For Jose Trinidad, an Ecuadorian immigrant, it was always easier to sell his empanadas on the streets of Queens than to negotiate a loan from a bank to open his own business, because he had no Social Security number.
Finally, an organization called Accion gave him a few small loans and, in 2003, Trinidad opened his own bakery, Beqy’s, in Corona, Queens, which today has more than five employees. Trinidad also bought a Mexican restaurant in Astoria.
According to a Center for an Urban Future report, in New York City there are thousands of immigrants like Jose who are a key to the economy of the city, since they create more small businesses and jobs than the U.S.-born citizens. The report, “A World of Opportunity,” which was obtained in advance by El Diario/La Prensa, also studies the impact of immigrants in cities like Los Angeles, Boston, and Houston.
While the city lost thousands of jobs after 9/11, several predominantly immigrant neighborhoods, including Flushing-Murray Hill (16.2 percent); Elmhurst (10.8 percent); Sunset Park (10.6 percent) and Jackson Heights (7.9 percent), have seen an increase in employment.
This growth is due, in great part, to Hispanic companies; New York is the city with the highest number of Hispanic businesses (129,461). In the Bronx alone there are 38,325 Hispanic businesses.
The report, which combines data from federal, state and local, official and private sources, indicates that immigrants are more entrepreneurial than U.S.-born residents.
Immigrants were responsible for the growth of small businesses from 1990 to 2000. During this decade, the number of small businesses owned by U.S.-born decreased by 7 percent (15,657 people) while those owned by foreign-born residents increased by 53 percent (64,001 people). The boroughs with the highest number of immigrant entrepreneurs are the Bronx and Queens, where their number doubled that of the U.S.-born.
At the same time, immigrant neighborhoods underwent an explosion of small businesses.
From 1994 to 2004, overall businesses in the city increased by only 9.6 percent. But business grew by 54.6 percent in the Asian neighborhood of Flushing; 47.3 percent in Sunset Park, with a strong Mexican presence; 17.8 percent in Washington Heights, which is predominantly a Dominican neighborhood; and 14.3 percent in Jackson Heights, with a majority of Colombian and other Latin American residents.
The business boom in the city reflects as well an increase in jobs. While overall employment between 1994 and 2004 increased only 6.9 percent, it grew 27.9 percent in Jackson Heights; 23.2 percent in Sunset Park and 10.2 percent in Elmhurst.
In spite of the importance of immigrants for the city’s economy, the report indicates that they do not have enough support from the city or business organizations.
While some of the obstacles they face are common to other businesspeople, immigrants must overcome linguistic and cultural barriers, navigate through a complex system of regulations and overcome not having a credit history.
Jonathan Bowles, director of the center that produced the report, indicated that although New York City has improved in recent years, when it comes to aiding small businesses, “the problem is that very few of their programs reach immigrants.”
Liliana Carrillo, who cofounded Empresarias Hispanas en Liderazgo in 2005, an organization for South American businesswomen in Queens, said that all too often the information put out by business organizations “is only in English.”
For Carrillo, the results of the report are not surprising. According to her, the city is full of Joses. “Immigrants come here with the dream of achieving something that they did not have in their countries, and that dream is to have their own business,” she said.
