Utah’s Brazilian community reviving chamber to spur business development

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah’s Brazilians and Brazilian Americans are coalescing in a bid to promote business development within the community.

“Our community has a strong entrepreneurial spirit. They are dreamers,” said Erivan Santos, originally from the South American nation and now living in Utah. “The goal is to support and lead our community to be entrepreneurs.”

The linchpin of the efforts is revival of the Brazilian American Chamber of Commerce of Utah, and Santos and other group leaders gathered Thursday at the Utah Capitol to publicly announce the initiative. Gov. Spencer Cox, U.S. Rep. Burgess Owens, chamber leaders and members of Utah’s Brazilian community attended.

“We want Utah to be a place where everyone feels welcome, where everyone feels like they have an opportunity so succeed. That is the American dream,” Cox told the crowd. “Whether you come from Brazil, whether you come from Mexico, whether you’ve been here for six or seven generations — it doesn’t matter. We don’t care. We want to make sure that you have the opportunity to follow your dreams.”

Brazilians and Brazilian Americans number around 30,000, according to Carolina Herrin, a member of the chamber’s board of directors. That, she said, makes them the fourth-largest racial or ethnic community behind those with Mexican, Salvadoran and Peruvian roots.

When Santos came to Utah in 2006, he said, the Brazilian community numbered around 3,500.

“We are a vibrant and growing community,” Santos said.

The chamber has teamed with the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity, World Trade Center Utah and other business entities as part of its efforts. Many transplanted Utahns from Brazil operated businesses there, and Herrin said the aim is to encourage that sort of entrepreneurial spirit among them here in the United States.

Utah exported some $203.2 million in goods in 2023 to Brazil, the state’s 13th-largest export market, according to stats released Thursday by the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute. Whatever the number, Cox sees potential for more two-way trade.

“We believe that Brazil is one of the untapped countries for trade with the state of Utah, going both ways,” he said. “And I truly believe, with you all coming together, that we’ll have an opportunity to significantly increase trade in the future.”

The Brazilian chamber has been around, but during the COVID-19 pandemic, its operations came to a halt, Santos said. Moves to revive it started around six months ago, and on May 22, Fatima Ishitani, the consul general of the Brazilian Consulate in Los Angeles, which serves Utah, visited Salt Lake City for a dinner as part of the efforts. The consulate is aiding in the Utah effort as is Felipe Cusnir of the Brazil California Chamber of Commerce, Herrin said.

Around 32 business chamber groups exist in Utah, said Franz Kolb, director of international trade at the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity. “But there’s only one Brazilian chamber. I hear this is going to be the funnest chamber,” he joked at Thursday’s event, alluding to Brazil’s reputation as a country that likes parties and celebrations.