to placing workers, while he was also co-managing a trucking business (P&P Auto Transport) with his father-in-law. However, he couldn't handle both and decided to leave Florida and return to Iowa, where they had already bought a house. By then, his father-in-law had decided to exit the business, and he chose to buy his share and take charge.

Yanier Peláez and his family have only been in Iowa for four months and have been able to see that the Cuban community is growing more and more. That's why he and his wife, who is currently pregnant with their third daughter, have decided to open a store for Cuban products, where you can buy everything from Cuban bread and mayonnaise from the Island to avocados brought from Florida. The business, which they have named Sazón Cubano, is located in a building known as La Esquina Cubana. They are at 611 Church St, Ottumwa, Iowa. There is a high demand, and the business is doing well.

And that perhaps encouraged him to continue enabling services to meet the demands of the Cuban community in Iowa. That's why he has also opened a shipping agency (CubanXpress) for packages to Cuba, which did not exist before his arrival.

In the interview granted to CiberCuba, Yanier Peláez shares his secret to getting ahead: "If you have the idea of doing something, do it."

He is one of the many Cubans who have arrived in exile and started from scratch. This is the case of Ariel Valdés Pinto, a Cuban farmer from Mayajigua, in Sancti Spíritus, who has set up his sugar cane business in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands (Spain), and also grows his own sugar cane. Like in the case of Yanier Peláez, his business is thriving.