Against All Odds Hispanic Immigrants Achieve In Small Business
As the Hispanic business community looks to the future, it can’t ignore the economic advantages of higher education. Going forward, most workers will require some college education to remain competitive. It’s encouraging that Hispanic youths have made strides in this department. A Pew study that took a snapshot of Hispanics’ educational attainment in 2010 had some surprising findings:
Hispanics received 9 percent of all bachelor’s degrees and 13 percent of all associate’s degrees awarded in the U.S.
Compared to 1977, seven times more Hispanics graduated four-year colleges in 2010
While these figures represent an encouraging start, there’s much more work to be done. The Latin American Herald Tribune reports on a Fiscal Policy Institute study that singles out current American immigration policy as a major impediment to Hispanic small business development. The study breaks down the top three countries of origin for U.S.-based Hispanic small business owners:
Mexico: 105,000
Cuba: 36,000
Colombia: 16,500
These business-ownership figures are not proportional to population figures for these nationalities. Crucially, the study notes that first-generation Mexican immigrants are proportionally less likely to own small businesses due to restrictions on their legal immigration status and other factors. On a more encouraging note, it hints that the current effort to reform the country’s immigration policy could spur a wave of entrepreneurship among Mexican immigrants who have thus far contributed to society as employees and contract workers.
Over the years, the American small business community has been supported by the efforts of Hispanic workers, business owners and investors. From recent immigrants who work their way up the corporate ladder to small business owners who support and strengthen their neighborhoods and cities, these contributions can’t be ignored. While there are plenty of economic and political challenges ahead, the resiliency of Hispanic entrepreneurs and their employees ensures that the future will be even brighter than the past.
