By ENRIQUE FERNANDEZ
MIAMI HERALD

John Echevarría, president of Miami-based Universal Music Latino, had high expectations of the young Cuban American executive assistant he hired a few years ago.
''Professionally, she was very good,'' Echevarría says. ``But she was almost incapable of writing Spanish.''

So until he replaced her with a fully bilingual Puerto Rican secretary, the Spanish-language record executive typed much of his own business correspondence.

Experiences like that convince Echevarría, a Spaniard, that the city ''is losing an asset.'' You have to wonder about its future as ''the capital of Latin America,'' he says.

The quandary: Children and grandchildren of the immigrants who made Miami a vibrant international center lack the Spanish skills on which much of the city's success and identity are built.

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