As a granddaughter and daughter of traditional Nicaraguan dancers, folkloric ballet or ballet folklorico is in Stefanie Reyes’ blood. 

The 17-year-old high school senior shares her passion for dance every week with the members of a Las Vegas support group for Nicaraguans, the Club Social Nicaraguense Las Vegas or Nicaraguan Social Club Las Vegas, while also juggling school and a part-time job. 

“Thursdays are my favorite days,” Reyes said in Spanish during an interview on a recent Thursday as she helped direct practice at an East Las Vegas community center. “Even though I had a hard day, here I don’t even feel tired. It gives me peace and I am able to connect a bit with my country.” 

Ruben Ruiz, the group’s president, said in a Spanish-language interview the group started 10 years ago as an effort to help individuals who recently arrived to Las Vegas after fleeing from Nicaragua (including Reyes’ own family), and help them adjust and support them with food, clothes and employment.  

Hispanic Heritage Month is usually the group’s busiest time of year, which showcases traditional Nicaraguan folk dances typically performed in colorful, flowy dresses from their home country. But increased immigration arrests and anti-immigration sentiments under the Trump administration have dampened this year’s festivities and put groups such as the Nicaraguan club at risk. 

Typically, Ruiz said they are part of many weekday and weekend events throughout Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15. But as of Wednesday, they’ve only done three events this year, including the first Latin Heritage Parade at the Downtown Summerlin shopping center on Sept. 16, and have a fourth scheduled for Saturday. He said other local Hispanic cultural events were canceled this year (some for weather-related reasons) or have had limited attendance. 

Similar events in Chicago and Sacramento have also been canceled. 

“It’s sad because we can’t show off our dances and our culture, although we aren’t hurting anyone,” Ruiz said in Spanish. 

It’s the latest ripple effect that the administration’s immigration crackdown is having on the Silver State, where a third of residents identify as Hispanic or Latino and about a fifth are foreign-born.

“There is a lot of fear among the community,” said Kalua Salazar, a group member and a former Nicaraguan journalist in a Spanish-language interview. “It feels like you aren’t free to go out and enjoy a cultural recreational activity that can help you remember your Hispanic roots.” 

Community support

Four years ago, Reyes’ life changed. She and her family left their country after they faced political persecution for speaking out against Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s authoritarian regime. 

They are among the tens of thousands who have fled since political tensions boiled over in 2018, when the Nicaraguan officials responded to student-led, anti-government protests with violence that left more than 300 dead, and silenced media outlets trying to cover the protests. 

Ortega, who first served as president from 1985 to 1990, returned to office 2007 and has remained there ever since. He has successfully pushed for anti-terrorism laws criminalizing nearly all dissent as well as constitutional reforms that abolish term limits. 

The changes have allowed him to stay in power indefinitely through what many consider to be “sham” elections, appoint his wife, Rosario Murillo, as his co-president, and expand the presidency’s power over other branches of government. A recent United Nations report found that Ortega’s government has continued to target opponents even while exiled abroad. 

Reyes, who describes herself as easily adaptable to new environments, said her first few months in the U.S. were a rough adjustment. 

But she was able to find a new home among the Las Vegas Nicaraguan group, where many of the members can personally relate to what her family went through.

“It was very hard,” she said. “But I feel that with the support of my family, ballet and my friends that I met here, the truth is … they contributed a little to me being able to stabilize a little more here.”

Reyes, who aspires to attend UNLV and become a dentist, said she’s thankful for the opportunities the group has given her, including performing for an event with former vice president and 2024 presidential candidate Kamala Harris. 

Salazar found the group when she moved to Las Vegas, two years ago after she fled Nicaragua. She said it’s been a major source of support for her and many others who arrived without anything after opposing the Nicaraguan government.  

“I think that’s the importance of having community groups like this that lend a hand to people from your country,” she said. “Finding your community helps you cope with the emotional burden, the psychological burden, the economic burden, and, above all, in many cases, the exile that one experiences from one’s country.”

Community fears

Though their group consists of 70 members, both adults and young people, Ruiz said less than half have chosen to perform in recent Hispanic Heritage Month events because of deportation fears. 

Those fears heightened among members after the Trump administration announced it was looking to terminate a Biden-era humanitarian parole program allowing eligible individuals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who have a sponsor in the U.S. and who pass a background check to come to the U.S. for a period of two years to live and work lawfully. In May, the Supreme Court allowed the administration to temporarily pause the program while legal challenges continue in court. 

Earlier this year, two members of the Las Vegas group chose to self-deport. 

Ruiz said for six months, the group practiced out of private residences, instead of their usual community center, as a precaution to protect their members and their families.

Their group hasn’t been the only one affected. 

In April, Bolivian community leader Freddy Chavez made the decision to cancel his 15th annual local pre-Lenten Carnival festival — a celebration common in countries such as Brazil and Bolivia and similar to New Orleans’ Mardi Gras celebration — after multiple performers who were coming in from out of state or out of the country cancelled out of immigration enforcement fear. The only other time the Las Vegas Carnaval International Mardi Gras Bolivia Une al Mundo has been canceled was in 2020 during the pandemic. 

“We were planning to go all out for our 15th anniversary and it all fell through,” he said in Spanish. 

Chavez said this immigration crackdown is unlike anything he has ever experienced in the more than 30 years he’s lived in the U.S. 

“We did experience it on a small scale, so we didn’t feel it, and now you’re experiencing it firsthand, feeling afraid and cornered,” he said.

Chavez said he’s hopeful that the political tensions will ease up so his event can return next year, and Las Vegas can establish itself as a capital of culture and folklore. 

“We’re not just here to take your jobs, as some say. That’s a lie,” he said. “We’re bringing our roots to … further enhance this country, especially our beautiful city of Las Vegas.”

Ruiz said his group is trying to stay positive and is continuing to perform as much as it can to share their cultural heritage with the community. They’re also hoping to become a nonprofit organization in the future to support more people, whether they are Nicaraguan or not. 

“Despite the difficulties we are facing, we are always trying to show our unity and show how beautiful it is to be Latino, to be from Nicaragua and how beautiful it is to have our own culture and our own dance and that other people can enjoy it,” Ruiz said.