Jim Cason
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FORMER MAYOR OF CORAL GABLES, FORMER AMBASSADOR TO PARAGUAY
Before serving as mayor of Coral Gables from 2011 to 2017 (leaving office with a 78 percent approval rating), Jim Cason was a long-time official with the U.S. Department of State. In his diplomatic career, he served in Paraguay, Cuba, Jamaica, Honduras, Bolivia, Guatemala, Panama, Uruguay, Italy, Venezuela, Portugal, and El Salvador, in roles that ranged from ambassador to chief of mission. He also served as political advisor to NATO and policy coordinator for the State Department’s Western Hemisphere Bureau. Cason moved to Coral Gables after serving as ambassador to Paraguay, and unseated 10-year mayor Don Slesnick by running on a platform that: A) he was an internationalist and in a city with 125 nationalities; B) he didn’t know anyone here, so didn’t owe any favors; and C) didn’t own a business here, so didn’t need any favors.
Latest Accomplishment
Cason has become a hero in Paraguay for helping preserve the country’s history. While serving there, he became fluent in the local language of Guarani and recorded every newspaper published in Paraguay since 1845 – some 88,000 pages. These are now weeks away from being converted into a searchable database which AI will translate into any language and provide for historic research. While in Paraguay, he also recorded the words to 17,000 songs composed there from 1945 to 1970 and cut an album with 16 songs in Guarani – including one he wrote (“Campo Jurado”) about a 1933 battle in the Chaco War with Bolivia. He returned in September to meet with the foreign minister and mayor of capital city Asunción to sing three songs in the National Theater with opera star Rebecca Arramendi.
What He Says
“Just after the [Paraguayan] National Music Festival, I woke up one night having a dream and wrote a song in Guarani called ‘Campo Jurado’… I had the best musicians in the country put the music to it, and I was given a medal [by the foreign minister] for making my album,” Cason says. As for his diplomatic career, he says “If you’re a good diplomat, there’s no country that you should dislike, because there’s always something nice to find. Every country has good food, beautiful women, and something beautiful in nature.”
As for his political career, he says, “A year after I got here [in 2008], I said, ‘I’m bored. I’m going to run for mayor.’ And they said, ‘You can’t do that. You weren’t born here.’ And I said, ‘So what? Seventy percent of the people in Florida weren’t born here….’ So, I walked around and knocked on the doors. They all said, ‘Oh, we’re going for the ambassador.’ I said, ‘That’s me.’ – J.P. Faber