Latino Immigrants and Entrepreneurialism: A World of Opportunity ...

September 11, 2012
by Edward Alden

If there?s any issue in the immigration debate on which there is a broad consensus, it is that everyone wins when immigrants come to the United States and start new businesses. Successful entrepreneurialism cuts through all the convoluted debates over whether immigrants are taking jobs that might otherwise be done by Americans. Come to America, build a business, hire employees, and everyone is happy.

In the new Renewing American Working Paper, ?Latino Immigrant Entrepreneurs: How to Capitalize on Their Economic Potential,? Alexandra Starr ? a journalist and Emerson Fellow at the New America Foundation ? looks at how Latino entrepreneurs are building big businesses that are capturing export opportunities in Latin America and smaller businesses that are serving the growing Latino consumer market in the United States.

The paper is an important addition to a literature that has been dominated by research on Asian immigrant entrepreneurs, led by the excellent work of AnnaLee Saxenian and Vivek Wadhwa documenting the contributions of the immigrants in Silicon Valley.

It is true that, in percentage terms, Latino immigrants to the United States generally own fewer businesses than Asian immigrants. Measured broadly, for example, just 6.5 percent of Mexican immigrants own businesses, compared with roughly 10 percent of Indians and Chinese and over 22 percent of Koreans (though immigrants from some Latin American countries, like Cuba and Colombia, have business ownership rates of more than 10 percent).

But the potential for growth in business start-ups and ownership among Latino immigrants is huge, and the benefits to the United States would be enormous. Immigrants from Latin America account for just over 53 percent of the total U.S. immigrant population, and nearly half of new legal permanent residents each year come from the region. The Latino population is by far the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States, with a population expected to top 125 million by 2050. And many economies in Latin America are booming, creating new and lucrative export markets right next to the United States.

Starr documents how Latino immigrant entrepreneurs in the United States are taking advantage of these trends.?

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Source: http://roundrockitmedia.com/2012/09/latino-immigrants-and-entrepreneurialism-a-world-of-opportunity/

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