Southern Nevada’s Ethiopian community is one step closer to getting an official cultural neighborhood after the Clark County Commission voted unanimously to direct staff to draft an ordinance establishing an area dubbed Little Ethiopia.
If the ordinance is ultimately approved, the areas between West Twain Avenue, University Avenue and parts of South Decatur Boulevard would be officially known as Little Ethiopia.
“I wish I had the resources to take each and every one of you to Ethiopia. Without that resource, we’re bringing Ethiopia to Clark County,” Girma Zaid, chair of the Little Ethiopia Project Sub-Committee, told the commission. “From the culture, the art, the culinary and the people, which in our presence here, they are really the definition of who Ethiopia is.”
Efforts to create Little Ethiopia began in August 2019, when members of Southern Nevada’s Ethiopian community first requested an official neighborhood designation.
Because the effort was the first of its kind, the commission first had to develop the Clark County Cultural District Designation Policy, which gives guidance on creating cultural districts to strengthen areas representing unique cultural heritages.
This year, the Ethiopian community submitted an updated application for the neighborhood designation, then presented it to the Spring Valley and Paradise Town advisory boards. There was no movement of working toward the designation during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“One of the benefits of something going very slowly is that we now have experience with one another and we know the enormity of the value that you bring to our community, we know that your identity is especially important,” Commissioner Jim Gibson said at Tuesday’s commission meeting.
Members of the community — many dressed in traditional Ethiopian garb — filled the county chambers with Ethiopian flags in hand to rally behind drafting of the ordinance.
Zaid said the blocks proposed for this cultural district designation were “the epicenter for all (their) activities.”
“Any and all Ethiopians congregating after they partake in their services on Sunday come to this little district. And beyond Ethiopians, we have thousands and thousands of tourists coming from national and international (destinations) coming to this district and enjoying the wonderful cuisine,” Zaid said at the meeting.
Before moving to Las Vegas, Zaid lived in Los Angeles 37 years ago when the city was in the midst of establishing its own Little Ethiopia neighborhood.
He said “it was a struggle” getting county officials there to understand who Ethiopians were and what they wanted to do with a neighborhood designation. But tourists have flocked to the Los Angeles neighborhood since the cultural district’s creation to partake in Ethiopian cuisine and religious celebrations.
There are an estimated 40,000 Ethiopians living in Southern Nevada and more than 50 small businesses with ties to their community, Zaid said.
Zaid said they have opened markets, restaurants and expanded their footprint in the county.
“We have become entrepreneurs, we have become tax-paying individuals who are Ethiopian American naturalized citizens enjoying the democracy in this wonderful country that we embrace each and every day,” he said.