Edgar J. Guzman,
Esquire
Owner and Founding Attorney
Edgar is a proud Tampa native. As a child, Edgar attended Christ
the King Catholic School and played baseball at West Tampa Little
League. He graduated from Jesuit High School in 1989. His
dream of one day becoming a local community leader led him to the
University of South Florida and the University of Tampa where he graduated
with a degree in Political Science and a Masters in Business Administration
respectively. Edgar then moved to Michigan in order to attend
the Thomas M. Cooley Law School where he received numerous academic
awards.
While in college, Edgar met his future wife Kathia Nerro, on his
first ever blind date. Edgar will tell you that the combination
of having a beautiful girl answer the door on a blind date, listening
to the story of leaving Cuba as a five year old child during the 1980
Mariel boat lift, and the shared views on life all factored into instant
love. Kathia, grateful for the freedom and opportunity this
country has provided her, feels that the least she can do is to serve
her community by organizing church sponsored support groups, teaching
Spanish to young children, and playing an active role in the Church.
Edgar genuinely understands the challenges a family faces in a new country. His father, Gerardo L. Guzman, came to Tampa in 1969 from his native country of Venezuela seeking a higher education. His mother, Maria A. Pi, came to Tampa in 1961 from Cuba seeking freedom. Edgar, being the offspring of Cuban and Venezuelan immigrants, has always been keenly aware of his Latin American heritage. Throughout his entire life, Edgar has traveled to Venezuela to maintain the ties that bind him to his father’s family and country. Drawing from his own personal experiences of a child being brought up in a family in which Cuba was a central, focal point, Edgar has strong feelings for the Cuban plight, calling himself a “First Generation Cuban-American.” The stories of the land left behind, his grandmother’s struggle as a widow with three children in a new country where she did not speak the language, the struggles and triumphs of a family forging a life in a new country, marrying Kathia who fled in a boat from Cuba and her stories of that flight, have been the mainstay of Edgar’s life.
During the 1995 rafters’ exodus from Cuba, Edgar gathered food and provisions from the Cuban community in Tampa and personally drove to Key West, in order to see and experience first hand the plight of those who chose to face death rather than to live under the conditions of their country. With an unforgettable image such as that, Edgar, as an attorney, has made it a priority to defend all citizens’ rights and champion their just causes.
As a result of the converging of Cuban and Venezuelan blood, of his love for his Caribbean and South American heritage, Edgar does not see nor understand differences between members of the Latin American community regardless of the country. Edgar would like to see a unification of the Latin American people in Tampa. Uniting the entire Spanish-speaking population in the community would give a louder and stronger voice to the Latin American needs and desires in Tampa and, ultimately, in the United States.
