JobMakers Podcast

Production of Pioneer Institute + The Immigrant Learning Center

JobMakers is a podcast collaboration between The Immigrant Learning Center and the Pioneer Institute. In each episode, Director of the Public Education Institute Denzil Mohammed interviews an immigrant entrepreneur about their story, their business and their contributions to their community. The project highlights the unique resilience and journeys of foreign-born entrepreneurs. Explore the story of a refugee child who escaped pirates and grew up to found a law firm, a woman of color who opened a hedge fund in her dorm room and much more.

To learn more about immigrant entrepreneurship, explore our page of resources, our Immigrant Entrepreneur Hall of Fame or our video interviews with immigrant entrepreneurs.

Episodes

Episode 81: Lindsay Milliken

JobMakers Graphic - Lindsay Milliken: Navigating Labor ShortagesLindsay Milliken addresses the vital role immigrants play in the workforce in the face of an unprecedented combination of low unemployment and high job openings, particularly in sectors like hospitality, healthcare and education.

Denzil, Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed. Welcome to JobMakers. [music]

Denzil Mohammed: There are about a million international students at U.S. colleges and universities at this very moment, many of whom would love to use the skills and knowledge they gain at our schools in jobs available here in this country. At the same time, there are way more job openings than there are candidates with unemployment at a record low, but a dire need for more talent, more people. What are we missing here? For Lindsay Milliken, immigration fellow at the Institute for Progress, a Washington, D.C. based, nonpartisan think tank that researches industrial and scientific progress, there is a clear way to bridge this gap. It’s called Schedule A out of the Department of Labor, a list of in-demand occupations where employers can more easily and quickly hire immigrant professionals. But not only is it not being used to ease today’s scarcity, it also hasn’t been updated in more than 30 years. Lindsay believes that with immigration such a contentious issue, the inaction around Schedule A is all but predictable. But this does not serve America’s interests as you’ll learn in today’s episode of JobMakers. [music]

Denzil Mohammed: Lindsey Milliken, immigration fellow at the Institute for Progress in Washington, D.C., welcome to the JobMakers podcast. How are you?

Lindsay Milliken: Great. Thank you so much for having me.

Denzil Mohammed: So we often talk to entrepreneurs on this podcast, but the economic integration of immigrants is a huge topic and it affects every corner of this country. And the state of the economy and employment is very interesting in the U.S. right now. What exactly is the state of employment and jobs in the U.S. today and have we seen anything like this before?

Lindsay Milliken: It’s a really great question and we’re at a really unique point in history right now as we’re transitioning away from the COVID-19 pandemic, the height of lockdown. And I think that a lot of people are feeling a lot of whiplash from that and the economy certainly is. In April 2020, for example, the unemployment rate was actually almost 15 percent, which is the highest it’s been in 75 years. So that is crazy. And now in threeish years, we have rebounded and our employment rate is holding very steady at 3.8 percent. And the last time that we saw an employment rate low like that was in 2000. And then before that, it was 1969. It’s not common to be in such a strong market for labor in this country. And in addition to the unemployment rate, we’re also seeing record high job openings. Since the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Department of Labor started their job openings and labor turnover survey in 2002, the greatest number of job openings was in November 2018, which was 7.6 million. If you look at it today, we are at 9.6 million job openings, so record low unemployment and record high job openings.

Denzil Mohammed: What are some of the occupations or industries where you, where the forecast is most dire, where the job openings are projected to just increase and we don’t have the people to fill those jobs?

Lindsay Milliken: The high level national even industry focused data doesn’t really capture what people are feeling in the trenches, so to speak. But based on the information that we do have from the data and also from employers, the biggest hits have been in hospitality. There’s been a huge demand in hospitality workers recently, and there’s also significant need in healthcare. Particularly related to elder care and in education, which we’ve heard a lot about recently as being a teacher in this country can be quite challenging. One industry that we think is probably going to see more demand in the future is probably going to be manufacturing. There’s been a lot of effort at the Biden administration level to jumpstart manufacturing in this country, particularly in semiconductor manufacturing. So this is something we think is going to be a growing area of focus in the next few years.

Denzil Mohammed: I live in Massachusetts and during the summer the Cape doesn’t have enough workers to support the tourism industry. So it’s a very valid point you’re making there and, of course, healthcare, eldercare, as you said, is hugely important and it’s only going to become a larger and larger industry as the Boomers age into retirement and beyond. We’re talking about this as an American issue, but it’s also an immigration issue. How do immigrants fit into this situation, or how do they not fit into this situation?

Lindsay Milliken: Immigrants play a really important role in our economy, and there’s a growing focus on their role as the U.S. is grappling with this very high level of labor demand.Just to take healthcare as an example again, in 2021 there was a survey conducted and they found that 18 percent of healthcare workers were immigrants. Twenty-six percent of physicians and surgeons were actually born in a foreign country. And when you think about home health aides for our aging population, almost 40 percent of those are foreign born. So this is in even just looking at healthcare a massive role for immigrants in this country. And not only, we want to think also about not just the current workers that we have, but the pipeline. We want to think about our international students because that is a very valuable font of talent that the U.S. has that we are not taking advantage of as well as we could. It’s very challenging to transition from being an international student to being a worker here in this country. And so there’s a lot of people who are being educated here, but then going home. For example, the Department of. Education found that international students earn 40 percent of the STEM master’s degrees and 43 percent of the STEM PhDs. And a significant portion of these people want to stay and work and build their career here, but it’s quite challenging for them to stay here.

Denzil Mohammed: So you’ve written. co-authored, an op-ed with Josh Smith from the Center of Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University, where you spoke about one tiny thing that most people don’t know about that could be incredibly useful in filling these jobs, and it’s not going to be complicated to do it. It’s called Schedule A. What is it and how is it supposed to be used?

Lindsay Milliken: Schedule A is a regulation that the Department of Labor oversees. And to better understand how it is placed within the immigration system, I want to just back up slightly and talk a little bit about how DOL interacts with the immigration system in general. So there are three agencies that deal with the immigration system here in the United States. It’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, Department of State, and those two are the ones that we think about the most. But when it comes to employment based immigration, the Department of Labor actually plays a very important role on the employer side of the immigration system. So there are two elements that DOL oversees: They’re called the PERM process and the prevailing wage process. So PERM stands for prevailing permanent labor certification and this is essentially a way that the Department of Labor determines whether hiring a foreign worker is going to negatively impact American workers who are already here. When an employer wants to hire a foreign worker, they have to prove to the Department of Labor that they can’t hire an American to do this job. They’ve tried to hire, but they can’t find one. And prevailing wage essentially is the employer proving that they can pay the immigrant the wage that is appropriate for the job, and also matches the wage for that particular geographic area. Schedule A itself deals with the PERM process. And this process is only for green cards, it doesn’t increase the number of green cards per year, but it essentially says We, the Department of Labor, have looked at the data and have found that there are some occupations that have such a high demand for labor that you employers don’t have to prove that you can’t hire an American because we are already acknowledging that there aren’t enough workers in these areas. So this Schedule A list is a list of those occupations. It originated in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, and it used to consider occupations like engineers, nuclear scientists, physicists, people with advanced degrees. This was like cutting edge talent that we wanted to bring to the U.S. But currently the list hasn’t been updated in 30 years and only contains nurses and physical therapists right now.

Denzil Mohammed: Now, and as you said, it’s not an increase in the number of green cards, it’s an increase in the expediting of that process, right?

Lindsay Milliken: Yes, that’s correct. So the PERM process takes about a year and several thousands of dollars of work by the business itself. So imagine you meet a person that you want to hire, but then you actually have to wait a year and a half to actually get them working in your office. This is something that helps streamline that process a little bit and also reduces administrative burden on the Department of Labor side because then the people at the agency don’t have to go through a bunch of paperwork for a job where everyone acknowledges there are not enough Americans to do it.

Denzil Mohammed: So how do you suggest we use Schedule A in this current economy?

Lindsay Milliken: It’s a great question. What we are working on at IFP is we want the Department of Labor to update this and make sure that they put in a process that’s data-driven and also ensures that the list is updated regularly from now on.

Denzil Mohammed: And you make it clear that this is, these are situations where they just aren’t enough American workers. But does the whole concept of bringing in foreign trained talent put American workers at any sort of disadvantage?

Lindsay Milliken: It’s a great question and this is really important and at IFP we care a lot about this, this question itself, which is why right now we’re working on a research publication to develop a data-driven approach that the Department of Labor could use to update Schedule A while not negatively impacting Americans who are already here and also immigrants who have come here previously who are working here now. Individuals working in occupations eligible for Schedule A still have to meet the requirements for their green card, and the employer still has to prove that they are paying the person a prevailing wage, the appropriate wage for that job that matches the wage of other people employed in that job. It’s still a very rigorous process and it still takes quite a long time. They’re still screening at USCIS, the Department of State, and the Department of Labor. So this is something that we’re really taking very seriously. And the list itself, by its own nature, is only supposed to include occupations that do not negatively impact U.S. workers. And this is something that’s very important to us because as occupations go on to the list, we think that they also should come off when there is a lower demand. This is something that should be a living list of occupations and having, while it is small right now, having only two occupations on the list for 30 years is not accurately representing the demand that we’re experiencing now, and we don’t want this to be updated and then never updated again. We want to make sure that we’re responsive to the needs of the economy and also make sure that we’re not harming the economic standing of workers who are already here.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m thinking of the responsiveness of certain other countries when it comes to job opportunities and immigration. I think of Canada, who, with their point system, are able to do in a sense, do exactly what Schedule A would do, which is be responsive to the economy and fill in the gaps when those gaps arise. Now, particularly in the op-ed that you wrote, you present an argument for both sides of the immigration divide. It’s very easy to have to come up with anti-immigrant sentiment and anti-immigrant arguments when you think of the economy as a very simplistic thing, which of course it is not. It is incredibly complex. How would you explain this to someone who perhaps has anti-immigrant views, may be a bit ambivalent. And I’m thinking of more doctors having access to more people. Everyone benefits from that. How does the wider community benefit from more foreign trade workers participating in our economy when needed?

Lindsay Milliken: This is a very important question to ask, and it’s something that I think about a lot coming from a rather blue collar area of New York State, is that when we’re talking about immigration, we really need to, and a lot of other policy areas, but for immigration in particular, we have to really meet people where they are and acknowledge the fact that there is a lot of uncertainty today in the world and that uncertainty just seems to increase. And there are a lot of people who are concerned about their future and the future of their children. As we acknowledge that we need to emphasize the fact that, as you say, the economy is very complicated, it’s not a static system and it’s not a zero sum situation. The people who come here also increase demand, so they have to buy the same types of things that we buy. They go to the dentist, they get their hair cut, they buy cars, go to restaurants. So they’re not only doing a job here and fulfilling demand for a worker, but they’re also creating more demand so businesses can be growing with the addition of immigrants to our communities. They create more jobs. So that’s … and immigrants themselves could also be starting their own businesses. Research shows that immigrants are 80 percent more likely to start their own businesses than Americans, and almost 44 percent of the 2022 Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants. This is a significant number of immigrants who are not only fulfilling demand for workers, but they’re also generating their own demand. And, as I said before, they’re people who are incredibly talented and who have passed numerous screening and background checks done by the agencies. So this is something that’s expensive and time consuming. And they came here because they really identify with our values and they want to contribute to the economy and build lives for themselves and for their community.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s a wonderful illustration of who an immigrant is. It’s someone who wants to create a better life. It’s someone who is not coming here as a blank slate, they’re coming with talents and skills already, and as you describe Schedule A and the different departments that are involved, we can see that it’s basically a foolproof process. There are checks and balances, there are screenings, and they take the livelihood of the American worker very seriously. This is not something that the government takes flippantly, and we’ve been doing this a long time. We have processes and systems in place, and as you so wonderfully demonstrate, the wider community benefits from this increased economic output and the fact that immigrants are inherently entrepreneurial. So they’re creating jobs, they’re providing goods and services that we need. They are innovating and creating these incredible Fortune 500 companies. So in this op-ed that you co-wrote that I’ve been referencing, which is in the Salt Lake Tribune, you cite the example of Utah and the way that the state integrates its foreign trained workers. Do you want to just flesh out this example? What is Utah doing that is benefiting Utah when it comes to immigrants?

Lindsay Milliken: I think Utah is a great case study for this because after we spend so much effort and money to get an immigrant here to the country, it’s a big culture shock still for this person. I mean they’ve moved to a completely different place. The culture is completely different and Utah in particular is spending a lot of effort to help them assimilate, to help them get jump-started into their job quickly, and one example of this is that professional licensing is a big challenge for people who have very important skills who are coming here, like doctors for example. To continue the healthcare example is that these people are trained often extensively in their own home countries, but those licenses don’t transfer to the United States. To get a U.S. license a lot of times you have to do additional training. It can be very expensive taking the licensing exams, can be very expensive for doctors. You have to go to medical school all over again. And in Utah this year, Governor Cox signed a bill that allows the state agencies to issue professional licenses to foreign professionals who can prove that they have the relevant skills without having to go through all this extensive training. Another example of things that Utah is doing to help immigrants settle into their new communities is that Utah actually is one of the only, one of the few states in the U.S. that has an office dedicated to immigration and the integration of new Americans into the workforce. So these types, this office does a myriad of services such as navigating healthcare, the housing, making sure that you can find a place to live; education for your kids; pursuing citizenship and the whole process, that is, other challenges that come up when you settle in a new country. This is something they’re very hands on with. And it’s kind of shocking to me, but there are actually fewer than 20 of these offices in the whole country. So there are not, there is no office of new Americans in every single state. But there is some momentum this year, I think, to try to establish offices that can help with integration at the congressional level. In July of this year [2023] actually, Senator Markey of Massachusetts and Representative Meng of New York reintroduced bills to create a national Office of New Americans situated at the White House level to harmonize this type of support across the country. And this is something that I think is a very valuable idea because, as I said before, bringing someone here from a new country is a big change and we want to make sure that they can really feel comfortable, hit the ground running and stay here for the long term.

Denzil Mohammed: And I want to emphasize that immigration has always been contentious, but before it became this contentious Utah in 2002 signed in a bill that gave undocumented immigrants in-state tuition. And we can draw a lot of contradictions with Texas but Texas did the same thing in 2001. So states know how to integrate their immigrants in order to get the best out of them and benefit from them. And there are many things that states can do, but also at the federal level regarding Schedule A. Lindsey, if we want to step back and take a broader view of the role of immigrants in American society and economy, has it been a net benefit to the U.S.? And how can we see it shaping our future going forward.

Lindsay Milliken: It’s a great question. I think immigrants play such an important role in our society and in our economy. And other countries are recognizing this, that immigrants are playing major roles in their economies as well and are making adjustments actively as we speak to their own immigration systems to attract new workers. We’ve always been a powerhouse of research, economic and cultural development, thanks to these immigrants that we’ve attracted. A recent example is Katalin Karico from Hungary, who, she just won the Nobel Prize for her research on mRNA vaccines. Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, was Russian. Andrew Carnegie, the magnate from the early 20th century, was Scottish and for people who are really interested in fashion, Oscar de la Renta, who is very popular with the First Ladies, is from the Dominican Republic. And these are just economic examples. Cultural examples, there are so many people who’ve played such a huge role. Alex Trebek, big favorite of mine, was Canadian. Jackie Chan is from China, and Audrey Hepburn is Belgian. And Arnold Schwarzenegger was from Austria. I mean, there’s so many examples of people playing huge roles in U.S. development and just cultural advancement that are coming from other countries. And I think the important part about this is that these people were the successful ones. These ones were the lucky people who actually made it through our immigration system. And I mean a lot of people talk about how broken the immigration system is today and how impossible it is to fix. So just imagine if we actually were able to make changes to our immigration system, what sorts of really interesting, innovative people we could attract here. And, I want to hammer this point really home, that the people that we know and the immigrants that are our neighbors and our friends, were the lucky ones. There are so many people who don’t have the means or don’t know how to navigate our immigration system. Many people need to hire a lawyer to navigate our immigration system, and that’s so expensive. So we’re really missing out a lot on this really interesting group of people, this really talented group of people that don’t have the means to apply or are not sure where to start or have been scared off by how the system is designed. And so we need to really think critically about how we can make changes even when it seems like the political situation is not conducive to immigration changes, particularly at the legislative level. And I think Schedule A is like one of these concrete improvements that we can work on now that is at the executive level, it’s something Department of Labor could do tomorrow and just hasn’t worked on in decades. This is something that is concrete and could improve the lives of a bunch of people trying to come here tomorrow. So the immigration system is full of different solutions like this. And that’s something that IFP, we’re really working on very hard, is trying to come up with these concrete solutions so that we can get more innovative people to come here that wouldn’t have otherwise.

Denzil Mohammed: The op-ed is called, “The U.S. Government Can Help Solve Labor Shortages Today. Why Won’t It?” It’s in the Salt Lake Tribune. Lindsey Milliken, immigration fellow at the Institute for Progress in Washington, D.C., thank you for joining us on the JobMakers Podcast.

Lindsay Milliken: Thank you so much.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, the think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for today’s deep dive into the many ways high skilled immigrants are needed to keep the U.S. on the leading edge of innovation. If you know an outstanding immigrant we should talk to email Denzil, that’s [email protected]. I’m Denzil Mohammad. See you next time for another episode of JobMakers. [music]

Episode 80: Natalia Frois

Natalia Frois is an immigrant from Brazil who created the Latino Business Network on Cape Cod. She shares how and why she built a network to help immigrant and Latino entrepreneurs thrive in their new country.

Episode 79: Brad Brown

JobMakers podcast graphic: Brad Brown: Immigration and Community ImpactBrad Brown discusses his arrival in the U.S., the founding and growth of Blue Frog Bakery, community engagement and the broader impact of immigration in local neighborhoods and beyond.

Episode 78: Adam Ozimek

JobMakers podcast graphic: Adam Ozimek: Immigration policy in innovation policyAs chief economist at the bipartisan public policy organization Economic Innovation Group, Adam Ozimek has conducted research to prove the benefits of high-skilled immigrants. He believes that people across the political spectrum should recognize the immense benefits these foreign-born Americans bring to the U.S. Tune in to learn why he thinks immigration policy is also innovation policy.

Episode 77: Sebastian Corbat

JobMakers podcast graphic: Sebastian Corbat, Del Sure Empanadas: Healthy foods from South AmericaA health crisis prompted Argentinian American Sebastian Corbat’s journey to the U.S. to receive treatment. It also sparked a business idea he launched once he was better. Corbat founded Del Sur Empanadas to help make healthy, organic food accessible to everyone. Listen to learn how the food of his mother’s kitchen inspired his approach to promoting wellness.

Episode 76: Benjamin F. Jones

JobMakers podcast graphic: Benjamin F. Jones shows how immigrants are a boon for the U.S.Dr. Benjamin F. Jones’ research uses data to demonstrate the tremendous benefits that immigrant entrepreneurs bring to the U.S. As a professor of entrepreneurship and strategy, he’s an expert in how immigrant founders create jobs for all Americans. Listen to learn why he believes immigrants innovate at high rates.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed. Welcome to JobMakers! Immigrants are job makers. It’s the premise of this podcast. We get the stories of immigrants from everywhere from Burundi to France, hear their journeys and recognize their impact. But does this bear out in the data? Do the numbers show that immigrant business owners from high tech to main streets really grow the economy for everyone? But Professor Benjamin. F Jones, former economic adviser in the U.S Treasury and the White House and now professor of entrepreneurship and strategy at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, not only do the data show that immigrants are far more likely to start a business in the U.S, they’re innovating at a higher rate, and we are all benefiting from it. His research shows how greatly determined immigrants are a boon for the U.S. Whether they’re opening local restaurants or starting revolutionary multinationals, immigrants of all kinds capitalize on entrepreneurial ecosystem and spirit in the U.S and have real impact. Not only is this the case today, but according to him looking at the data, he shows how immigrants have been doing this for as long as they’ve been coming here as you’ll learn in this week’s episode of JobMakers. Benjamin Jones, Gund family professor of entrepreneurship and professor of strategy at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Thank you for joining us on the JobMakers podcast! How are you?

Benjamin Jones: Very well, my pleasure to join Denzil.

Denzil Mohammed: So, tell us, what is the real narrative when it comes to the U.S economy, jobs and immigration? Are immigrants, as the name of this podcast suggests, job makers?

Benjamin Jones: It turns out. Yeah, absolutely. The usual narrative is that immigrants come to your country, people come to your community, and they take jobs and that is a very common view, and it’s actually quite reasonable view when you first think about it, because of course, people do come to your community and they do find work. So where do those jobs come from! But if you dig a little deeper, you realize that when immigrants come to your community, they may not just take jobs; they might also create jobs. They might be job makers and one way they can do that is simply because when someone, called an immigrant or no, but when new people come to your community, they also demand more services. They need places to live, they need food. And so, there’s going to be an increase in demand for construction workers and plumbers. And there’s going to be an increase in demand for restaurant workers and grocery store clerks and medical professionals, all these things. But much more directly, and perhaps much more importantly, immigrants also create jobs directly because they create companies, and these companies create lots of new jobs.

Denzil Mohammed: So simplistically, you just said it. People coming into a community. You would think that the addition of a person means a job is taken away. So simplistically, the average Joe, might think that adding immigrants to a society and economy means the labor pool worsens, but the economy is complex. Explain to us as simply as you can how immigrants affect job opportunities and wages for the U.S. born from your research?

Benjamin Jones: Right. So, the traditional narrative is acting as if immigrants only do one thing, they are only new workers, that’s all they do. They come in and compete for existing jobs, and people often have this idea that there’s a fixed number of jobs. Where do jobs come from? There’s just a fixed number of jobs, and if you add more people into that labor market, it’s just going to make it harder on everyone as workers because they’re all competing for this limited number of jobs. But when you think about it and you say the economy is complex, it’s complex in a very natural and good way, which is that there isn’t a fixed number of jobs. Where do jobs come from? Well, they come from people starting companies and not just taking jobs but opening vacancies and employing people and they come … why do we have jobs anyway, well, because people want stuff. They come from the fact we need things. So, I need to see a dentist so we have dentists. I need a lawyer. I go to a restaurant, etc., etc., etc. So, when you scale up the population in a place, you don’t just create unemployment. You scale all the population in a place, you just sort of more or less have it like it was before but with more people. One way to think about this is if you were in Canada, which has around 1/10 the population of the U.S., you might say they look south of the border, and they say, oh my gosh! How do they employ all those people! Well, because the number of jobs will naturally scale with the population. Because we’re all going to demand more services, so we need more plumbers and moreover people are going to start companies. And in fact, when you start thinking about it, adding the population in or out to a place, it’s really going to just scale it up or down. What gets really interesting is when you think about job creation. Who’s creating the jobs? Who are the entrepreneurs? And are these good jobs? And where are good jobs coming from?

Denzil Mohammed: Who is creating these jobs? We like to say on this podcast that the act of migrating is itself an entrepreneurial act. You leave everything you know behind; you take a risk; you hope for the best journey into the unknown, and as a result they tend to be inherently entrepreneurial. This is what we’re saying based on what we know on this podcast. Is that reflected in the data?

Benjamin Jones: It’s absolutely reflected in the data in the sense that immigrants to the United States are absolutely, exceptionally entrepreneurial and to put it in simple terms, an immigrant to the United States is 80 percent more likely to start a business than a native-born American. They’re just very much more entrepreneurial on average than the average person born in the U.S., and as you’re pointing out, a very natural explanation for this is because who are immigrants? Well, they’re people who wherever they were decided to take the bold, risky, dramatic action that changed their live, they think for the better like, crossing an ocean, walking across the desert, coming up through Panama over the Darién Gap, or whatever else they had to do, these are people who work hard, are looking for a better life, and they’re bold. That’s exactly the kind of traits you would think describe entrepreneurs. People who start new businesses. They try the bold thing, looking for a better way of doing things, a better life for themselves, and that’s only one interpretation of why immigrants are more entrepreneurial. But it’s very natural one. We’re selecting our entrepreneurial oriented people. And sure, enough than they get here, they’re far more entrepreneurial than the average person who was born in the United States.

Denzil Mohammed: You use the language there that the immigrant inclusion field tries to avoid. This crossing a desert, the crossing into Panama and into the forest. But that sounds threatening, it sounds bad, it sounds evil, but the language that you’re using to ascribe to these people is much different. Could you just talk about that a little bit?

Benjamin Jones: Well, I think what we’re seeing are people who have enormous fortitude, that they’re dreamers, they’re gritty, they’re tough. I mean, these are the kind of people who are going to drive your economy. If I were hiring somebody, I’d want someone who’s committed, tough, willing to try new things. These are the kind of activities, I mean, so many Americans come from the history of immigration, right? And the American identity is very much based in looking for liberty and looking for better opportunity and economic opportunity as well as political opportunity or political freedom. I think, the narrative even within the U.S. of going west in American history is very much about going to the frontier in early American history and celebrating this kind of entrepreneurial spirit and this independence and this ability to make your own fate, and these are people who I think are the kinds of people who are going to do great things. And so, it’s perhaps not surprising that they start so many companies. If you look at immigrants in America, it’s not just that they start all these companies and many of these companies are incredibly successful companies. But they are also very innovative. If you look at immigrant entrepreneurs, their companies are much more likely, for example, to have a patent. Immigrants are much more likely to be pushing the frontiers of technology and science in the United States and those kind of benefits in addition to the job creation, they have this kind of search for novelty, this kind of boldness, this newness, that of course, opens new doors for so many, not just for themselves. I mean, the beauty of someone who is that risk taker, innovator, entrepreneur is that they’re in the job market, they’re creating jobs for other people, and they’re bringing new ideas into the environment, into the economy and they’re propelling the overall standard of living in the economy in a meaningful way.

Denzil Mohammed: You know one of the things I was getting at with that question is for the people in the U.S who say, well, my ancestors did it this way or whatever. Same qualities that you just ascribed to the people coming to the U.S. today, whether it’s by land or sea, by visa or not, are the same kind of qualities that drove the ancestors of many people who live in the U.S to come to the U.S, where this was from Sicily or from Ireland or from Germany, from Poland, people who just had nothing to lose and had just this determination to come here. So, the qualities are just extremely similar, just maybe the countries of origin might be a little bit different and this sort of brings you to my next question. Because we’re talking about entrepreneurship as it is happening in the U.S. today, but this is not a new phenomenon. The qualities that brought immigrants here century ago or two centuries ago led them to found businesses way back then. So, Corsair, Budweiser, TJ Maxx, Nordstrom, Levi’s jeans, all the way up to PayPal and eBay today. This has always been the case with the U.S., is that correct?

Benjamin Jones: Well, I can tell you what we know in the data so, first historically one way to look at that is, we can look at the Fortune 500 companies now, some of them of course are relatively new like at Google, but many of them of course have older roots like some of those you mentioned and, if you look at who founded the Fortune 500 companies, you see that they’re, just in the U.S., they’re disproportionately, the  founders are disproportionately immigrant. So, you do see that same pattern if you look using kind of representative surveys of businesses in the U.S. back to the 1970s or so, you also see that immigrants are overrepresented as founders, and then some of the facts that I’ve already been alluding to in our conversation are coming from a study of every single business in the United States where we have government data tracking every establishment in United States, that was over a decade from around 2007 to 2017. So, we can say that it is true historically they think that we can measure it with things like the Fortune 500. It’s true kind of in the late 20th century, and it’s true today. So, it does seem to be a very general pattern. And I think you speculate exactly why I think again, goes to the point that what one natural explanation is that we’re just selecting on people coming into this country who are looking for a new and better way of doing things in their own lives. That’s why they came and so not surprisingly they have these entrepreneurial traits.

Denzil Mohammed: So, we’re talking about Fortune 500 companies, and I mentioned that several of them, but immigrants found all sorts of businesses across the spectrum, and you sort of mentioned that earlier. They need services, they go to restaurants, but they also found some of these services and nail salons, grocery stores, transportation companies, hospitality, they open hotels. Can you just sort of describe the spectrum of businesses that you found that immigrants start?

Benjamin Jones: Yes, it’s a great question. It’s actually a really important question because when I talk about the job creation effects of immigrants as entrepreneurs, and I say that immigrants are 80 percent more likely to start businesses than native-born Americans. They still might not start that many jobs if like most immigrant businesses were very small. They didn’t really have that many employees. So, it actually really depends on what the distribution of businesses are to understand the overall employment effects of immigrants in creating jobs in the U.S. economy.  So, if you look at it based on size, absolutely there’s lots of immigrants who start restaurants and small single establishment companies and retail or whatever else. But as you look at any employment size, so whether it’s one employee, 10 employees, 100, a thousand, 10s of thousands of employees, you see that immigrants are overrepresented in every single size. So basically, they’re more entrepreneurial in general and they produce kind of more forms of all sizes. So that’s why in the end, it’s because they’re just kind of a systematic upward shift in entrepreneur propensity and you get the Googles or you get Tesla, kind of in top end employers. And then you get lots and lots of small businesses and medium0sized businesses. You get to kind of a little bit of everything and that ultimately adds up into an enormous number of jobs that they create through these businesses and that’s how actually at the end, remarkably, the number of jobs created in businesses founded by immigrants, that number of jobs is greater than the number of immigrants in the U.S economy. So, in a sense that’s on net. They do take jobs and they also create jobs, but on net immigrants create more jobs than they take on net. In short, immigrants create jobs.

Denzil Mohammed: You mentioned earlier that immigrant companies are more likely to have patents, and so I want to take it to something that you said a few years ago. At the start of the pandemic, you argued that like in the early 1940s, when innovators were marshalled to create inventions, really from the atomic bomb to penicillin. And that quote, ‘’The country again needs this sort of bold innovation policy in order to fight the coronavirus,’’ endquote. Needless to say, two companies who have immigrant founders, Pfizer and Moderna, were on the forefront of creating the first vaccines. So, in your view, based on your research, what role do immigrants play in innovation generally, but especially in times of crises?

Benjamin Jones: Well, in my research but also a number of other people’s research, it’s well known that immigrants are more likely to be in STEM jobs and careers. So if you look at PhD’s or undergraduate degrees or master’s degrees in the U.S., you see a lot of immigrants who are migrating towards engineering and computer science and biomedicine and these things.

Denzil Mohammed: And just immigrants actually sustaining, international students are actually sustaining many STEM programs across the U.S., you know?

Benjamin Jones: That’s right, and that’s an interesting question as to why, you know, of course there are many people born in the U.S who also go into those careers and do incredibly great work, just like there are many people in the U.S. to start great companies, but it is interesting that for whatever reason, as a proportion of the respective population size, the U.S.-born people are less likely to gravitate to those more technical, scientific subjects, and that immigrants are more likely to do that, but for whatever reason, that’s true. We end up with a large part of our technical, innovative scientific workforce being not in the United States, not being born in the United States, but yet of course, contributing to this growth engine and to an economist, what actually drives, improved health generally, obviously the COVID vaccine in your example, but just generally any kind of improved health technologies or medical devices, pharmaceuticals, vaccines or just innovation more broadly, inventions, patents throughout the economy, you’re actually just going to see that immigrants are overrepresented once again in producing these advances in science and technology.  So, they really are essential to economic growth in the U.S, they’re essential to keeping the U.S. as a leading economy in the world. And of course, you can spell this in many other ways, obviously national security for example. It’s important to be ahead of your competitors and technology and of course the immigrants are driving our scientific technological advances in the U.S, they’re actually an essential part of keeping the U.S. ahead as we are entering a world that is increasingly fraught with conflict in very sad and troubling ways. I think the idea that you’re being ahead in security and defense technology is a whole another reason that this is important. So, when you start thinking about the productivity slowdown that’s been going on in the U.S., we’ve had a challenge in this century with sort of not growing as fast as we’d like in terms of output per worker, and that means not the same kind of wage growth and productivity growth in our workforce in general. This is a time to be pushing in general on science and innovation and doing the kinds of things and entrepreneurship, the things that really drive our increasing productivity, and so that’s all the more reasons that an immigration policy that recognizes how critical immigrants are as an input to that growth engine that we seek those policies that embrace immigration and its power in that direction.

Denzil Mohammed: What is your message when it comes to dealing with immigration policy in the U.S.? Like how do you talk to people and frame the narrative that is not only accurate and based on evidence, but can probably shift the needle a little bit?

Benjamin Jones: Well, to crystallize it, I think that the debate in immigration policy in the U.S is often set up as being between sort of our humanitarian ideals, kind of recognizing the desire for liberty and new opportunity and immigrants that Americans sort of want themselves and sort of kind of, it’s a humanitarian thing to let immigrants into the country in the same way foreign aid might be humanitarian, and then it’s sort of pitted against in the conversation, this economic or perceived economic burdens that letting in immigrants into the economy is going to create economic costs. So, it’s kind of our humanitarian ideals versus these perceived economic costs.  And the message I think it really comes when you stare at the data and the research, is these economic costs that’s the mirage immigrants fundamentally are good for the economy? And they are not just really good in some average sense, they’re really good for job creation because of course the main economics here you hear, are immigrants are going to take our jobs, but when you realize that actually immigrants are net job creators in your community, in your country, then this whole debate between sort of our humanitarian instincts and the economic burdens is misplaced. It’s actually backwards. I really hope that people will begin to recognize that immigration is a really powerful input to our economic success, that they make us richer, not poorer, and they can help solve a lot of challenges and keep maintaining the United States role as a leading economy in the world with a strong national defense and these benefits are extraordinarily important. And when we restrain immigration, we’re actually hurting our economic interests, not helping them. So, I think I would like to see the immigration policy debate move towards something that’s more consistent with the evidence. Yes, you have to have the policy should be how do you onboard immigrants, what rate can you absorb immigrants? What are you onboarding them to give them the best chance of success? Policies where you can come here as a refugee, but you’re not allowed to work, that’s not helping the economy. We need to follow the law. I appreciate the aspects of the innovation policy debate that we should pass laws and we should maintain the rule of law, but we should pass policies and laws that are recognizing the amazing benefits of immigration and make the most of it, as opposed to arguing kind of on the false premise that immigrants are bad for the economy. 

Denzil Mohammed: Gund family professor of entrepreneurship and professor of strategy at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, Benjamin Jones. Thank you so much for making the time to talk with us on the JobMakers podcast!

Benjamin Jones: Thanks for this great dialogue.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, and think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center in northern Massachusetts, anot-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for this week’s discussion into how immigrants to the U.S actually do create businesses, generate jobs, and innovate at higher-than-average rates. If you know an outstanding immigrant entrepreneur we should talk to, email Denzil, that’s D-E-N-Z-I-L at jobmakerspodcast.org. I am Denzil Mohammed, see you next time for another episode of JobMakers.

Episode 75: Chening Duker

JobMakers podcast graphic: Duker cultivates nourishing solutionsEnglish American founder Chening Duker was inspired by his love of farmers markets to build Pluck.eco, a platform that makes selling farm-to-table food more efficient and profitable. Duker wanted to make healthy, eco-friendly produce accessible to the average consumer. Tune in to learn how his connections to Ghana and Singapore strengthened his business.

Episode 74: Miriam Kattumuri

JobMakers podcast graphic: Miriam Kattumuri keeps us healthy and greenIndian American entrepreneur Miriam Kattumuri sells clay pots to offer a more eco-friendly, healthy method of preparing and consuming food. She believes that being mission-driven is essential to a productive, valuable business. Listen to learn how she bounced back after a fire destroyed her products and workshop.

Episode 73: Erick Widman, Esq.

JobMakers podcast graphic: Immigrants can ease worker shortageErick Widman is an immigration attorney who has seen firsthand how the immigration system in the United States fails to attract and retain innovators, leaders and entrepreneurs. His experience marrying a Hungarian American woman gave him a personal perspective on the importance of this issue. Listen to learn how he believes the U.S. could better serve the immigrants who enrich our country.

Denzil MohammedWelcome back to JobMakers. The immigration system in the United states is complex, to say the least. Visa categories for nearly every letter of the alphabet, exemptions, restrictions, rule changes with every new administration. We need more workers, innovators and entrepreneurs in an increasingly competitive world and amid an historic worker shortage and cash strapped social safety systems due to a graying workforce. So does the United States’ immigration system work in its favor? For Erik Widman, immigration lawyer and founder of Passage Immigration Law in Portland, Oregon says it does not. We routinely turn away ambitious, risk-taking people at all skill levels high and low, which the country needs. From vaccine creators to crop pickers, the U.S. throughout its history has depended on the sweat and brainpower of immigrants who largely go on to become the next crop of Americans. Erik guides us through the immigration process for agricultural workers, international students, high school workers, and people with extraordinary ability. He shows us the myriad ways Americans benefit from their work and he shows us where we fall short, shooting ourselves in the foot because of a hijacked immigration discussion, as you learn in this week’s JobMakers podcast. Erik Widman, founding attorney at Passage Immigration Law in Portland, Oregon, thank you for joining us on the JobMakers podcast.

Erik WidmanThank you so much, it’s a real privilege to be here.

Denzil MohammedTo be clear you’re not an immigrant, but you have a lot of experience with immigration both in and outside of the U.S., is that right?

Erik WidmanYes, yes. My grandpa Sven came from Sweden, but I was born in the U.S. and we’ll discuss it later, I’m sure, how I immigrated to Hungary periodically, for a couple years prior.

Denzil MohammedSo who exactly is Erik Widman?

Erik WidmanYes, so I’m from California. I’m an immigration lawyer who grew up in a really diverse environment in Cupertino, CA. In my high school, caucasians were the minority. We had lots of lots of Asians there, so there’s a lot of diversity that I experienced growing up and I got to spend a summer, really formative experience, in Japan living there as a junior hire and that led me to study international relations, focus on international business law in law school and then I taught in Hungary after that and met a Hungarian woman who is now my wife and we have three dual-citizen kids. 

Denzil Mohammed: That’s terrific. So, as I mentioned, you have tremendous experience with immigration both here and abroad. As someone who’s gone through the immigration process both as an immigration attorney and with your wife in Hungary, tell us a little bit about the immigration process, and how is it different?

Erik WidmanYes, so the U.S. system is known as an incredibly complex set of rules and changing priorities and it’s similar to the U.S. tax code in that it keeps expanding in complexity. No one ever reduces complexity, it’s just more and more tricky and it’s very politicized. So there are policies that seem to bounce back from one direction to the other depending on which administration is in power and so the timeline is quite long for immigrants in general, even before COVID for immigrants to go through the process in the U.S. and comparing ourselves to Canada or most European countries, they’re more efficient and they can get people permanent residence, work permits faster. So that’s why it’s really a real competitive issue for the U.S. 

Denzil MohammedYou bring up the tax system. You know, byzantine is one way to describe the immigration process here. You have visas from A-Z with, you know, numbers and everything in between. It’s so much to digest. It’s not just in terms of speed, right, with these other countries, it’s targeting who they want, right?

Erik WidmanRight, yes, yes. The U.S. has a quota system which, in many ways, is unfair and certain nationalities have a very long wait time. So Indians, Mexicans, those from the Philippines, Chinese, have a really long wait time to get green cards because there’s a cap on how many from each nation can be allowed into the U.S. So that definitely impacts the type of the nationality, the type of immigrant we have. And so it’s not just a long wait, it’s an insurmountably long wait period for those who have one of those nationalities that’s got a massive backlog. 

Denzil Mohammed: And it doesn’t work in their favor, the immigrants’ favor, and it just doesn’t work in America’s favor either. And I want to point out specifically the crisis that we’re facing right now, and I really want to get your comments on it. The U.S. is facing historic woes in terms of the current labor shortage, they’re more than 10 million job openings and only 5.7 million unemployed people to fill them. Now at the start of the pandemic necessarily perhaps the Department of State canceled all visa services at embassies across the world, but even when they started reopening later that summer, processing was so slow and sluggish that the U.S. missed out on 2 million working age immigrants who would have come here with certain skill sets with educational backgrounds, and would have eased the labor shortage we’re experiencing right now. So, again, two things stand out about this, firstly that we could have had two million more immigrants who could have significantly eased this worker shortage and the little known fact that one visa category did, in fact, keep going throughout the suspension of all other categories; the H-2A visa for temporary agricultural workers. They kept us fed, they kept picking fruits, they kept all groceries supplied. Tell us a little bit about the importance of low skilled workers, and why do you think they kept that one visa category going? 

Erik WidmanYes. Thankfully, Congress listened to our farmers, the agricultural companies that produce our food and we would have been in big trouble as a nation, especially under COVID we still would be in big trouble if we didn’t have this flow of H-2A workers or immigrant, non-immigrant workers who come in for a season, a temporary period of time and do the really tough work that we drive by most people who are not in the agricultural industry. We can see them working the fields, they’re bent over. Incredibly difficult work that some people even die in the really hot conditions out there, so these jobs are tough, they’re not desirable and part of the American dream is that people don’t want to do these jobs long term. The immigrant comes in because he or she’s willing at that skill level to do that really tough work and then they’re thinking about their family and their kids. They think, “Well, my kids will be able to get an education, do more.” But it is a true win-win when we have our agricultural needs met and people who live in essentially absolute poverty throughout the south of the border in various countries are happy to do this tough work. They can save up money and buy a house and support their grandparents with this money. 

Denzil MohammedSo you started to describe this kind of worker and you’ve done some immigration work in this field as well, so could you sort of describe more about who these agricultural workers are, how they end up in the U.S., how they’re recruited, what are some of their characteristics?

Erik WidmanYeah, so the H-2A agricultural worker is someone who has experience. They go through recruitment agencies, individual recruiters, they work directly with farms to bring in these folks who are really a stellar group of people. They are searching for any opportunity they can get, but by and large, wonderful family people and the recruiters are choosing those who don’t have a criminal record. Those who are great hardworking people with a track record of being really diligent.

Denzil MohammedSo we need those workers who can pick the fruits that we eat, but of course as you know and I know, we also need workers and innovators who can perform feats of science and keep the U.S. at the cutting edge of technology innovation, don’t we?

Erik WidmanYes and the businesses that are competing globally and are really tough environment, Intel for example, is here in almost like a life or death struggle against other companies trying to create the best possible microprocessors. And the founder of Intel said, “You always have to be paranoid. Only the paranoid survive,” and interestingly, he was an immigrant from Hungary. So I’ve got the Hungarian connection there. But Andy Grove, the founder or cofounder of Intel was a Hungarian immigrant. So the paranoid survive, it’s a brutal capitalistic clash of companies and we need people who are amazing at math, science, STEM fields, and right now, we’re not graduating enough native-born Americans with these intense PhD programs, computer science, chemistry, physics. When I worked at Philips Electronics, I was asking some of the LED lighting PHDs, “Is what you do more physics or chemistry?” and they love describing the details, but it’s both at the microprocessor level, they’re getting into just like things I don’t understand, nanometers of complexity. So we need super smart people to do this and we’re not graduating enough, and so the companies are hungry for them and they’re typically from countries all over the world that are traditionally strong as science; Chinese, Taiwanese, many Europeans. There’s a big need for this.

Denzil MohammedI like the example you just rolled up because one thing that’s often brought up on this podcast is the need for diversity of thought, diversity of backgrounds in order to come up with a finished product. And you talk about Intel and its co-founders, I would bring up Pfizer and Moderna in the U.S., right here in Boston actually where foreign-born and U.S.-born people co-founded these companies and together they come up with the most brilliant things like the COVID-19 vaccine. Similarly in Germany, it was German and immigrant inventors who came up with, was it the biotech vaccine over there. So there is truly magic that can be created by having this diversity of thought, we need more people in STEM, we need more Americans in STEM, certainly. But frankly, and the data bears this out, without immigrants, without international students, STEM programs across the country would be suffering and probably have to close. 

Erik Widman: To our credit the university system is attracting them, we want to attract them, we want to be known as the best university system, we want to be known to be the best environment to really grow your career. And so I love stories exactly like the development of the COVID vaccine where you have the best and brightest from each country participating to provide the best product. That’s what our sports teams do, you encourage labor mobility, the best people who can perform. 

Denzil MohammedAnd that’s inherently capitalistic, right, just an economy that attracts the best and the brightest in order to succeed.

Erik Widman: Yes. Yes and I think one of my main messages to those who are more skeptical of the value of immigration is that if we’re in favor of a free market, if we’re in favor of the best can achieve and succeed, we should be in favor of labor mobility so that we can allow the best people from around the world to come in and compete and get those jobs as we need them because our companies will certainly benefit. 

Denzil MohammedYou talk about labor mobility. What is our current system to allow the best and the brightest or those who want to come and study or work here and what are some of the shortcomings? 

Erik WidmanThe pathway to come to the U.S. as a student knowing you’re going to get a great education in any state in the union, even if you don’t have a Ivy League brand name, many people from all over the world, it’s still prestigious just to go to a small town school because it’s an American school so we have to maintain that prestige and after that they often do this what’s called OPT: Optional Practical Training and they can work in their degree field for a year, either pre-completion OPT, post-completion and they work for a company for a year then if that company is impressed, which they often are, they file for an H-1B, petition for H-1B professional worker visa to give that immigrant a chance to work for them. Right now unfortunately, there’s only a 30 percent chance that they’ll be selected in the lottery. So it’s more likely than not, that because of the the cap, because of the limited number of H-1B visas and the increase in demand that exceeds that, so then they have to look at other options and many keep going to college and get a higher degree. But there’s also an extraordinary ability visa, which is an increasingly positive option for, and something that we’ve had to rely upon, when people can’t get an H-1B for example. But it’s hard to be extraordinary in your career when you have all this potential but you’re only 23, what can you accomplish at that point? So sometimes we can connect the dots for USCIS and show them that they are extraordinary even with just a couple of years under their belt of work experience. 

Denzil MohammedAnd just to be clear, when you talk about the  H-1B high skilled worker visa there is a cap, there is a certain number that are issued and because there are so many applications they actually have to have a lottery system in order to choose and meet that cap. So thousands upon thousands of other people, high skilled immigrants, are deliberately-they’re just tossed away they left out. 

Erik WidmanThere’s an element of luck and this seems very un-American. It doesn’t seem like we’re choosing the best and allowing the best to work for us. We want to give more opportunities to these people. It’s a free market, that’s what we should support more, but it’s not a free market for the immigrant. 

Denzil MohammedAnd it’s not advantageous to us if we are deliberately telling people, “Nope! You have to go back. No more room.” And you mentioned the extraordinary ability visa, tell us a little bit more about this visa and the kinds of people who may qualify and some of the things that they accomplish in the U.S.

Erik Widman: Yes, and everyone would love to be called extraordinary and so it’s, there’s a high bar. Most of us unfortunately cannot be cost truly classified as extraordinary …

Denzil MohammedHey!

Erik Widman: … but with, yeah, it’s, we all should aim for it, that’s for certain. But, the challenge is to show why this particular applicant truly is at the top of his or her field. A Taekwondo expert from Hungary, so that was someone else we helped. He was world champion, he was happy to teach Oregonian kids and build his business and help his employer with that. We’ve also had the O-1 approved for an amazing Chinese artist, for example. He was rather young, recent graduate from school, but a world class painter. And so we were able to show, please give this person a visa. He is going to make an amazing contribution, his employer wants him and please grant this pathway to this amazing, extraordinary individual. 

Denzil MohammedAnd indeed these incredible people, the best and the brightest come to this country and keep it innovative and entrepreneurial, and I really admire the diversity of people you’ve described from Taekwondo champions to artists, I mean that’s pretty incredible. But research from our own partners at the Institute for Immigration Research at George Mason University shows that even up to one-third of our Nobel Prize winners are immigrants. Is that incredible?

Erik Widman: That statistic stuns me and it’s remarkable to hear it and it’s a beautiful thing too, to look at the way, for example historically we welcomed Albert Einstein, we’ve welcomed all these individuals who went on to do amazing things for our country and the entire world. So I’m always moved by statistics like that because we enable the greatest people, people who are amazing at their fields to achieve to their full potential and that is what makes the U.S. the land of opportunity, is where we give people a platform to really thrive and get access to resources and government funding for in some cases. 

Denzil MuhammedSo it’s not just industries that are attracting people, it’s our higher education system, people who come here and do postdocs and they collab, importantly, they collaborate with U.S.-born researchers at these universities and they come up with the most incredible inventions and theories and they win the Nobel Prize for it. But it’s America who gets the credit and rightfully so because we are the ones attracting these bright people, right?

Erik WidmanAbsolutely. 

Denzil Mohammed: So before I get to my last question, just comment on what we’ve spoken about so far, about the need for high skilled and low skilled immigrants, on the inherently entrepreneurial nature of immigrants. Just sort of comment on that for a little bit before we close.

Erik WidmanYes, the need for immigrant labor is strong on both the higher end of the spectrum, lower end, in the middle and listen to these thought leaders like Elon Musk, like many who have credibility would … I know he’s a controversial figure these days … but who understand groundbreaking big thinkers and they see that if as a population continues to age we’re going to need people to take care of them. We’re not going to have the tax base, Social Security is in big trouble, we’re not having enough kids to fund all of the money we’re gonna have to pay for our health care system. So one of the few pathways open to us is more immigrant labor and historically, we have done a great job of welcoming people from all over the world and incorporating them into our society and their kids go on to be amazing contributors on their own and they are 100 percent American. 

Denzil Mohammed: It speaks to what or who is an American. It’s not defined by how you look, how you speak, what you wear, it’s something much more intrinsic about being an American, and that is something multitudes of people can share. And that’s what American society is and has always been. 

Erik WidmanYes and I encourage people to look at the oath of allegiance when people are becoming citizens and people are proudly saying, yes, I’m willing to support the U.S. Constitution. And I think fundamentally that is what unites us, is our core commitment to one another through these founding principles of liberty, democracy, fair opportunity, the rule of law, those things are what unite us and it’s too bad we’ve been sidetracked by more peripheral things these days, but the core of what unites new Americans and native-born Americans, it’s still there.

Denzil MohammedThis was a really good conversation. Erick Widman, immigration attorney, founding attorney at Passage Immigration Law in Portland Oregon, thank you for joining us on the JobMakers podcast to talk about immigrant workers, immigrant entrepreneurs, immigrant innovators and immigrants in general.

Erik WidmanThank you so much, Denzil. It was a real pleasure.

Denzil MohammedJobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for this week’s discussion and how our immigration system falls short when we need it most and the glimpse into what we should do about it. If you know an outstanding immigrant business owner or innovator we should talk to, e-mail Denzil, that’s D-E-N-Z-I-L at jobmakerspodcast.org. I’m Denzil Mohammed. See you next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers. 

Episode 72: Julianne Zimmerman

JobMakers podcast graphic: Julianne Zimmerman on the inventive legacies of immigrantsJulianne Zimmerman is leveling the playing field for marginalized founders through her work as managing director of Reinventure Capital, a venture capital firm that only invests in people of color and women. As a supporter of The ILC, she has long championed the contributions of immigrant entrepreneurs. Listen to learn why she believes that it is crucial that we work together to bring about much-needed social and economic change.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed. Welcome to JobMakers.

Denzil Mohammed: If ever we were to have an intellectual conversation about U.S. immigration, what would we talk about and what would result? The data shows without a doubt that all the people of this country benefit from the dynamic influence of drive and talent, particularly in STEM and as innovators and business owners. So what are we doing here? For Julianne Zimmerman, managing director at Reinventure Capital, lecturer on social entrepreneurship at Tufts University and named to Forbes’s 2022 50 list, she sees firsthand how immigrants collaborate with the U.S.-born to create meaningful inventions that solve real problems, but also how rhetoric, policy and an outdated system can shut them out. In her storied, nearly 40 year career, Julianne, who now heads a firm that invests solely in companies led and controlled by black, indigenous, people of color and female founders, has come to a place where it is crucial that we work together to bring about much needed social and economic change. But this won’t happen if we close ourselves off. It’s time to have a real, intellectual conversation on immigration, she says, as you’ll hear in this week’s JobMakers.

Denzil Mohammed: Julianne Zimmerman, managing director at Reinventure Capital in Boston, lecturer at Tufts University on social entrepreneurship, and most recently, Forbes 50 over 50 when it comes to money in 2022. Welcome to the JobMakers podcast. How are you?

Julianne Zimmerman: Thank you so much, Denzil. I’m delighted to be here with you today.

Denzil Mohammed: So your resume is very, very long. It’s several legal-size pages long.

Julianne Zimmerman: [Laughs]

Denzil Mohammed: But one thing that caught me in one of your bios is you included a quote from the late, great Leila Janah.

Julianne Zimmerman: Yes.

Denzil Mohammed: And she says, “Our best hope for a bright future for all the citizens of the world, and for our planet, lies in dissolving the traditional barriers we’ve drawn between doing good and doing good business.”

Julianne Zimmerman: Yeah.

Denzil Mohammed: What does that mean, and why is that important now?

Julianne Zimmerman: Well, I think first of all, Leila was fantastic. She was a brilliant entrepreneur, and she was an unapologetic social entrepreneur, both as a founder of a for-profit social enterprise, and as the founder of a nonprofit social enterprise. She was extraordinarily articulate in naming these issues, but also, she was extremely effective in demonstrating that it is not only possible, but that is a fantastically valuable way to approach the premise and the operation of enterprise in general. And why it’s important is because I think that, collectively, we all swallowed whole the dictum that Friedman laid out more than a half century ago when he said that the one and only purpose of business is to return value to shareholders. That was an idiotic statement when he made it. It was obviously not true, and yet somehow, it became dogma. I think we know from experience that the very best companies are ones which create value for all of their stakeholders, not merely for their shareholders. And I think that we are just now kind of, depending on how you think about it, waking up from that delusion or maybe, you know, coming to terms with the fact that we swallowed something that didn’t agree with us [laughs]. But there are so many examples, not only Leila’s excellent example, but so many examples that show us that in fact the best companies are the ones which focus on the value they create for all of their stakeholders.

Denzil Mohammed: As a managing director at Reinventure Capital, how does Leila’s sentiment, what is relationship and why is it important for us to invest for better financial returns and better social outcomes?

Julianne Zimmerman: The fact is, we have a large and ever expanding body of analysis and research at this point, from the likes of McKinsey and Morgan Stanley and numerous others, that fairly consistently concludes that the existing status quo, our systems of finance, focused as they are, narrowly, exclusively on this notion of business only to generate financial returns, have not only underperformed financially as a result, but have also left economic, social and environmental harms in their wake. And so, the premise that companies have no responsibility or that investors have no responsibility for those harms is increasingly coming into question, and I think should be scrutinized very skeptically, right? I think that for us at Reinventure, we know, again, that not only is it possible, but it’s the best scenario to invest in companies that become economic engines, companies that create economic value, that create positive impacts, not only for their investors and their founders, but equally importantly, for their customers and their partners and their employees and the communities in which they operate.

Denzil Mohammed: So Reinventure seeks to level the playing field in a sense, because we know through the research and just through day-to-day interactions that women and people of color generally don’t figure in as highly in the c-suite offices. So what does Reinventure Capital do? And tell us a little bit about some of the people you’ve invested in.

Julianne Zimmerman: Sure. So first of all, our investment thesis, our strategy, is very nearly orthogonal to the rest of the venture community. We are a venture investment practice, but we use venture capital in a very different way than our conventional VC peers. So, Reinventure invests exclusively in U.S.-based companies that are both led and controlled by BIPOC and/or female founders. And we invest in those companies when they are at or on the cusp of break even, and we work with them to help them grow more profitably. Moreover, as part of our investment terms, we also bind ourselves and the companies we invest in, that they will continue to hire, promote and compensate equitably at all levels of the organization as they grow. And we also commit to their strategic impact objectives, whatever those may be. And one of the things we find is that, very often, founders are actively discouraged by other investors from even talking about impact objectives. And that discouragement often comes in the form of a statement like, “Listen, it’s hard enough to grow a successful business. Don’t load on extra difficulties or distractions. Just grow a company and make a lot of money, and then you can give it away as much as you wish.” Right? Which is a very narrow and we think ultimately unproductive way to think about growing high value businesses. And if you look at companies like Uber, for example, often held up as examples of merit, right? Here’s a company that is riddled with scandal and has a litany of complaints from employees and customers alike about mistreatment, right? We see that as part and parcel of that notion of, just make as much money as you can and then, you know, figure out how to be a decent human being or a positive force as a company later. And so we invest very explicitly in a very different direction. So the companies we invest in, we’ve invested in seven so far in this portfolio. We’re about halfway through investing this fund. And the companies we’ve invested in are in wide variety of sectors, and they are scattered across the U.S. geographically. So we have invested in companies in digital media and in clean energy and in clean water and in fintech. And we’ve also invested in a VR/AR company. We are looking at companies in edtech and in health-related propositions, services and technologies, and we see a really fantastically rich deal flow.

Denzil Mohammed: How do immigrant founders fit into your work, into your portfolio?

Julianne Zimmerman: Well, as you know, Denzil, immigrant founders punch above their weight statistically, right? So a significant fraction of successful companies founded in the U.S., whether we’re talking about high growth companies like the kinds we invest in, or whether we’re talking about the kinds of companies that are really the anchors of local economies, those brick and mortar businesses that really give and sustain the life of communities, right? So immigrant entrepreneurs are, you know, a significant fraction of the founders we encounter and contemplate investing behind. Specifically in our portfolio so far, I’d love to highlight two women. One, Isabel Rafferty Zavala, who is the founder and CEO of Canela Media. She’s, by the way, born in Mexico. Canela Media is a digital media company serving Spanish-language audiences in the U.S. and across the Americas. And she has just been doing a phenomenal job of growing that company in a sector which many people said was already too crowded for any new entrance to be successful. So not only has she demonstrated a unique vision and an extraordinary ability to execute, but she’s also racking up significant honors for her accomplishments as the founder CEO in the digital media sector as well. Most recently, she was an EY entrepreneur of the year and was named the U.S. National Entrepreneur of the Year for Emerging Enterprises, just last week. The other person I’d love to highlight is Dr. Fatemeh Shirazi, who’s the founder and CEO of Microvi. Microvi is a clean water and broader technology platform company to provide what they call a micro-niche platform, using microbes to process a wide variety of industrial or municipal or other outflows. And Dr. Shirazi is originally from Iran, and her team, again, has developed an extraordinary platform already in the water and wastewater segment. It provides a solution that delivers superior performance to all the available alternatives at about an eighth of the price. So when we think about the issues of water and wastewater that are already severely impacting many of our communities and that are predicted to begin severely impacting many more of our communities in just the next few years, this is an extremely important innovation.

Denzil Mohammed: Given your observations having been in this field for more than 25 years, given the fact that these immigrants come from entirely different countries, so you know, you mentioned Iran as one of them for sure, they have different challenges, but they also have different skills that they come with. What have been some of your observations for the immigrant founders that you’ve worked with over the years?

Julianne Zimmerman: Well, I will say that this is a kind of bad news, good news story. So first of all, many of the immigrant entrepreneurs I know, separate from the two I’ve mentioned and represented in our portfolio, are extraordinarily gifted as founders, in part because they have had to overcome extremely difficult circumstances. And so that’s why I think of it as a bad news good news thing, because the fact that they’ve had to overcome extraordinarily difficult circumstances is not great. We would not like for people to come to the U.S. because they are coming from difficult circumstances. And to be clear, obviously not all immigrants come from difficult circumstances, but many I’ve met have come to the states because they, or because their parents, were fleeing their home countries. And so I think that’s a part of it. But also one of the things that I see over and over again, whether people came to the U.S. voluntarily or whether they came to the U.S. in distress, either way, as families, they have demonstrated over and over again an abidingly strong commitment to create value, to create legacy, to create something of lasting significance and not necessarily, or not merely, to figure out how to get wealthy very quickly, although obviously creating wealth matters, but there’s a very consistent commitment to creating something that has meaning and purpose and lasting significance, not something merely transient. And again, you know, when I think about what the very best companies have in common, it’s that principle or that philosophy that these companies exist not merely to find a way to generate a profit, but also to generate that profit by doing good in the world, by creating solutions to unmet needs or unsolved problems.

Denzil Mohammed: But you talk about inflows and the benefits of that constant inflow of talent and determination and drive. They’re up against something called the U.S. immigration system.

Julianne Zimmerman: Oh yes.

Denzil Mohammed: Which has not been transformed in so many years. It’s clearly very outdated. And the benefits to immigrants and to the receiving communities is so well established that, you know, the idea of putting America first, meaning to restrict everyone else, we know that that shoots us in the foot. It is not to our benefit at all. Do you really think that restrictionist policies put Americans first, given the high rates of entrepreneurship and innovation and the increase in U.S.-born innovation as a result of multiple talents being around?

Julianne Zimmerman: I think that’s the xenophobia that is often tied to a kind of nationalism that likes to whitewash American identity and American history, is very narrowly self-serving for a very, very small segment of the population. But even then, and this is sort of embedded in your question I think, even then, that narrow self-interest is ultimately defeated by the simple fact that were we to completely close our borders, were we to completely shut down immigration, that would harm everyone in the United States. It would harm all of us. And I think that unfortunately, we don’t typically have a very grown up conversation about immigration in the United States. It’s usually like, immigration bad, immigration good [laughs], and we don’t typically have a conversation about why and how and where and when immigration is vitally important and why and how and where and when it’s challenging. And I think we tend not to have that conversation in an intellectually honest way, right? About, how do we practice immigration in a way which is thoughtful and and practical and which takes into account the fact that we are dependent on immigration, but does so in a way which is humane for immigrants and which actually encourages and enables the receiving communities to embrace immigrants and thrive together with them, with their new neighbors, as opposed to seeing them as, you know, arriving foes or enemies.

Denzil Mohammed: [laughs] An intellectual conversation. Immigrants are the reason many schools can sustain their STEM programs.

Julianne Zimmerman: Mm-hmm.

Denzil Mohammed: I mean, think about that. We are a nation that has always been innovating, but we’ve depended on people from everywhere who wanted to innovate, but innovate here. My boss came here when she was three years old, and she started an incredible organization that celebrated 30 years this year.

Julianne Zimmerman: Congratulations again, by the way. It’s fantastic.

Denzil Mohammed: Julianne Zimmerman, managing director at Reinventure Capital, lecturer in social entrepreneurship at Tufts University, and of course, Forbes 50 over 50 list. Thank you so much for joining us on the JobMakers podcast.

Julianne Zimmerman: Thank you, Denzil.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is the weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for this week’s exploration of how immigration enriches us all. If you know an outstanding immigrant business owner or innovator we should talk to, email Denzil. That’s d-e-n-z-i-l @jobmakerspodcast.com. I’m Denzil Mohammed. See you next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 71: Joséphine Erni

JobMakers podcast graphic: Josephine Erni on bringing Swiss innovation to the U.S. marketWhile working as the innovation lead at Swissnex, the world’s first “science consulate,” Swiss American immigrant Joséphine Erni has learned the value of the free exchange of people and ideas. Their work has fostered collaborative businesses that benefit both countries. Listen to learn why she believes being open to diversity brings creative solutions.

Episode 70: Josh Bedi

JobMakers podcast graphic: Josh Bedi on how immigrants boost native entrepreneurship

After watching his immigrant father run a small business as a child, Josh Bedi grew up to study how immigrants strengthen the economy and increase rates of entrepreneurship. Listen to learn how his research shows that both “high-” and  “low-skilled” immigrants financially benefit their new homes.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed. Welcome to JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: We’ve looked at the research on immigrants and entrepreneurship before. In the U.S. they’re twice as likely to start a business, innovate and create jobs. Why is that? One big reason is who immigrants are, their qualities and strengths, the things that make them take a risk and move to a new land in the first place. But that’s not all they do. For Dr. Joshua Bedi, child of an immigrant and a post-doctoral researcher in entrepreneurship in the Department of Strategy and Innovation at Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, not only are immigrants more adept at entrepreneurship in the U.S. and worldwide, they also boost the innovation and business generation of citizens in host countries. That’s a huge net benefit to the countries to which immigrants and refugees move. And the research proves it. Joshua sees this not only in the data, but also in his own personal experience. The son of an immigrant to Jackson, Mississippi, from India, his father started a business himself. It was a simple neighborhood gas station, but also a symbol of what hardworking immigrants can do when they move to new lands, and their backs are against the wall as you learn in this week’s JobMakers podcast.

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Denzil Mohammed: Dr. Joshua Bedi, postdoc in entrepreneurship at the Department of Strategy and Innovation at Copenhagen Business School and alum from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, welcome to the JobMakers podcast. How are you?

Josh Bedi: I’m great, Denzil. Thanks for having me.

Denzil Mohammed: So you study immigrant entrepreneurship, academically, of course, but it’s also part of your family history, right?

Josh Bedi: Yes, absolutely. So I’m, I guess, the second generation immigrant. My dad came over here from Punjab, India, my mom’s from the U.S. so I had kind of a mixed family background.

Denzil Mohammed: And your father ended up owning his own business as an immigrant entrepreneur?

Josh Bedi: Yes, exactly. So a few of my relatives ended up owning their own businesses as immigrant entrepreneurs, and that’s how he got into owning his own business. So my great uncle owned a few gas stations and that’s how my dad got into it.

Denzil Mohammed: And what was it like for you as a child of immigrants actually working in that business? What was that like?

Josh Bedi: Well, so I thought it was pretty fun at the time. Not a lot of people had parents who owned their own business. And so I thought that was pretty novel. I always felt pretty American. I have a bunch of Indian family, but it wasn’t so much that my dad was an immigrant entrepreneur that was novel to me, but it was that he was an entrepreneur. I even remember one day in class we were talking about entrepreneurship in elementary school and one of the teachers asked if any of us knew an entrepreneur. And I was like, Oh, you know my dad’s an entrepreneur. And she made sure that I knew what the definition of an entrepreneur was, because she didn’t believe me at first. And so, yes, I thought that was cool, and I liked working behind the register and stocking up the beer and all that stuff.

Denzil Mohammed: So tell me a little bit about your research as specifically on immigrant entrepreneurship. I know you look into the factors that affect entrepreneurship activity in a host country.

Josh Bedi: Well, so generally we find that immigrants are more entrepreneurial, but that’s kind of an obvious thing. But right now in this newest research that I’m looking at, we’re starting to find that it’s the immigrants who have Danish citizenship that are driving these higher entrepreneurship rates. And, in fact, the negative impact of not having Danish citizenship on the likelihood of becoming an entrepreneur we’re finding is greatest for immigrants as opposed to other types of individuals. Because in Denmark you can be born in Denmark and not have Danish citizenship. So we can compare non-movers with people who move internally, with international immigrants and also with return immigrants. So we can look at people who left Denmark and came back and see if they’re more entrepreneurial and see how citizenship affects their entrepreneurship rates. And so we find immigrants are the most entrepreneurial, followed by return immigrants, which is really interesting. And we also find that having foreign citizenship, particularly foreign citizenship that’s very restrictive, we find that that negatively moderates the relationship. So we find that that makes it less likely for immigrants to be entrepreneurial, particularly immigrants. So it has a more negative impact for immigrants than it does for, say, return immigrants or internal migrants. And, in fact, what I’m seeing is, we’re finding that the non-movers who are foreign citizens are actually more entrepreneurial than the non-movers who are Danish citizens. So that’s the only exception and that probably has to do with the fact that if you are born in Denmark and you don’t have foreign citizenship, at least one of your parents has to be an immigrant. And so it could be that they’re just getting foreign exposure secondhand from their parents, and that’s causing them to be more entrepreneurial. But I mean that’s kind of a guess.

Denzil Mohammed: So immigration is driving entrepreneurship no matter what angle you look at it, right?

Josh Bedi: That’s what it looks like.

Denzil Mohammed: Given that that is your finding about immigration driving entrepreneurship is so clear …

Josh Bedi: Uh-huh. [affirmative]

Denzil Mohammed: … are there visas built into the immigration system that are specifically for entrepreneurs?

Josh Bedi: Yes, so there are in the U.S. Now the problem with those is they require a lot of upfront capital in order for the person to be eligible for the visa. So you’re excluding a lot of your sole proprietorships, say, from being able to come in on that visa. In Denmark, I don’t know about self-employment visas in particular, but there are definitely visas for, say, high-skill managers who might play entrepreneurial roles inside of a company. And I actually benefit from a type of visa like that. So you have these high-skilled managers, but you also have researchers, and they have a special visa for those two people. And we actually get a lower tax rate than the average Danish person. So there’s even a tax incentive, at least in Denmark, to kind of attract top-level managers and researchers to come.

Denzil Mohammed: And in that pool you work on you find people who end up starting their own businesses, whether it’s a push factor or pull factor. So if you were to speculate as to why people who move are more likely to engage in entrepreneurship, generating businesses, creating jobs, what do you think it would be? Why?

Josh Bedi: I think it’s a couple reasons. So my first theory when I first got into this is that, and I think I’ve heard you say this before, is that immigration is an inherently entrepreneurial action. If we think of entrepreneurship as trying to better your circumstances in the face of radical uncertainty, that’s exactly what immigration is. It’s a huge upfront investment that you’re making. There’s a lot of risk involved, even for low-skilled immigrants, especially for, say, undocumented immigrants. There’s a ton of risk involved, because you could get sent back and that’s you putting down years worth of your wages, maybe to hire a coyote, get sent back. And so you’re taking a huge risk. And so there’s kind of this selection bias that the type of person it takes to immigrate and to take this kind of risk and to try these new things is also the type of person who’s willing to be open minded, to try new business ideas and to engage in a certain level of risk. But I also think there are things that happen after the migration process, or maybe during the migration process, after you come into the country, into the host country, that causes you to be more entrepreneurial. And so there’s a certain type of adaptation that has to take place after you come into the host country. And I know from personal experience coming from the U.S. to Denmark, which are two relatively similar countries, by the way, I can get around speaking English, but there’s still a little bit of a culture shock. And you have to adapt to your new environment. You have to figure out how to get basic essentials like toiletries and where those are in the stores because they’re in different types of stores and you have to figure out how to find them on the shelves. And so you’re forced to learn how to adapt. And then there’s also cross-cultural experience. And I think that partly explains why we see that return immigrants are entrepreneurial in similar ways that immigrants are, because maybe they’re not born outside of the host country, but they get that cross-cultural experience by going abroad. And all entrepreneurship is opportunity identification. And when you get more cross-cultural experience, you see more different ways of doing things. You’re able to expand your knowledge set. You’re able to draw on these different experiences and relate them to your home country and try out new ideas that maybe natives haven’t thought to try out before.

Denzil Mohammed: So I often say that diversity is a huge strength of the United States. And what you’re telling me, this diversity of experiences, cross-cultural experiences, is a net benefit when it comes to the economy, right?

Josh Bedi: Absolutely. Absolutely. There’s a ton of research on the benefits of immigration generally for the economy. Michael Clemens has a famous paper (he actually just started, or he’s going to start soon, at George Mason University), Trillion Dollar Bills on the Sidewalk, where he estimates, he does a survey of the literature, and we see estimates of the benefits of open borders, anywhere from multiplying GDP by 1.5 to doubling it. So, yes, absolutely. And it doesn’t have to just be the immigrants themselves who are entrepreneurs to kind of lead this innovative process. We can have gains from even letting low-skill immigrants in. So we can have indirect benefits because these low-skill immigrants are willing to work for less pay, and the immigrant who mows the lawn of the nuclear physicist indirectly helps to unlock the secrets of the universe. I heard that quote. Alex Tabarrok gave a TED Talk, and gave that quote, and it stuck with me, because we see a lot of research that shows all these indirect impacts of immigration that could influence entrepreneurship. So another example of that is we see a decrease in the gender wage gap in the U.S. when we see influxes of immigrants who work in industries that are traditionally female dominated by cleaning industries, because it frees up women’s time to be able to go do the things that they want to do, and that decreases the gender gap. And so, absolutely, I think it’s that benefit for the economy.

Denzil Mohammed: And do you see immigrant entrepreneurship positively affecting native entrepreneurship?

Josh Bedi: Oh, yes. So we have direct evidence of this depending on what kind of proxy of entrepreneurship we’re looking at. So I know that there’s research by Jennifer Hunt, and that looks at patent rates among foreign-born people in STEM fields, and they find that there’s a positive spillover effect. And so we see that it’s not the fact that it’s not the case that these immigrants are replacing native inventors. Instead, they’re kind of collaborating with native inventors. They’re bringing out the best of native inventors, they’re increasing the productivity of those native inventors. There are also other other studies that look at kind of natural experiments, like a sudden death of someone working on a patent. And so they looked at native patent holders who were partners with immigrant patent holders, or at least people working on a patent, and they found that when the immigrant, if the immigrant died suddenly the probability of that patent being accepted later decreased significantly. And the same is not true if the native founder dies suddenly. And so there’s a huge positive spillover.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s pretty incredible. And you think of the most obvious example in my head is Moderna, which has multiple founders. Some are foreign-born, some are U.S. -born. And so that collaboration you’re talking about does engender innovation and productivity in the real world jobs and vaccines. As a researcher, have you seen this as any sort of similar kind of research innovation when it comes to collaborating with different people, with different perspectives, different backgrounds?

Josh Bedi: Absolutely. I mean, you see it all the time. So we’re basically talking about different comparative advantages. All we’re saying is something that every economist knows from the beginning of their training, is that there’s gains from trade because we all have a comparative advantage in something different. And so when it comes to research, nowadays you have to have a really good empirical method to get published well, and you have to have a really good story, a really good theory behind it. And so a lot of times I see foreign researchers, who maybe aren’t as good at English but they do very well in mathematics, pair up with native researchers who aren’t as good at mathematics, but obviously they’re good at English because it’s their native language, and they collaborate and come up with awesome research together. And so we see that often. And even people from different countries, you often see people collaborating from different countries who can get different perspectives. I know there are a lot of things that I don’t consider right off the bat coming from the U.S. compared to somebody who comes from, say, Europe.

Denzil Mohammed: And if someone were to come to you and say, “Well, you’re saying this, fine, but what about countries like Japan?”

Josh Bedi: Well, I mean, we’ll never know the counterfactual, right? So how innovative would they have been if they had opened up their borders because they are a very restrictive country when it comes to immigration? And if someone brought up Japan, I would just point to demographic worries. They’re losing population, which isn’t good for their long-term growth. And, yes, so I would say, “What is the counterfactual?” Do we think they would’ve been less innovative if we had allowed immigration? Or would they have experienced the same level of innovation or even more? And for me, it’s not just a practical issue. So if we’re going to restrict the freedom of movement of a bunch of people, then we need to do so with a lot of justification. So I think if we’re gonna do so, then it needs to be because we think they would’ve been a lot less innovative had they allowed that immigration to happen. And I don’t think there’s any kind of evidence that points to that being the case.

Denzil Mohammed: And we just have to look at the size of our economy versus other countries that immigration was able to foster. I want to just emphasize, you mentioned that we are not just talking about high-skilled workers.

Josh Bedi: Mm-hmm. [affirmative]

Denzil Mohammed: We’re talking about low-skilled workers as well who may start a nail salon or a hairdressing salon, and who as workers also help to grow the economy. Can you speak a little bit to that, that it’s not just that we need the best and the brightest, we just need people who are hardworking, right?

Josh Bedi: Yes, exactly. So there are those people who are low-skilled, who are going to become entrepreneurs themselves and are gonna contribute to the economy. Maybe they hire natives. I know in the case of my Indian relatives who have opened up gas stations and hotels, they hire natives. It is true that they do pull from their social pool or from their social capital in that they hire other Indians, other people who come from their family and things like this. But they also hire natives too. So they help in that way, and they also provide goods and services. I have heard people complain about immigrant businesses saying, oh, they only hire other immigrants, or they only hire their family, so they don’t contribute to the economy, but then they go eat at the restaurant. And so my answer to that is, is you eating at this restaurant not a contribution to the economy? Are they not filling up some unmet need? And so there’s that, and there’s also the idea that immigrants aren’t, to some of the points you’ve made, and that we’ve been making, immigrants aren’t perfect substitutes for natives. They complement natives in different ways. The average skill set of immigrants from different places is gonna be different than the average skill set of natives. And so we can have complementarities, and those complementarities could be in the form of immigrants hiring natives, but they also could be in the form of, say, a native who has a construction crew. And he’s a private contractor, and he hires a bunch of immigrants. And, in fact, we even see there’s some working papers, or at least one working paper that shows there was a Mexican repatriation act in the ’20s or ’30s. And they find it was a mass deportation, basically. And they find that this mass deportation decreased native employment. And so, that completely cuts against the idea that they’re taking jobs from natives.

Denzil Mohammed: And I want to push back on that idea of, oh, they only hire their own. Social capital is really important to foreign-born people in a host country. They don’t have a lot more to rely on. They will not be the ones who may easily get loans or may not know how to navigate city hall in order to find some sort of assistance. So, you know, hiring your own has a lot of benefits when it comes to the entrepreneur and people that he hires. It’s a sense of community. And so many communities, foreign-born communities who have come to the U.S. have grown in that way. And, as you said, they may need to hire a contractor to expand their business, which may be a U.S.-born person. They may need cleaners. They may need their foods to be delivered by truck drivers who are U.S.-born. So in this satellite and downstream industries, you create more jobs. If we were to close by some sort of reflection personally on your family’s history with entrepreneurship and the kind of things that you are seeing in your research, what is special about that person who starts a gas station or comes up with a vaccine who is in a country that he was not born in, or she was not born in, they didn’t know all the rules, they didn’t know all the laws, they didn’t know the culture, but they still were able to innovate or create something. Reflect on that for a little bit, given your father’s side of the family.

Josh Bedi: Well, so I think that kind of person is somebody who is comfortable with uncertainty, which is something that an entrepreneur has to be very comfortable with. I think it’s somebody who is adaptable. I think they do not allow barriers, be they legal barriers or cultural barriers or language barriers, I think it’s someone that doesn’t allow those barriers to dissuade them, right? If anything, they may find it to be a challenge to overcome. And so, yes, I think it’s someone who’s ultra adaptable, and very, very okay with uncertainty. Really, I think if there’s a closing sentiment, it’s be nice to the local immigrant, because he has a lot more to deal with than you give him credit for.

Denzil Mohammed: If we were to be welcoming, our communities would really thrive, right?

Josh Bedi: Yes, yes, I absolutely think so. Both communities.

Denzil Mohammed: Precisely. Dr. Joshua Bedi, postdoc in entrepreneurship at the Department of Strategy and Innovation at the Copenhagen Business School, thank you for joining us on the JobMakers podcast.

Josh Bedi: Thanks for having me.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thanks for joining us for this week’s deep dive into the research and personal experiences of immigrant entrepreneurship. If you know an outstanding business owner or innovator we should interview, please email Denzil, that’s d-e-n-z-i-l, @jobmakerspodcast.org. I’m Denzil Mohammed. See you next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 69: Steve Tobocman and Mamba Hamissi

JobMakers podcast graphic: How refugees are revitalizing Detroit

Mamba Hamissi came to the U.S. from Burundi as an impoverished refugee and now runs a James Beard-nominated restaurant. Steve Tobocman, the executive director of Global Detroit, describes how Hamissi represents countless immigrant and refugee entrepreneurs who have helped to strengthen and rebuild Detroit’s economy. Listen to learn how small investments in a newcomer’s business can pay significant dividends for a community.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed. Welcome back to JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Few cities have fallen as far as Detroit did in the early 2000s. Population lost and the spiral in economic vitality caused the city to make the largest municipal bankruptcy filing in U.S. history. Tough spot, but that’s where immigrants and refugees come in as they’ve done for generations. Immigrants move into places in economic decline because that’s where they can afford the rents, or, in the case of refugees, are settled where other refugees have settled in the past, and they build it back up. For Steve Tobocman, head of the economic development nonprofit Global Detroit, and Mamba Hamissi, refugee from Burundi and co-founder of Baobab Fare, an East African Restaurant, they see it and they’re doing it: building back Detroit and infusing it with life, culture and that immigrant work ethic. Immigrants and refugees often have no choice but to start a small business when they move to a new country. It’s no wonder then that immigrants and refugees even more so have higher than average rates of business generation. We hear from the economic development leader, Steve, and one of the thousands of refugee-business owners he’s assisted, Mamba, on how a little help to a newcomer can help build up the entire community, in this week’s JobMakers podcast.

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Denzil Mohammed: Mamba Hamissi, co-founder and CEO of Baobab Fare in Detroit, and Steve Tobocman, executive director of Global Detroit in Detroit, welcome to the JobMakers podcast. How are you?

Mamba Hamissi: Good. Thank you.

Denzil Mohammed: So, Mamba, I want to start with you. You have an incredible story. You and your wife and your twin kids have an incredible journey from Central Africa to the U.S. Tell us how you got here and why you had to move in the first place.

Mamba Hamissi: Yes, so the journey started with my wife in 2013, through the country Burundi where we were born and raised. And then she was a human rights activist. And then she has to flee the country because she was in trouble from the report that she made. And then we end up in Detroit. So Nadia, my wife, found herself in Freedom House. That was 2013. And after a couple months she found out she was pregnant, and she was pregnant with twins. I tried to join them and unfortunately I got denied a visa two times, and so I saw them for the first time, Nadia and my kids, in November 2015. I started a new life at the same moment. I didn’t speak the language, of course. I didn’t have a work authorization. Very hard time as a migrant and refugee to be in Detroit because Donald Trump was becoming the president of the United States. So there was a lot of hate messages around. So was not easy emotionally. Same time, I could not then even get a job because seeking asylum was even tougher then, what would be in the normal days and normal time. I got my work authorization in 2017. So I stay home, start learning the language, watch cartoons with the girls, and using a lot of Google translation so then I can hear how the word sounds. And that’s, I didn’t take a class, so that’s the only way I could start speaking and listening, which was not easy. But by the time you get in a new country, the only thing is to learn the language. That’s how, that’s the only way you want to communicate. At the moment, we tried to get a job around Detroit, there was not any jobs. So I end up working in a factory like 45, 50 minutes away from Detroit. And then I realized right away that that is no way I would end up my life or this is not something I want to do all my life. And then, meantime, I was staying home. There was a program at Freedom House that Steve and Global Detroit, I think they started with Prosperous Detroit. So it was an entrepreneurship program that I took classes. And then that program opened my eyes that it’s possible to open a business. It’s possible to be an entrepreneur in this country. I was like, Oh, wow, this is great. So the dream started there. I was like, one day I want to own my own business. Around that time, there was not that many African restaurants. Data shows 75 percent of people who live in Detroit are Black. You can’t go wrong with that, but the reality was not that. The reality was people didn’t know anything about Burundi, didn’t know anything about East Central Africa. So we have to teach again. And then this is how we started. And then 2017, July, we won the [inaudible] Detroit, which was $50,000 prize to open the new business.

Denzil Mohammed: I want to get to that. But, I mean, just in such a short space of time you arrived here and your wife arrived in 2013. You got here in 2015. Donald Trump became president. There was a lot of hate, as you say, toward refugees and immigrants and the learning process as well. You said you had to start over. I mean, to start a whole new life again at 35, don’t even know the language. You don’t know the legal structure. You don’t know the culture. You’re depending on the kindness of strangers. That’s just an absolutely, absolutely fascinating story. Tell me a little bit about this idea for entrepreneurship.

Mamba Hamissi: So I grow up. My mom owned a small restaurant. The restaurant was in the markets, so she would sell food, and then the main goal, main purpose of selling food for her was to make sure, we have some food on the table so we can eat. So, coming in this country, now that she’s an amazing cook, and I have that background. My mom owned the restaurant. I used to tell her, You can cook, I can sell. I know how to sell, but I don’t have the chance to have something I can sell. What can we do? We don’t enjoy the food around. And then there is a lot of things that I don’t like, a lot of restaurants. How can I change these things? I want to be responsible for that. I want to change the behavior, how people eat. Because you don’t want to go out there and just complain for everything without taking action, so you have to go and make changes. I felt I had that responsibility, that my motivation was I knew I’m not going to be a Burundian anymore. And I knew I’m not going, people even in Burundi they don’t want to see me again as someone from there. Same to my kids. I knew my kids since day one they are American. And then I have to give them a [legacy] of knowledge, a [legacy] of confidence, and then have to build it right now. And then the only way you can build it is to share what you have. The only thing I had was my culture. The only thing I have is my education. And that’s, I was like, let me transform this education in this culture so then I can have something strong I can handle to my kids.

Denzil Mohammed: You’ve failed a test. You’re supposed to be in love with Chicken McNuggets. I don’t understand how you didn’t like the food here. [laugh] Steve, you’ve seen this a lot over the years. I know that you grew out of the local Chamber of Commerce there in 2010. What did you see at that time and what have you seen since then with the immigrants and refugees coming into Detroit?

Steve Tobocman: Well, what we’ve seen for a community like Detroit and Southeast Michigan is really strong contributions to our economy. You know, Mamba’s story is like so many other immigrant entrepreneurs. We sometimes call it entrepreneurship out of necessity, that they’re not able to get hired for jobs that they’re trained for or skilled for. They don’t have the networks that many of us have growing up in this country or in this region. And so then they find a way on their own to really leverage their labor, their contribution, their intellectual contributions. And they’re innovative. The same kinds of drive that would have them escape or even seek out human rights abuses in their home country are some of the assets they use to build their businesses. So when we launched Global Detroit, it was the Detroit Regional Chamber looking around and saying, what are the economic contributions of immigrants and how do we step in at a time in 2010 where our state economy and our regional economy and our city’s economy were in free fall? We had the worst decade of probably any state in American history between 2000 and 2010. We went from the 17th wealthiest state in per capita income to the 41st. This was just a year before Detroit declared itself bankrupt, the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, where we lost a quarter of the population in the city of Detroit between 2000 and the 2010 census. And so what we saw was that immigrants of all walks, whether they’re asylum seekers who don’t speak the language to high tech entrepreneurs and graduates and with electrical engineering master’s degrees, that we need to be the automotive design capital of the world going forward. And we designed a series of programs and opportunities to support those folks we saw in Detroit neighborhoods, which were grossly under-retailed. Across America 28 percent of all the main-street business owners are immigrant born. And that is true in restaurants where they’re close to 38 percent of the restaurant owners. But also when you look at grocery stores, they’re over 50 percent of the grocery store owners. And these are critical economic development and community development issues for a city like Detroit. We designed programs. There’s one that Global Detroit was intimately involved with called Prosperous Detroit, which has trained over a thousand Detroiters in basic business planning sessions. Those are African-American Detroiters. Those are Latinx Detroiters who have been here for three or four generations. But it’s also newer Yemeni, Bangladeshi, African immigrants who come to the city. They’ve also lent out over three and a half million dollars in micro loans to small businesses and created over 2,500 jobs in the city. So it seems like a small strategy to help an asylee apply for their first grant and maybe to give them a small loan to open their business, but when that gets magnified across the city, it becomes a real significant industrial or economic development strategy.

Denzil Mohammed: You talk about the city being in freefall, and those are some really awful statistics that you put out there. But I think of the idea of neighborhood revitalization, and if Detroit was in such a terrible spot and you have this new blood coming in, as desperate as they may have been, that played a huge role in revitalizing the city.

Steve Tobocman: Absolutely. You know, last year we came out with a really seminal study with an urban researcher named Alan Malik and one of our data partners at Data Driven Detroit called Building Inclusive Cities. You can find it at buildinginclusivecities.org. We believe it’s the first study of its kind that looked at an urban neighborhood that had seen relatively rapid immigration growth and not what are the impact for, and how do the immigrants gain an income and get integrated and acculturated over time. It really looked at the long-term residents. So what did it mean for the long-term African-American residents in a neighborhood we call Bongo Town, East Davison Village, as well as one called Cass Corridor. And what we found is that by almost every metric that you would net measure neighborhood health by, whether it’s vacancy, tax foreclosure, mortgage foreclosure, blight, retail opportunities, crime, fires, all the bad statistics went down much faster than in the rest of the city of Detroit. And all the good statistics went up much faster. Moreover, we found that all residents, including long-term, African-American residents, felt that things in their neighborhood were better than on average in other neighborhoods, felt their neighborhood was going in the right direction and largely actually felt good about newcomers.

Denzil Mohammed: So, Mamba, tell us about your role in the city in terms of bringing in culture, using your background, growing a business, and the odd way in which that started vis-à-vis the pandemic.

Mamba Hamissi: Yes, the role is huge because, as I said, I look forward in the only city, in the only home, I have now is Detroit for me and for my family, for my kids. And then that is something that I wanted to point out. Every single immigrant, when we are coming in this country, so we look forward, we don’t look back. So we have to, it’s a responsibility to build where we are. First of all, because there is that cliché that, Oh, you are coming here to steal a job, and then that is very sometimes heavy on our shoulders. We want to prove wrong. No, no, no, no, no. We are here to build the economy. Only not that one is powering other [inaudible]. Sometimes this country still big and may be scary to start a new business or to dream about something. And then we show them that, hey, it’s possible. The American dream is there, but you have to work hard. You have to work hard. Come in this country, 2015, look where am I now. It’s because I didn’t do nothing magic. I work hard. I listened, I followed the rule. I tried to be, to not be in trouble. So there is a formula. It’s very easy, and once they see that formula, you use it and you’re succeeding. Everybody say, Oh, okay, so I can make my own contribution. So I can do something. I can be like Mamba. I think that is the responsibility that we have. And then above that is the role that we’re trying to play. Also, hiring other immigrants and refugees who are coming in this country. Sometime they don’t speak the language. So it’s great to have a space like Baobab Fare where they can start or dream or see how things can be, and then be the one who will understand them more. And sometimes you see people coming at work without the jackets in the winters. [inaudible] Man, you gonna die. You can’t do that. But if it’s coming from me. They feel like, Oh, you understand. You’ve been there. But if it’s coming from somebody else, they may feel offended. But we play that role to help with the mistakes that we made in the past, so then somebody doesn’t make the same mistakes.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s a huge responsibility you have going on there. And I want to point out again, in less than seven years, you acquired the language, you acquired the skills. You already had a huge skill set coming in, and then you won grants, you won $50,000, another $50,000, in order to start your business. And you started your business around the same time as the pandemic started, and, therefore, you know you had big dreams, but then that came crashing down. How did you find a way to maintain the momentum in order to see your business finally open? And how did you do any sort of outreach when everything was locked down?

Mamba Hamissi: I feel like for someone like me as a refugee coming in this country, the first thing is to appreciate the life that you’re living. In any ways you have better life here than what you can have back home. When you’re a refugee, because you’re fleeing the country, then you have another chance in your life. So you take that one with a lot of appreciation. And then when you see something like a pandemic, and then you in a country where you can get the vaccine, in a country where the police is not trying to kill you and try to protect you, you’re getting in a country where you have all these amazing things, that you have a lot, [inaudible] you have around. That’s only things you are winning in any battle you can go through. So for us, the pandemic was not easy, but we’ve been always making sure people they know what we are doing. We cry, we make friends, we support people. And then that’s what we did by make meals for the health care workers, make meals for people who were needed at that time. When we, once the restaurant was open, we start seeing that a lot. People wanted to give back. And then it is not about the family, it’s not about us. It’s about what you do for others. And then I think that I want people to understand this: It’s very important when you are in business, you have to be generous. Don’t just look for money. Look for the contribution that you’re making. You are changing things, and then talk to people, remind people, ask for help. It’s possible. And then that is the only way we will succeed. So opening the middle of the pandemic for us was scary, very scary. But the help, the support, was amazing.

Denzil Mohammed: Steve, this is one of many, many stories you’ve encountered over the years. Can you just reflect on that a little bit and what would be your message to other municipalities across the nation?

Steve Tobocman: Well, I think one of the things I have found working with the immigrant community is a half step forward in welcoming them and supporting them and helping them connect with their dreams and their ambitions is rewarded multiple-fold. And so we set up a session at Freedom House to talk to people about starting businesses, and now we have a James Beard nominated, nationally known amazing restaurant that is not only contributing to our economy but contributes to our culture, contributes to the food scene. I remember one of my trips in Detroit a few months ago, and I think I ended up at Mamba’s restaurant three nights in a row, in part because everybody wants to go there. And I would encourage anybody listening to this podcast next time you’re in Detroit, Baobab Fare is something you should check out. But my advice to other municipalities is that there are now in 2022, a number of partners, whether it’s Global Detroit or Welcoming America or the American Immigration Council and others, who are dedicated to assisting communities to think through the economic opportunities of being inclusive to the immigrant and refugee populations that are growing in your midst, that integration is, there’s federal immigration policies, but integration is a local experience. And rather than burying your heads in the sand, this is not the third rail of American politics. These are your neighbor, immigrants and refugees are your neighbors. They’re the future of your community. And there are plenty of things that you can do to leverage their contributions in ways that benefit everybody in the community. And so what you’re seeing is that numerous communities are rebuilding themselves, are tooling for the future, and creating prosperity, securing their own prosperity into the future through immigrant and refugee inclusion. And there’s a lot of folks out there now to assist communities to think through these challenges and how to and how to take advantage of them.

Denzil Mohammed: And it’s for everyone’s benefit. All Americans, new and old, everyone in that community benefits when people are given the opportunity to thrive. Mamba, you were forced to adapt and start over again at a really difficult time in American history when it comes to immigration. If you had one message to the American public about who refugees and asylees are, what do you think that would be?

Mamba Hamissi: Just, we just need love, and then I promise we going to give you back the same love. And, again, when we are coming in this country as refugees, especially, we don’t, the only house, the only home, the only future is here. You know, be patient with [inaudible], there is a lot of things we have to learn, but just be patient with us. One thing only, I’m sure a hundred percent we love this country, and then that’s the only country we have. And then we are more than happy, honored and appreciative every single day that we spend in this country.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s an incredible message, Mamba. Mamba Hamissi, co-founder and CEO of Baobab Fare in Detroit, and Steve Tobocman, executive director of Global Detroit, thank you for joining us on JobMakers.

Steve Tobocman: Thanks for having us.

Mamba Hamissi:Thank you.

Denzil Mohammed:JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for this week’s incredible story of one refugee entrepreneur. If you know a similarly outstanding immigrant or refugee business owner or innovator, email Denzil, that’s d-e-n-z-i-l @ jobmakerspodcast.org. I’m Denzil Mohammed. See you next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers podcast.

Episode 68: Sheetal Bahirat

JobMakers podcast graphic: Sheetal Bahirat turns a profit on food waste

Indian American entrepreneur Sheetal Bahirat is reducing food waste via her company Hidden Gems Beverage Company, which turns avocado pits into delicious, healthy drinks. Bahirat combined her backgrounds in entrepreneurship and food science to create a sustainable and profitable business. Tune in to learn how Bahirat navigated building her startup as a female, minority, immigrant founder.

Episode 67: Patrick Anquetil

JobMakers podcast graphic: Patrick Anquetil on America's freedom to innovateFrench American biotech founder Patrick Anquetil says he would never have been able to launch his medical device company Portal Instruments in his country of origin. The spirit of entrepreneurship in the United States enabled him and his organization to develop a needle-free drug delivery system that could benefit countless Americans. Listen to learn how he believes his product can improve vaccine rates. A video interview with Anquetil is also available here.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed, and welcome back to JobMakers.

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Perhaps the most special characteristic of the United States is its entrepreneurial spirit. Many immigrants grab onto that to innovate, start businesses and create jobs. It is, in fact, a story as old as time, from Levi’s jeans and Kraft cheese to SpaceX rockets and Gmail accounts. We take this as a given here in the U.S., but this is not something that exists everywhere. In many countries, there isn’t the infrastructure to support entrepreneurship and taking the risks to start a business is actually frowned upon. For Dr. Patrick Anquetil, immigrant from France and co-founder and CEO of Portal Instruments in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a clinical stage medical device company developing a needle-free drug delivery platform, there was no way he could have started a business like this in his home country. At that time, entrepreneurship was not viewed as a path to success. So he traveled to MIT, which he says gave him quote, “a sense of great possibilities as if he broke free.” That freedom to innovate will lead in Patrick’s case to a transformative patient experience in a needle-free world. Something we should all be grateful for, but it could only have been conceived and created in a place that fosters an entrepreneurial spirit in its people, old or new, as you’ll learn in this week’s JobMakers podcast.

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Patrick Anquetil, co-founder and CEO of Portal Instruments based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, welcome to the JobMakers podcast.

Patrick Anquetil: Thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here and we love job creation. So thank you for the opportunity.

Denzil Mohammed: We love it too. So who is Patrick Anquetil and what is Portal Instruments?

Patrick Anquetil: Sure. So as you probably can tell from my accent, I’m from France originally. I came to the US about 20+ years ago. I loved it and basically stayed, became an American citizen as a result and been delighted to be so. My background is, I have a degree in engineering, mechanical engineering to be more precise. Also went to Harvard business school where I got my MBA and really what I like to do is create companies and really make a contribution there to create products or services that have a high need and hopefully help make the world better. Portal Instruments is the latest company I co-founded. It’s a device out of MIT that can inject medicines without needles. So really solving a huge problem that’s clinically relevant, but unfortunately overlooked by our industry. And so that creates the environment for us to be there and change that.

Denzil Mohammed: Yeah. You’re gonna have to explain how the medicine becomes the needle.

Patrick Anquetil: Correct.

Denzil Mohammed: I’ve known you for a long time and I’ve read a lot about you and you’ve often associated being an immigrant with being an entrepreneur. Let’s talk about that. The first part of that, being an immigrant. You said you were here from France. What was life like growing up in your arrondissement in Paris?

Patrick Anquetil: It was great. I think I was extremely fortunate. I had a very blessed childhood. I lived in a very nice area in Paris not too far away from the Eiffel Tower. At the same time though the idea to create a company was as remote as I could imagine. I always thought that this was something for someone else, that this is stuff that you read basically in the newspapers, in profiles, but certainly, with a French context at the time, there was no way I could be that guy or that guy who had started a company. And then I came to the U.S. and that really changed. And I realized anyone can do it. And in fact, that’s really the center piece of it is that you realize, well, gee, if she can do it, so can I, right? And I think the role of role models is so important. I think at the time in France, there were no role models at all. In fact, if you had started a company and done really, really well it was almost frowned upon, that there was something malicious about you, that you maybe had a shady past, so to say. Of course we’re talking 30, 40+ years ago. Probably 40+ years ago. And it’s changed quite radically now, but, but I think at the time it was true that there was no true role models as we have today that we could associate with. And I always thought starting a company would be something for someone else.

Denzil Mohammed: Isn’t that crazy?

Patrick Anquetil: It is crazy. Yes.

Denzil Mohammed: How could you not encourage entrepreneurship and innovation and job creation? So you’re thrice over an immigrant because you first moved to study in Switzerland, and then you spent time in Japan. And then of course, as you said, 20 something years ago, you moved to the U.S., what were those experiences like? Very disparate sort of places, right?

Patrick Anquetil: Yeah. You know, I think what’s interesting is they all had the same thing in common, that you had to be on your own and be responsible. Right? You know what I actually loved about the experience in Zurich? I was tremendously fortunate that I knew German because my mother is German. So I had no issue studying in German. And I’m still amazed to this day that my parents supported that idea. And I mean, it wasn’t trivial. Again, this was pre-internet [laughs], so moving to another country was actually quite an adventure. And I think as a result, because my parents gave me so much trust there was just no way I was going to come back. And so it had to be successful. I had to find a way to be successful. And I think that is the immigrant story. And it’s the same thing in Japan. I mean, I remember arriving after, I think it’s a 13-hour flight from Zurich, arriving in Tokyo and finally making it to my dorm room and it was dark and literally crying the first day, like what am I doing? And then you wake up the next day and it’s like, okay, no, time’s up, back to work, you gotta figure it out and make it happen. And so I think that’s the immigrant story. I think that’s what makes it unique. And so if you compare it with entrepreneurship, it is a form of entrepreneurship as well. It happens to be the entrepreneurship of you. And then I think those lessons conversely can be also applied when you start your own company, right. It’s the same thing. Failure is not an option. And you’re gonna try to make it work because there is no turning back. Right, and so I think that it’s no question that those experiences really transformed me and probably made me want to be an entrepreneur as a result.

Denzil Mohammed: Wow. And fluent in German, fluent in English, fluent in French, you learned a little bit of Japanese too. I read that you taught yourself English by reading dungeon and dragons books.

Patrick Anquetil: Oh my God, that’s true. I’m amazed you know that. That’s really true.

Denzil Mohammed: That is very unique. Most people will say MTV or Michael Jackson, things like that. But I did read that you always wanted to be an entrepreneur, but as you mentioned, the ecosystem in France at the time, didn’t allow for that or dissuaded that. And when you started your doctorate at MIT, you said people were starting businesses left and right. And you felt a great sense of a sense of great possibilities. You felt like you broke free. Explain that.

Patrick Anquetil: Well, there were many things actually going on. The thing I remember vividly from those days is how in the U.S., it’s almost the ultimate immigrant story because no one’s got your back, plus I had no family here on top of that. So it’s interesting. Maybe some people can be different, but I think for me having no safety net kind of was liberating in a way, because it meant that there was only one path. It’s interesting. The safety net is great, but it’s also a distraction as well, because now you’re focusing on the safety net instead of focusing on what you’re building. I also felt that at the time at MIT, this was during the dot com boom, everyone was starting companies left and right. And so there were role models that were there that you could actually talk to and observe. And in fact, it was almost the opposite, that if you weren’t starting something then there must be something wrong about you. Right. It was more the odd thing that you didn’t do anything versus the opposite. So I think that environment were actually quite unique as well. On campus there was a lot of support for those types of endeavors. There was, of course, the business plan competition, which was the MIT 50K at that time. Now the 100K I guess, maybe even more. Inflation is real AF even in that sector, I guess. And there were also courses that you could take or classes you could take. There were after hours activities actually as well. So there was a whole ecosystem there too, to support it.

Denzil Mohammed: In a recent episode, I interviewed a guy called Aki Balogh from Hungary who founded a tech marketing company called MarketMuse. And he said, “50 percent of our startup is emotional control.”

Patrick Anquetil: Yes.

Denzil Mohammed: Given your experience, do you agree?

Patrick Anquetil: I think it’s a 100 percent not 50 [laughs]. Yeah. First of all, one thinks that it’s like the hockey stick, the J-curve it’s called. So, you’re going to the negative and then woof. You sort of shut out as an exponential out. That’s really the myth. The reality is more, it’s a constant up and down and it’s like, for one up you get three down. It really becomes an exercise in managing your own psyche and then as CEO or someone from the senior team really, it’s important to show how those ups and down don’t phase you, that you don’t panic. Cause of course, everyone’s looking at you if you’re the leader of the company. So I think interestingly a lot of it is not being too emotional about the challenges and being, I guess soft food, for lack of a better word. It’s more deposed and realize that, look, this is just another problem we’re gonna solve it. This is what we do.

Denzil Mohammed: So let’s bring it into today. Portal Instruments. I saw some pretty alarming statistics about needles, that across the world there are about 10 million people who contract some form of disease because of an incident involving a needle, that the CDC puts needle fear at 25 percent among U.S. adults. I’m about 20 of that 25 percent. And that needle phobia accounts for about 10 percent of COVID vaccine hesitancy in the UK. My, my, my, there’s a problem.

Patrick Anquetil: Yeah, it’s crazy. And by the way, we’ve done our own surveys. It’s even worse in our sample than what you just described. It’s pretty amazing. We ran a survey. This was back in in September. 400 U.S. respondents. We had a 30 percent not vaccinated rate, which is not pretty good, I think the population was a bit worse than that. Maybe around 40 percent at the time, but still, kind of directionally the same. We asked that 30 percent. Well, if you had any free option would you have done it? And we had 45 percent who said, yes. It’s crazy. Even though I was very enthusiastic and a believer in what we do really, I would’ve guessed, five to 10 percent max, so very high. And then we asked the 70 percent that was vaccinated if they would’ve spent $10 for needle free option and there, we had 70 percent who said yes. The pharmaceutical industry is really measured, from an FDA regulatory perspective, fully only on two measures, which is safety and efficacy, right. And those two metrics don’t really involve what the patients feel in terms of the experience. And I think we look at this as, there’s a screaming opportunity. If you can introduce an orthogonal metric around patient preference, patient tolerance, ease of use, it’s typically you’d be ridiculed to look at patient convenience as something driving a health care product. It’s safety and efficacy and that’s it. To me, this highlights how we’ve got again, a clinically relevant problem that’s completely overlooked as well. And I think it’s important to change that, in particular with newer medicines being predominantly administered by an Eland syringes. There is a huge burden that’s there for the patient. There’s also a huge burden on society around how you dispose of those needles. These are contaminated. A friend of mine runs Parks and Recreation in Boston and once in a while they clean the muddy river. And you would think that they’re getting one or two syringes throughout that course … it’s bags of syringes.

Denzil Mohammed: Oh no.

Patrick Anquetil: It’s interesting. Bags, it’s crazy. It’s striking that no one talks about that, the fact that we’ve got devices that kill people, most of them of course, in the developing world, unfortunately. But it’s not uncommon for, in particular, the medical staff to get exposed to pathogens via an accidental needle break. It happens so many, so many times and I think in this day and age, that should not happen at all. You’ve been to our offices. On our wall, it says a needle-free world and that’s truly what the aspiration is of the company. We will focus first on chronic diseases, high value therapies that really drive tremendous benefits to patients. We want to help those patients further, for those suffering from chronic diseases, make the burden of the injection less of a burden and something just more easy to use to do the injection and then go on with your life. Don’t have to worry about getting someone accidentally pricked with the syringe and so on.

Denzil Mohammed: So when do you see this happening? Where do you see yourself in five or 10 years?

Patrick Anquetil: I think in five to 10 years we will have a few of those powerful therapies for chronic diseases will be on the market. I think one area I’m extremely interested to have an impact on is vaccination. Because this needle-free world vision pretty much won’t happen until we can address vaccination, which is a bit of a different device. It’s a device that can be used across multiple patients. And also one that’s gonna be in office and so on. One for which we need to find a way, not just to have one manufacturer’s vaccine compatible with the device, but all vaccines should be compatible with this device as well. So we’re not there yet from a dealmaking perspective, also from an FDA perspective as well. But because everyone in a developed world has had multiple shots in their lives, some get it now every year we see the flu, who knows with COVID, maybe it’s twice a year that you need a vaccination. It’s still early, too early to tell. So I think, to me, this is the easiest way for us to have an impact is to basically solve this problem. So in 10 years I hope we become the standard for vaccination.

Denzil Mohammed: I remember seeing kids faint, or allegedly fainted when they got shots, nurses had to whip out the smelling salts.

Patrick Anquetil: Yes. These are all true, actually. Yeah.

Denzil Mohammed: On behalf of all the millions and millions of people out there who resent and fear needles, please, we, I wish for your continued success.

Patrick Anquetil: Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that

Denzil Mohammed: The next device needs to do blood draws. Now you’d spoke a little bit earlier about how being an immigrant and being an entrepreneur sort of aligned with each other, and you talked about not having a safety net and an American, listening to this, probably wouldn’t understand. Describe that fear of not having a safety net or thrill, in your case, perhaps of having nothing to rely on, so you must do it yourself.

Patrick Anquetil: From a visa status. I mean so I’ve had quite a few H-1Bs, then I got a green card to one of the companies I started and then I became a U.S. citizen. That was kind of my journey with the H-1B. First, nowadays it’s actually a lottery to get it, which wasn’t the case during my time. So step one is a bit of chance that’s there as well. And then, if you get fired then you’ve got to almost immediately find another job or your H-1B basically expires, so to say. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but you gotta find some always place to learn very quickly. And at least at the time used to be a little bad. I actually don’t know what it is today. I had friends actually to whom that happened and they had to return back to their homes. So I think maybe some of us say, Americans, don’t maybe realize that there are kind of consequences to failure, right? And I think that in turn though, also acts as a motivator to do two things. One is to do, of course, a good job, but one is to also create a situation where you have options, that you’re never in a situation where this is kind of a last resort, and you have to leave.

Denzil Mohammed: It sounds like a luxury to have options as someone who has been through the immigration system.

Patrick Anquetil: Yeah.

Denzil Mohammed: There weren’t really many options. It was just one or nothing. It felt like that, and that uncertainty really does a number on your brain and your emotional state.

Patrick Anquetil: Definitely, and I wanna emphasize that what you describe is exactly my experience as well.

Denzil Mohammed: So you said you hold both French and American citizenship, congratulations on becoming an American citizen by the way. Can someone be patriotic to, or love two countries at once. Could that be a thing?

Patrick Anquetil: I think it’s interesting. I think first of all, to me and to my French compatriots, it would probably be shocking, but I think I was an American all my life. I just didn’t know it until I came here. I think I feel much more American than I feel French. And to me, the association with countries is more cultural, right? What do you have in common? What do you associate with? And what I love about America is there’s no limit, right. You can be anyone. I think it’s probably more a state of mind than really reality. But that’s enough, and I think the spirit is so strong and such a crucial thing in what we do. And so this growth mindset that you’ve got in the U.S. from the founding fathers up to now, it’s still there. I think it’s a commonly agreed upon ethos that we have as Americans that is radically different than in France. And again, I don’t spend enough time there anymore. So I just don’t know and I may hopefully not offend too many people there, but I think the growth mindset is limited in France, if not nonexistent, if you’re a little bit sanguine. From a cultural standpoint the success is not a good thing. First of all, if you’re successful you shouldn’t brag ’cause people get jealous very easily. And if you’re successful, that’s probably because you stole from someone else, right. It’s a zero sum game. You’re good so someone else probably suffered because of you. There’s nothing wrong against this, but I just didn’t want to live my life there for that reason, and I love France. In spirit, I was just closer to the American spirit and that’s why I’m here. I think it’s wonderful that we have this path as immigrants, to be accepted in this country as who we are. I think we need to keep that and cherish that as Americans. It is really unique. You know, oftentimes I think societies are much more afraid of other cultures versus here, you come as you are, and you become an American. And that melting pot so to say is what makes us all Americans as well as a result because that’s how the country is. It’s not by mistake or coincidence that just happened over the centuries, right? It’s an immigrant country. I think it always will be and we need to keep that in mind. And I think that’s also what makes us strength actually as well.

Denzil Mohammed: So that brings me to my final question. Why is it important to be welcoming?

Patrick Anquetil: Immigrants who come here have a tremendous desire to succeed because they came here against all odds. Because of that, they have an ethos and values that they wanna contribute to that can only make the country better. That’s why I think immigrants are so, so important, hardworking, great values. They want to help the country as a result, become better as well.

Denzil Mohammed: Very well said. Patrick Anquetil, co-founder and CEO of Portal Instruments, thank you for joining us on the JobMakers podcast. This was really a delight talking to you.

Patrick Anquetil: Thank you, Denzil for having us.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute think tank in Boston and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thanks for joining us for this week’s incredible story of one immigrant’s innovation and entrepreneurship. If you know a similarly outstanding immigrant business owner or innovator we should talk to, email Denzil, that’s D-E-N-Z-I-L at JobMakerspodcast dot org. I’m Denzil Mohammed, see you next week for another JobMakers.

Episode 66: Giovanni Ruscitti

JobMakers podcast graphic: Giovanni Ruscitti on how Italian immigrants built successIn his new book, Cobblestones, Conversations and Corks: A Son’s Discovery of His Italian Heritage, Giovanni Ruscitti traces his family’s immigration story and how it has shaped his own life. He describes how today’s immigrants embody the same entrepreneurial grit of his Italian American parents. Listen to learn how he used his own entrepreneurial drive to found a law firm.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed, welcome to JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: One of the primary reasons immigrants flee to the United States, historically and today, is war, instability, the inability to see a future in your own land, be they migrants today from Central America fleeing gangs or migrants from Southern Europe a century ago fleeing fascism. The story is the same, the journey just as hard, the ambitions and willingness to survive indistinguishable, but perhaps for skin color. For Giovanni Ruscitti, son of immigrants from Italy, founding partner at the law firm of Berg Hill Greenleaf Ruscitti in Boulder, Colorado, an author of the just released Cobblestones, Conversations & Corks: A Son’s Discovery of His Italian Heritage, he saw that hard work and ambition firsthand with his grandparents who worked the coal mines and his father who did whatever work was available until he was able to start not one but two businesses in the U.S. Giovanni tells us his family’s story of being forced to leave the land they loved, coming here with virtually nothing, bringing with them a diligent work ethic and how they were able eventually to thrive and pave the way for his own entrepreneurial success and job making. Crucially though, Giovanni explains that immigrants from all time periods, including today, bring value, innovation, culture, and strength, and working alongside them builds up our communities for everyone’s benefit, as you learn in this week’s JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Giovanni Ruscitti, descendant of Italian immigrants, founding partner of Berg Hill Greeley Ruscitti LLP law firm in Boulder, Colorado, and author of Cobblestones, Conversations & Corks: A Son’s Discovery of His Italian Heritage, welcome to the JobMakers podcast.

Giovanni Ruscitti: Denzil, thank you for having me. It’s my pleasure to be here. I’m really honored.

Denzil Mohammed: It’s a beautiful book with beautiful pictures. Why did you want to write this book? What was important for you to tell and why?

Giovanni Ruscitti: Great question. My father passed away in 2019 and my dad lived this pretty remarkable life of the immigrant American Dream story. He was the guy who came here with literally the shirt on his back at 21 with no education and retired at 62, very successful however you define the word success. And he taught me a lot of things about hard work and entrepreneurs. But one of the things that he said right before he passed was he was a deeply, like a lot of immigrants, deeply proud person of his family, his heritage, how he got here, how he became who he was. And he said two weeks before he passed somebody should tell my story, our story, you should write a book. Yes, Denzil, as a very busy attorney and arbitrator and mediator and managing partner in my law firm, I didn’t really think I was going to be able to do it, but I said, “Yes, dad, I’ll do that.” And so I made that promise to him. 2020 then came around and with obviously COVID, but then, more importantly, BLM and the social unrest and the political unrest. And then really a lot of the targeting towards immigrants that started a few years before. I just felt compelled to sit down and just fulfill that promise. I had no intention to write a book. I certainly had no intent to write a memoir. I just was going to honor my promise to my father. And his story came to life for me. It’d be 2013 when I did my first trip back to Italy to my parents’ hometown. And the stories that he had shared with me so many times as a little boy, which had no context and meaning in the past, suddenly came to life. And it was this confluence of things that just came together, and here we are. Yesterday, the book came out and received a lot of great reviews and doing really well on Amazon, hitting number one new releases already. So very honored and pleased by that. But really what I wanted to do is tell this story. It’s, at the end of the day, a love story about a father-son relationship that evolves over time. Father-son relationships have their peaks, their valleys. And ours was like that, got really strong, but it’s also a love story about my parents and their relationship, my falling in love with their town, in my ancestral hometown. And then of course we’re Italian so love of food and wine that really emerged exactly over my entire lifetime.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s terrific. And it’s written in such a personal and easy to understand way. I could feel like I’m walking with you through the town. Yours and those of the other people you grew up with are the immigrant stories that span generations, guide us through some of those stories. What was fascinating or noteworthy about those stories and these immigrants?

Giovanni Ruscitti: They worked hard. My father and my grandfathers, my mom, my grandmothers, they had very little back in Italy. They were poor by any definition before World War II. And then they lived through extreme poverty and misery. And these were people who lived very simple, basic lives. And they took that kind of work ethic with them to the United States after they left. But for my family, it all started in 1943 when the Nazis invaded their central part of Italy, because what they were doing is they were trying to get themselves positioned for the Americans and Polish who were coming up through Sicily. And my dad was seven, mom was four and they had to make a choice. The choice was fight and be killed or sent to prisoner of war camp, give in and be servants to the Nazi soldiers, or leave and abandon their homes and all their possessions. They chose the latter, they left. And they struggled for a long time and family members, one at a time, started coming over and it’s a traditional kind of story that you’ve heard many times. Somebody would come over, typically one of the men, and get a job. And for my family, they worked in coal mines in Colorado, and they would send money back. And one family member at a time would come over. And my mom came in ’54. She went back and married my dad in ‘57. And he came over in ‘58. And, like I told you before, he was truly the shirt-on-his-back story. But when they got here they moved to a town where most of the people from Cansano had moved to. So my first language growing up was not English. It was Italian. And so I spent a lot of time with all these old men doing things that none of my friends were doing. We were butchering goats and lamb. We were making wine and prosciutto. We were drawing out sausage and making cheese. And I didn’t really get to have the same kind of upbringing that a lot of my friends had, which I kind of resented at the time to be honest with you, because you want to be out playing. But I spent all this amazing time with these great men and great strong women. And it really framed who I became. But I didn’t know, you don’t really appreciate those things until you’re older. But my dad always said, “Hey, you can do it. If I was able to succeed, you can do it.” I was the first person in my family to go to college and I got my MBA. Then I went to law school. My dad and I got very close in 2013 through this trip and got to spend a lot of quality time together in another trip. And then, just talking about his upbringing, there’s so many stories. And my dad was a storyteller. He would talk about, like the first part of the book talks about, the road it’s called, and the winding road up to the town, which I’d heard about a million times. My dad told a story about how he was 10 or 11, and they would be cutting down wood. They didn’t have any other resources, their assets were the timber in the mountains. So they would cut down wood, take it down to a town named Simona, sell it for either food or they’d trade it for provisions that they needed or money. My dad would have a sandwich somewhere in town there, a little glass of wine because that’s part of the culture. And then he would walk back. So it was six or seven miles, one way with all the wood, and then he’d walk back. And I heard that story, Denzil, so many times. But it came to life that day in June when I was doing that drive. And he was telling the story again. He’s like, “That’s where we used to cut down the wood.” And there’s so many stories like that that really defined him, and I have a million more of who he was and my memories as a boy and his hard work and just the things that he used to do that were funny. He was a charming, charismatic guy, but he was also a tough Italian machismo kind of guy. And so he had all those things coming together.

Denzil Mohammed: And he knew how to negotiate. He knew how to do that.

Giovanni Ruscitti: He did.

Denzil Mohammed: And so much of what you’re saying resonates with me because we hear these stories generation after generation. And it’s not so dissimilar to families who are forced to flee Guatemala or El Salvador, because they face death or having to surrender to gangs and things like that. It’s a similar story. It’s very fascinating for me, the children of immigrants. I think the children of immigrants are just the most awesome people. They can straddle two cultures, they’re multilingual, multicultural. And they do so much exponentially better than their parents did. What was it like for your parents when they first moved here? They came with very little, they came with no English skills. I imagine their priority was just to work and to try and find some stability.

Giovanni Ruscitti: Yes, totally. I mean, when my dad got here in ‘58 he had no education, so it was any job that he could get. And literally he took any job that he could get. And a lot of it was in very difficult kind of construction work. He did not want to be in the mine like my grandfathers were. He just did not want to work in a coal mine. But he was a custodian. He did lots of things like that. He would take any job. My mom also was working and then my sisters were born and I was born in ‘66. But one of the jobs that my dad had was he worked for a company where one of the things he got to do or had the opportunity to do, and said I’ve got to do, because that’s the way he viewed it, was he got to work with the executives and clean out their suites. He was, one of his tasks was being a custodian. So, Denzil, what do you think he did? He took home the Wall Street Journal from their offices, and he learned how to read and write from reading the Wall Street Journal. So he was very entrepreneurial. And what he did was he went to my grandfather and my great uncles and said, “Hey, instead of us working for these other guys, helping them make all this money, why don’t we form our own construction company?” They’re like, “Oh, Emilio, you don’t know what you’re talking about. We just got here. We barely speak the language.” And my dad’s like, “No, we can do it.” And so they started doing some of that. Later, he and his brother formed a construction company, but he also learned how to buy and sell stock. He learned about real estate. And so he started working two or three jobs, and amassing a lot of assets. And you mentioned learning how to negotiate. There’s some great stories in the book that I tell that really framed me when I was a kid. So in the seventies, there was a department store in the town where I was from that was going out of business. And so it was like a Kmart. It wasn’t Kmart. It was called Gibsons. And my dad and my uncle had this construction company. They walk in and I think things were like 70 percent off at this point. So they walk into the paint department and my dad says, “Okay, I’ll give you $200 for all this.” The kid is like an 18-year-old, pimpled kid. And I was a kid myself. I was like seven or eight. The kid was like, “Sir, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s 70 percent off.” [laugh] And then my uncle kind of swoops in. I think they had this great plan. I didn’t realize this until later. My uncle comes in and then offers another number. And then the kid goes back to his supervisor. Next thing you know, my dad and uncle bought thousands of cans of paint that they were going to use for their painting business. But if I go to my mom’s house, hundreds of those bottles of paint, 40 plus years later, are still there. [laugh] And I would tell my dad, “Dad, you’re not going to use all this paint.” He wasn’t a hoarder or anything. So he was just this great negotiator. So he loved going to the markets. He loved negotiating. And for him, it was, like we walked into Kmart and he wanted to buy a table saw, and it was 200 bucks. He said, he tells the kid, “I’ll give you 150.” The kid’s like, “It’s $200.” But he was a negotiator and that taught me, and actually it’s a tool that I use now as an attorney, don’t be afraid to ask. Worst anyone can do is say no.

Denzil Mohammed: Yes, he had no boundaries when it came to this kind of thing. [laugh] He didn’t exactly know the American way all the time. One thing that is fascinating in your book is you mentioned that many of the immigrants to that [Colorado] town were from the same city in Italy.

Giovanni Ruscitti: Yes.

Denzil Mohammed: What is the value of having an enclave of people from your home country? Because the narrative in the U.S. is they’re isolating. They don’t want to learn the language. They’re not integrating, but there is a tremendous value of having people from your home country to support you. That’s social capital, right?

Giovanni Ruscitti: Oh, absolutely. I mean it was this community that was right there. These people all really supported each other. And I remember as a young kid, my dad, when he wasn’t working a job, was at one of these other, they were called cansanesi. So the people of Cansano called themselves cansanesi. He was at another cansanesi person’s house, helping them fix something in their kitchen or their bathroom or building something. And they didn’t pay each other. They were helping each other. My dad always helped others. And his greatest gift was he knew how to help people. He was good with his hands and he realized that was his gift, and he gave it to other people. He would help whenever he could. And so much of that being a servant is lost. But you know, when you have that tight culture, yes, there are some negative things that happened. I didn’t speak English until I was five or six, even though I was born here in 1966. But, man, you felt very safe. You had people there who were from the exact same experience as you, who knew what you went through and were going through the exact same things here at the same time. And it was that sense of community that I think is missing in this country. Unfortunately, if you look at what things bring people true joy, one of them is community. It’s being with family or a close-knit group of friends.

Denzil Mohammed: And to be clear, community does not mean that you’re all the same, but you probably share similar experience or have a similar ambition. Let’s get into the entrepreneurship. As you know, many immigrants start businesses in the U.S. Often it’s their only option. What were some of the businesses started by the immigrants and their descendants around you? And do you see parallels with today’s immigrants? Is today’s story sort of similar to when you guys first came here?

Giovanni Ruscitti: Yes. When I was a kid, I talked about this in the book, we didn’t have a lot in the early seventies, but I didn’t know it. We always had enough. We had food and we had a house, the house that my dad built. But my dad started off, his first business was a construction company and he and his brother Luciano would go around and they would build homes. And they built a lot of homes in the town I was in. So my cousin and I would go around and help. We thought we were helping. We were probably more of a nuisance, but they wanted us there to help them. And they were very successful. And then, as I mentioned, he used his experience in Wall Street to start buying real estate. So he started buying some rental properties and he would take his experience as a construction worker to remodel these homes. So he was building new homes. He was not flipping the property. He was using them as rental property. He just viewed, and by the way, a lot of the people that he was renting to were immigrants, and he was helping them. The rent was very cheap, but he was building capital. One of the people who reviewed my book is Hernando de Soto, a famous economist who wrote The Mystery of Capital and his whole view about giving people rights is through property.  And my dad lived that. He became empowered through property. Now, by the way, all this time, he had a full-time job or two, and he worked for a company that was about to go through an acquisition and they wanted to move him to West Virginia or Texas. And he said no. His mom was still alive. His siblings were all around. And he said, “No, I’m going to stay.” And so he started over again, this was in the early eighties, and started a grocery store, no experience as a grocer. My dad had the viewpoint that you can do it, which is the way he told us all the time. And so then he became a grocer and he just, he never stopped building and being an entrepreneur. And talking about negotiations, he would go to the local, I mean, this is truly local organic farms, not like what you see nowadays. He would go to the local farmers, say during corn season. And the guy would say, “Okay, well, we’re selling at whatever a dozen or a dozen corn for a dollar.” And my dad said, “Okay, I’ll buy the entire truckload.” So he had this old, beat-up white Ford pickup for a hundred dollars. And the guy would look at him, [laugh] and he would do it. And then we’d take the truck back, go in front of the store, park it there. And then he would sell so much corn. He does this with everything. But he was always an entrepreneur. He had that spirit and nothing phased him at all, nothing. I mean, he could do anything. And so he was immensely successful doing that. And it taught me a lot about taking risks, not risk in the sense of what a lot of people do nowadays, but betting on yourself and hard work. And that’s the way I built my legal career.

Denzil Mohammed: So let’s get to your business. Now, you went on to found your own business, a law firm. From my experience, immigrant business owners don’t usually want their children to go into business because they know how hard it is. But what has the experience been like for you and your experience with your father help you in any way?

Giovanni Ruscitti: Completely. So I’ve been practicing law almost 30 years. In November 2001 me and the other founding partners of our firm, [inaudible]. I was young. I was 35. I was leaving a solid kind of job. And I had three kids and told my wife. I said, “Hey, I think I’m going to go out and start a new firm.” And that was risky. And my dad had taught me that I could do it. I mean, that was his phrase. You can do it. And he always preached about controlling your own destiny, making your own decisions, you being your own boss. And so we set out. There were five attorneys at the time. We were going to be a boutique construction / real estate firm. Now we have almost 60 attorneys, offices in Boulder, Denver, Cheyenne, Irvine, San Diego, truly a national practice. And definitely the teachings of my father I use every day. And when I’m mentoring young lawyers, some of the phrases that he used with me, I use with them. And, no, I would not have the work ethic to do what I do without some of his, really, teachings. Obviously very different work what I do, but, Denzil, the common theme is being willing to work, the willingness to do what it takes to make something successful. And I got that from him.

Denzil Mohammed: And the willingness to accept risk. Risk is part of the deal. I often say the act of migrating is itself an entrepreneurial act. And that’s part of the reason why immigrants are twice as likely to start businesses here in the U.S. They are job makers, not job takers.

Giovanni Ruscitti: Exactly.

Denzil Mohammed: You can do it. And you did. Finally, your family’s experience is both unique and storied and yet also very much the immigrant story. What would you say to Americans today about welcoming new, ambitious entrepreneurial immigrants to their communities?

Giovanni Ruscitti: Please, please, please be open and nonjudgmental. You know, our country was built on, no matter how you define it, the immigrant story. For some it was just a year or two ago. For others, it was three or four hundred years ago, but we’re all at some point in time, we come from that same kind of story and background. And we don’t know what these other people are going through. We don’t know what they’re escaping. But I do know this: We are blessed in this country. We have so many resources available to us, whether it be our educational system, our health care system, our jobs. Just the stuff that we have around us, that 80, 90 percent of the population of our planet don’t have. And they’re looking for something better and that’s all they’re trying to do. And you know what, Denzil? There’s enough abundance to go around for everyone. Certainly everywhere I believe, but in this country it’s not like they’re taking something from you. They’re looking to better their lives. And as you said before, and it’s so true, they’re usually building something.

Denzil Mohammed: Thank you so much for joining me on this podcast. It’s an incredible book, Cobblestones, Conversations & Corks: A Son’s Discovery of His Italian Heritage. Giovanni Ruscitti, descendant of immigrants from Italy, thank you for joining us on the JobMakers podcast.

Giovanni Ruscitti: Denzil, thank you very much for having me. I’ve been really humbled by the reception to the book and honored to be on your show.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for this week’s special episode on one family’s ambitious journey to success in the U.S., the story of all immigrants, really. We’ll be taking a break next week, and we’ll be back with you again on September 8th for another JobMakers podcast. I’m Denzil Mohammed. See you then.

Episode 65: Liya Palagashvili

JobMakers podcast graphic: Liya PalagashviliAs an immigrant from the former Soviet Union and a researcher with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Liya Palagashvili deeply understands the accomplishments and contributions of foreign-born Americans. She shares how her research reveals the importance of attracting and retaining international students to the United States. Tune in to discover how she believes the loss of foreign-born talent may impact national security.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed. Welcome to JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: You may have heard about the H-1B skilled worker visa that permits foreign-born talent to work at U.S. companies. But have you heard about the OPT or Optional Practical Training program that comes in between studying in the U.S. as an international student and working on a work visa? It’s existed since the post world-war years, allows us to retain this [inaudible]. And it’s often the time when immigrants come up with ideas and start businesses. It helps the U.S. Yet recent proposed legislation seeks to end the program completely under the guise of sticking it to Big Tech. For Dr. Liya Palagashvili – immigrant from the former Soviet Union, senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and affiliated research fellow at NYU Law – wiping out this program is not only counterproductive, it’s also a national security threat. In a policy brief co-authored with Jack Salmon, also at the Mercatus Center, she argues that reforming and making it easier to access Optional Practical Training would build this country’s edge in the global search for talent. The brief, titled “Reforming Optional Practical Training to Enhance Technological Progress and Innovation,” demonstrates how we all benefit from having foreign-born talent working and innovating alongside U.S.-born talent. Yet lately, that talent has been moving to Canada, the U.K., other countries, and this undermines our ability to keep up and be safe, as you’ll learn in this week’s JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Liya Palagashvili, senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and affiliated research fellow at NYU Law, welcome to the JobMakers podcast. How are you?

Liya Palagashvili: Thank you so much for having me on.

Denzil Mohammed: So you’re here because you wrote a policy brief on what’s called the OPT or Optional Practical Training program that is afforded to foreign-born university students in the U.S. So maybe just more broadly tell us about the impact of international students on U.S. college campuses and the wider economy.

Liya Palagashvili: So international students make up a large share of programs at universities and especially in graduate programs. If we just look at some examples in the U.S., University of Southern California and New York University, international students make up at least a third of the student body. At Columbia international students make up over half of the entire student body. And actually what should really be celebrated is that they play a huge role as contributors to STEM programs in particular. So STEM programs are those that are science, technology, engineering and mathematics degrees. And about half of all international students in the United States are enrolled in STEM programs. And also if we look at some specific programs, some specific STEM programs across U.S. colleges, we see that international students are making up even a larger share of those programs. So, for example, if we look at petroleum engineering, international students account for 82 percent of graduate students at petroleum engineering, 74 percent and in something like electrical engineering, 71 percent in computer information sciences. So they really are driving STEM programs at universities. And I think it’s pretty important to point out because sometimes there’s a concern about whether international students are quote-unquote crowding out American students, whether their presence in these programs means some American student is unable to attend that particular college. And that’s just simply not the case. So in many research studies we actually find that international students have a positive effect on enrollment of American students because international students are paying such a high tuition that it actually helps subsidize the cost of enrolling additional domestic students. I don’t know if you’ve ever looked at tuition-rate differences between international and domestic students, but you’ll see that international students are often paying four or five times the tuition rate of American students.

Denzil Mohammed: I am very well aware of that because I was one of those international students. [Laugh] And, yes, we paid a lot. And we talked about universities in California and New York but it’s all across the country. I mean, University of Alabama, UT Austin, immigrants are making up a large portion of STEM programs everywhere, and they’re helping to maintain these STEM programs as we’ll talk about a little bit more. So the American Tech Workforce Act of 2021 calls for the end of Optional Practical Training as it quote “mostly benefits Big Tech companies by providing tax breaks and allowing them to hire workers at a lower cost,” so they say. The bill is introduced by Republican Rep. Jim Banks, as part of a Republican study committee initiative to quote “hold Big Tech accountable.” This is something we hear about all the time. So you and your colleague, Jack Salmon, argue in your policy brief that, quote, “bolstering the OPT or Optional Practical Training program rather than undermining the United States’ edge in the global race for talent is what needs to be done.” And you recommend a series of reforms. So let’s back up a little bit. What is the Optional Practical Training program and why has it been singled out?

Liya Palagashvili: The OPT program, the Optional Practical Training program, it’s designed to allow foreign students to work for at least one year upon graduation from a U.S. college or university. And recently they’ve allowed a maximum up to three years if you graduate from a STEM field. So, again, the STEM extension is relatively new. Basically the OPT program acts as a primary on-ramp for highly educated foreign students who graduate from U.S. universities and colleges to enter the U.S. labor force. And over the years, it has grown significantly. And that’s part of the reason it has been singled out as well, because they’re like, “Look at all these international students coming in on the OPT program who are taking quote-unquote American jobs.” So over the past 20 years, the number of foreign students participating in OPT has grown almost tenfold. There were under 25,000 participants from 1999 to 2000 so in that academic year. And then in the last few years, we’ve had upwards of over 200,000 OPT participants. And some of these OPT participants will seek H-1B employment sponsorship through their respective employers after.

Denzil Mohammed: And this, the rationale behind this, is not an act of good will to international students. Obviously there’s some benefit or great benefit to the U.S. by retaining this talent, right?

Liya Palagashvili: Yes, absolutely. So they’re retaining the talent. And that’s another thing that we can have a little bit of more of a deep dive on, but international students and particularly they’ve played a significant role in our economy as inventors and also patenting new ideas especially in science and technology, in technology fields, which is great for U.S. economy because that helps boost innovation and productivity if we look at something like patent rates. So we know that. We have studies that show that immigrant graduates with science and engineering degrees have historically had a patent rate double the average American rate. And there are several studies that try to parse this out further. So there’s one influential study that found that since 1940, a one percent increase in immigrant college graduates, as a share of the population, increases the number of patents per capita by about nine to 18 percent. This is broadly the case for all immigrants, not only international students in particular, because if we look at immigrants’ share of U.S. patents that has also risen significantly over the years. So, again, not only international students, but immigrants as well. In one study, we know that in 1975 immigrants’ share of patents was only nine percent, but by 2015 immigrant patents represented 28 percent of all patents in the U.S.

Denzil Mohammed: There’s a wealth of data and examples all over the U.S. history and across the media today that points to exactly what you’re talking about and shows us who this talent is and what they do that benefits, not just them, but the country as a whole. So you just said overall immigrants, international students are more likely to raise the rate of patents. You also state in your policy brief that they’re more likely to start a successful company when compared to U.S. born students. I like to say that the act of migrating is itself an entrepreneurial act. So it sort of comes naturally to many of these students. What are some of the other data points you find in your research that sort of speaks to this?

Liya Palagashvili: Yes, that’s exactly right. It is important to point out that these international students contribute not only through employment and patents, but they later end up as entrepreneurs and innovators in the technology industry. Actually, if we look at all of the billion dollar startups in the United States, 22 percent of them, so think about companies like Zoom, Tesla, SpaceX, Instagram, right? They had at least one immigrant founder who came to the country as an international student. And then one that even found that international students are more likely to start a successful company when compared to domestic students. And, by the way, we just want to emphasize this again, it’s not only international students, but we’re seeing this among immigrants in general. This is the case for immigrants in general, too. So we know that immigrants show an 80 percent higher rate of entrepreneurship than native-born individuals. And they start companies quite quickly after entering the United States.

Denzil Mohammed: Wow. That’s incredible. Immigrants are job makers, not job takers.

Liya Palagashvili: Exactly.

Denzil Mohammed: And is there something about the U.S. that brings out this entrepreneurship in people?

Liya Palagashvili: Well, we have good institutions that are pretty supportive and conducive for entrepreneurship in general. It’s relatively easy to start a business here. We actually also have a culture that is open to experimentation and failure. That’s not always the case in other countries. Sometimes in other countries if you start a business and you fail, it’s frowned upon. So society does not like that. Your social status goes down. If you start a business and fail, I think that’s important to highlight that in the U.S., as people, as individuals, society, we don’t frown upon failures. And we are open, we are a culture that is open to experimentation and just to see where it goes.

Denzil Mohammed: So in a future episode we’re gonna hear from an entrepreneur from France who specifically says that that culture for entrepreneurship does not exist. They don’t even want you to start businesses. They just want you to enter the government and have a conventional life. And that failure is indeed frowned upon. So there is something special about the U.S. and that something special has always existed in the U.S. to allow for entrepreneurship from U.S.-born people and from immigrants. But you also state that this OPT, Optional Practical Training, is a national security necessity. So to the untrained eye, this seemed a little bit absurd. Explain, what have we got to lose?

Liya Palagashvili: So that was a statement from the Department of Homeland Security, actually. It was in a 2008 report. They concluded that the expansion of OPT is a national security necessity. And I’ll quote directly from the Department of Homeland Security on this. So they said, quote, with their large and growing populations of STEM, graduate scientists, high-tech industries in Russia, China and India and others in the OECD now compete much more effectively against the U.S. high technology industry, end quote. So then the DHS goes on to acknowledge that the OPT STEM extension should be justified on the grounds that American companies are harmed when they cannot recruit high skilled foreign workers. So, again, I think that’s really important to point out as well, that the DHS sees this as a national security reason. And, by the way, America has been an active recruiter in global talent. You know, we have recognized that when the best and the brightest minds blend their ideas and talents, innovation follows. And I think this type of national security reasoning is coming back in our minds. As we’re thinking about competition with China, we’re trying to be a little bit more thoughtful about our competition with China, and maybe we’re starting to remember our old methods that worked in the past, which is okay. Bring the best and the brightest minds to America and innovation will flow. And it’s also a very low cost and effective way to increase America’s edge over China; let America access the world’s most talented people.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s a very, very important point. So we don’t want to teach and educate people and then just send them elsewhere. We want to keep that talent here. You spoke earlier about companies that had at least one immigrant founder, so that foreign-born talent mixes with the U.S. born talent to found incredible companies of innovation. So not only do we benefit from them, but we collaborate with foreign-born talent in the U.S. and that helps us keep our competitive edge. And in a world that is not only much more competitive and globalized, but cybersecurity threats, as one issue, we do need to have a competitive advantage.

Liya Palagashvili: There is a University of Pennsylvania study that examined over 2,000 U.S. companies from 1994 to 2014. And they found when these U.S. multinational companies face H-1B visa restrictions, which prevented them from hiring the high-skilled foreign workers that they needed in the U.S., these companies increased employment in their overseas locations. And, ironically, the top three locations were Canada, India and China. And, by the way, we see this anecdotally, too. So Microsoft has continued to open up research and development offices, affiliate offices, in Canada. They did this in 2007, they did it again in 2018. And if you look at their announcements, just read them, and they actually say we’re doing this to attract top talent because in Canada their immigration system is much more favorable and open to high skilled workers.

Denzil Mohammed: So “America First” nationalism is not going to get you far when it comes to attracting and keeping the talent that is going to make us competitive and have an edge over other countries. We have to go wherever the talent is. So what have been the trends recently? You talked about Canada, you talk of Eastern Europe, Russia, China, India. What has been the trends recently both here in the U.S. and among our competitors when it comes to attracting high skilled foreign talent in general?

Liya Palagashvili: So we have seen declining rates of international students to the U.S. And this has been since 2015. And when we look at survey questions about why this is the case, they point to the difficulty in being able to enter the U.S. labor force, post-graduation. On the other hand, if we look at what’s happening in Canada and in the U.K., both of those countries have actually revamped their immigration policies to attract more international students and to streamline and to make it easier to have those international students get jobs. And in Canada and in the U.K., post-graduation, in fact, we’re seeing more international students in the U.K. and in Canada.

Denzil Mohammed: Interesting. So it’s declining in the U.S., and it’s increasing among our competitors, even our closest neighbor to the north. That seems like a bit of a tragedy. So what do you recommend we do about the Optional Practical Training program. Whereas Jim Banks wants to cut it entirely, you say that we need to actually foster it and increase it.

Liya Palagashvili: Yes. So my co-author Jack Salmon and I have a set of proposals that we think will help reform the OPT program. I think first and foremost, and this will be one of the easiest things we can do, is just extend those eligible years from one year to three years, which is already what’s happening in the STEM program. So if you graduated with a STEM degree, you have three years to work on the OPT. We can make that the case for all graduates, not only STEM, so increase eligible years of work for non-STEM graduates on OPT from one year to three years. The second thing is, as I mentioned before, in the beginning we didn’t have this restriction on the OPT program that said graduate students who [are] international students have to work in industries that are related to their field. So we can change that to go back to the original part of the program, which is allow these foreign graduates to work in industries unrelated to their field of study. Another reform idea we have is eliminating the minimum working hour requirements for employment authorization, and then also removing outdated employer sponsorship requirements. So some of these other ones are just basically streamlining the process because it takes a long time, and a lot of paperwork in the U.S. to authorize employment for the OPT. And then in the policy brief, you’ll actually see we have a little table where you can see the differences; how long it takes in the same type of requirements in Canada and the U.K., and they’re much faster and much easier than it is in the U.S. So, again, to compete with our competitors, Canada and the U.K., we can just basically streamline some of these things, make it easier.

Denzil Mohammed: And many of these things do require Congress to act or the president. It’s statutory under the Department of Homeland Security, right?

Liya Palagashvili: Yes, yes, that’s correct.

Denzil Mohammed: So there are things that we can be doing right now that would be easier to implement and beneficial to us, but we’re not doing it. We’re not doing it. And clearly this is gonna be a tough sell to some Americans, even though what you outline here has been very, very compelling both in this interview with you and in your policy brief. What should skeptical Americans keep in mind by considering your proposal in this time of heightened restrictionist and nationalistic sentiments?

Liya Palagashvili: I think one framework that we as Americans could utilize that I mentioned earlier is just if we think about America first. I’m going to use that motto, America first. Well, for America first, it helps America to have the best and the brightest talent come to America and work in America and come up with inventions in America and boost productivity in America, and basically make America a global leader in technology. And so I think, again, if you’re thinking about America first, and you don’t want to, you’re not thinking about we’re helping these immigrants, then this is one of the best ways you can help America, is allow high skilled talent to come in.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s what’s going to keep America first or ahead. And as you mentioned, since 2015 that entry of foreign, of high, of best and the brightest has been declining. So we are really in danger of losing that edge. And it is something that we really do need to keep in mind, especially as we see tensions with places like Russia and China escalating. You have your own immigration story, don’t you?

Liya Palagashvili: I do.

Denzil Mohammed: Tell us a little bit about it.

Liya Palagashvili: So this is not a high skilled immigration story. This is a pure luck immigration story. So I was born in the Soviet Union as it was collapsing. And we were, my family and I, refugees from Azerbaijan to Armenia. Unfortunately, after the Soviet Union was collapsing, there were wars that broke out in all the different countries that were part of the Soviet Union. And so I’m part Georgian, part Armenian. We moved to Armenia and were living there for basically five years of war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. There were a lot of blockades, food shortages. It was a very dark period as my parents describe it. I don’t remember too much because they tried to keep it very light inside of the house, and I was young, but it was a pretty bad time. So one day we received invitation, we received a letter in the mail and basically said we had won the green card lottery to come to United States. And that was in 1995. So we moved to the United States in 1995. I was seven years old at the time and it just completely changed our lives, the trajectory of our lives. And I know by comparison, because I have cousins and family who are still there, and they’re nowhere near where we are. They don’t have the same opportunities and they’re almost still stuck in the same place where they were 30 years ago.

Denzil Mohammed: So Liya Palagashvili, senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, thank you so much for joining us on the JobMakers podcast and for your research for us.

Liya Palagashvili: Thank you so much for having me on. It was great to chat with you about this.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thanks for joining us for this week’s special policy episode on retaining immigrant talent to benefit this country. If you know an outstanding immigrant business owner or innovator or researcher we should talk to, email Denzil, that’s d-e-n-z-i-l, @jobmakerspodcast. I’m Denzil Mohammed. See you next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 64: Josh Smith

JobMakers podcast graphic: Josh Smith on immigrants' role in economic recoveryStudies conducted by researcher Josh Smith demonstrate the crucial role that immigrants play in the United States’ economy and culture. He describes how immigrants are often “othered” and subjected to negative messages, despite their vital contributions to U.S. communities. Listen to learn how he believes immigrants are the United States’ “secret sauce.”

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and welcome to JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Immigrants have always benefited from and benefited the United States. The evidence is everywhere. Without immigrants we wouldn’t have those Levi’s 501s, that cold Budweiser or the ability for kids to learn during a pandemic with Zoom. Immigrants can help fill the millions of vacancies today, enrich us with all their foods and cultures, and they take advantage of America’s entrepreneurial ecosystem to innovate and start the greatest companies. So why is it such a tough sell? For Josh Smith, research manager at the Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University, the negative narratives on immigration that we’re fed and the othering of immigrants, even though they’re part of a community just like everyone else, is easy to take hold. And it’s not a new story. In fact, it’s as American as America is a nation of immigrants. The work of Josh and others demonstrates not only the outsized impact immigrants have on our economy and our culture, but also the repeated fears that each new migrant group who would never assimilate, even though they did and that working together, American, new or old, benefits everyone. It’s America’s not-so-secret sauce. But we will all lose out If we give into the fear and the othering, as you learn in this week’s JobMaker’s podcast.

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Denzil Mohammed: Josh T. Smith, research manager at the Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University, welcome to the JobMakers podcast. How are you?

Josh Smith: I’m doing great, Denzil. Thank you so much for having me.

Denzil Mohammed: So tell us a little bit about your center and the work that you do.

Josh Smith: The Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University is a nonpartisan research center based at Utah State University. We work on a variety of issues, mostly public policy, and how we can use research to solve those. My interest is in immigration policy, so I work on immigration and how we make that system work for the entire country.

Denzil Mohammed: I see. So therefore what is your special interest in immigration? Why did you choose that? And is it really related to growth and opportunity?

Josh Smith: I always have felt an affinity for immigrants because my birth mother was 15 when I was born. And so I see immigration as the same sort of opportunity that I had because my birth mother chose to give me up for adoption. If she would’ve tried to raise me in a home where her parents said, “If you keep this child, you can’t live under our roof,” and my opportunities would’ve been dramatically different. And so I see immigration through that sort of adoption lens. How do we get people into places where they can be successful? Give them the tools that they can actually be successful in whatever way they want to take their life. Immigration is exactly that. That’s all the research boils down to, those simple points. If you give people the opportunity to grow, they’re going to do so. People bring prosperity.

Denzil Mohammed: So let’s bring it into the present. What role do immigrants play in the country’s recovery from the pandemic and our current sort of dire economic situation? So let’s start with immigrant business orders. I know that nine percent of the Utah population is foreign born, but 11 percent of entrepreneurs are foreign-born. So that’s a higher rate, which is something we see across the board, across the country. What was it like for them pre-pandemic and during the pandemic, and how did they impact your economy in normal times?

Josh Smith: Immigration here has been a big benefit. Like we talked about, lots of entrepreneurs, lots of immigrant entrepreneurs have found success in Utah. And before the pandemic, they were finding success. During the pandemic, they faced all the same problems that everyone did. My father-in-law runs a chocolate factory. He had all sorts of problems: finding workers, running the factory safely during the first stages of COVID. And for immigrant entrepreneurs, immigrant business owners, you add on an additional level of difficulty where local governments can do a lot of good by trying to do outreach, providing the kinds of training, the kinds of information, a trusted information source, so that people know simple ways to run a meat packing factory cleanly and carefully during COVID. In particular, those are the kinds of issues that here in Logan, there were a lot of problems with, at first, and local community members really stepped up. There was a great story in the Washington Post about the local refugee center here working on just communicating to both immigrants and the refugees that they serve, how to deal with COVID, where to find medical care. And that’s something that I’m really excited to say Utah did well.

Denzil Mohammed: And I’m just curious. As the kinds of businesses that immigrants tend to found in Utah, is it a lot of retail, accommodations, things like that?

Josh Smith: That’s right. It’s about the same as national trends, as far as I know. We’re lucky, I’m really lucky to have the best Indian place in the entire world just down the street from Utah State’s campus here, Tandoori Oven, routinely. It’s in a gas station. So we love when people come out to visit, taking them there, because it’s not exactly the kind of pompous looking, very fancy kind of place, but it has the best Indian food that I’ve had anywhere in the world. Without immigrants, we would have a lot of places that sell hamburgers and hot dogs, but maybe not the kind of variety. So there’s a great Mexican place in town here, several, because of the Hispanic immigration influence, great French food, great Italian, all because immigrants come in and that’s part of why we say immigration brings prosperity, that people bring prosperity because of their differences. We all are better off sharing and discovering new ideas or new cuisines even.

Denzil Mohammed: And it’s something Americans really take for granted that we have access to all these different kinds of cuisines. I mean, it has enriched our culture so tremendously, not to mention our economy.

Josh Smith: We have about 15 percent of the entire country is foreign born, but 25 percent of the country’s entrepreneurs are foreign-born immigrants.

Denzil Mohammed: So that’s at the very local level. How exactly do these entrepreneurs help their communities and the country overall, especially in our recovery from the pandemic?

Josh Smith: That’s right. Well, right now we’re recording this conversation over Zoom. Zoom is famously started by Eric Yuan and he was actually denied eight times before his ninth, final try he was admitted into the U.S. to start his business. And you can think about a lot of entrepreneurs who might be facing the same kinds of questions. I wanted to come to the U.S. I’m trying to get in, but I just can’t find a way. And those kinds of stories are really troubling. If you want to have Zoom employees be here in the U.S., businesses that grow the U.S. pie, the U.S. economic growth pie. There’s a lot to be said for finding ways to expand the entire economy so that everyone is better off. And that’s the story. I mean, it’s not just recent with Zoom and Eric Yuan, you have Google, you have AT&T, all have immigration connections in some sense. And historically, and this is one example, but Andrew Carnegie is, of course, another famous example. And even though the town I grew up in had more cows than people, it also had a Carnegie public library. This is the library set up by Andrew Carnegie as one of the wealthiest men ever lived. And that’s the kind of impact on both the economy and also to cultural sorts of conversations beyond just food. Those kinds of successes boil over from business sectors that are cold, capitalist competitive sort of stories into much more human stories, where even in a world where I live in a tiny little town, I can sit on the steps of a library that an immigrant made possible.

Denzil Mohammed: And you mentioned the founder of Zoom. So this is not, Andrew Carnegie’s story, it is not an unfamiliar story that continues to happen generation after generation, right?

Josh Smith: That’s right. We have this, we have a fun story. America’s a nation of immigrants, but it’s also a nation of people who say it’s not a nation of immigrants. One of our research papers here at the center by Paul Sharp and one coauthor shows that when Danish people came to the U.S., they brought dairy techniques that no one else really had except the Danes. And that made the U.S. dairy industry really strong other than it would’ve been otherwise. But they also show these great little quotes from that time period saying, “Well, we can’t let the Danes in because they won’t assimilate.” And if you fast forward 20, 25 years, you see Danes used as the example of model immigrants, people who will obviously assimilate. But those Hispanic immigrants are never going to assimilate. And Leah Boutsan and Ran Abramitzky have this great book called Streets of Gold that details that history and gives a lot of, should give you a lot of comfort if you do worry that we’re going to lose something to immigration. We should take lots of comfort in the stories, that actually we’ve always had these fears, and immigrants have always, always assimilated, always become American and always made the country a stronger and more prosperous place.

Denzil Mohammed: Well said. Bravo! You all released a paper recently looking at immigrants, legalization and manufacturing.

Josh Smith: That’s right.

Denzil Mohammed: Tell me a little bit about this paper.

Josh Smith: Yeah. That’s a really exciting paper. What it basically shows at root is that providing some kind of legal pathway to citizenship makes the economy work more productively. So in the case of manufacturing, you have the grant of legal health citizenship that was available because of the Reagan amnesty bill or the Reagan compromise. You had lots of people who suddenly had a pathway to legalization. And because of that, what we see is manufacturing got more productive. That’s really important in a world where we have high inflation, because if we want our store shelves to be full of low-cost, affordable goods, we also need to be more productive. So manufacturing, seeing that immigration has made manufacturing companies more successful, is a really promising area for dealing with today’s problems. Maybe there’s ways to account for the same kinds of legalization issues that people face. So the central story there is that if you are in the country and don’t have legal status, you may take positions that you’re not well suited for, or that there are better positions that would use your training and skills. And so legalization, two other researchers in a new paper published in [Journal of] Labor Economics, estimate that some kind of legal work option would increase the U.S. GDP by about $202 billion a year, which boils down to about $600 additional in your pocket each year, which is great if you think about the fiscal stimulus bills during COVID, the COVID cash, those were about $1400, $1200. So we’re talking about half of that, but just for free, because we’re getting people to do better work faster.

Denzil Mohammed: So you’re saying they were still here as workers, they were working, but legalization, it gave them a one up, right?

Josh Smith: That’s right. Legalization gave them a step up out of the shadows and into positions that they’re better suited for.

Denzil Mohammed: I see. Okay. That makes a lot of sense to me and such a boon to us. And as you said earlier, this is a really important point, we’re talking about immigrants, but this is really, it’s a story of the economy, society, culture. It’s immigration feeds into everything in the United States. So working alongside immigrants is how we generate prosperity locally and beyond. That was a really, really great point. And of course we’re in a period now of serious inflation. Do you see a parallel there with immigrant workers and inflation and legalization?

Josh Smith: I think it’s clear that inflation doesn’t have a silver bullet. There’s no one policy that’s going to eliminate it. There’s tons of researchers who have proposals, and I think most of them have some amount of value. But, that said, immigration’s got to be a part of that conversation. And not just because people are sometimes only making the argument that we need more immigration because wages are rising. I think wages should definitely go up as people become more productive. So I’m hesitant to say we should just have more immigration to reduce wages. But, in particular, what we should do is find ways to bring back the workers who never came because of COVID. So Giovanni Perry and economists at UC Davis estimated we have about two million missing workers in the economy just because of the COVID immigration cuts, it’s a lot of workers, but overall that we have about 11 million job openings in the country and about six to five million people who are unemployed. So, basically, anyway you cut it, we have about five million missing workers. Maybe we can bring in two million immigrants to make up that shortfall, but we’re still going to need lots of policies to make sure that we feed the U.S. economy what it needs to keep, to stay productive.

Denzil Mohammed: So we closed off during the pandemic and the result of that is more job openings, less job seekers and immigration is where we can really make a dent in that. So what do you say to those who are skeptical of your research on these positive impacts of immigrants and immigration? How would you frame that discussion? And what would you say?

Josh Smith: I think that the people who are skeptical of immigration often have good reasons. So you can think about maybe Tim. Tim is a high school dropout. He dropped out at 16 or 17 to work at a local plant because he thought $15 an hour was a lot of good money. Now that he is 25, wants to start a family. Well, what options does Tim have? Does he just go get a GED? Will that solve his problems and open doors? I think critics of immigration are entirely right on that point, to think about, well, how are we helping the small portion of people who do lose from immigration? Because all of the statistical debates, you can read hundreds of economic papers about how wages are affected by immigration. And they all boil down to a really simple finding that, in the short run, people without a high-school education seem to lose a small bit of wages for some amount of time between five and seven years. That’s a long time to lose four to 10 percent of your wages, depending on the estimate that you choose. And so I think there’s lots of room for us as researchers to tackle that central question: How do we actually help someone like Tim who is losing out from immigration? But the good news is that Tims only make up about 10 percent of the U.S. population. There’s only about 10 percent. One out of 10 people doesn’t have a high school degree. So the real question is why would we make policy based on just those 10 percent? That’s why economists like Brian Kaplan and Giovanni Perry, again, often advocate keyhole solutions. So let’s help those people out. But I do think we haven’t done a good job as researchers figuring out what those problems are. So I’m entirely on board with many of the critiques of immigration policy in the abstract. But at the same time, just this year, the Department of Labor gave out $145 million in grants for retraining and reskilling programs that were funded by H-1B visa application dollars. And I think opportunities like that to make the immigration system work for the entire country. They’re prevalent throughout. There just are opportunities abound to find ways to make immigration work for everyone. And I think there’s a lot of good that we can do just in taking seriously those sorts of concerns.

Denzil Mohammed: It’s interesting you bring up Tim because those anecdotal stories really have a powerful impact on people. They get shared and spread widely, and it really has a huge impact on people so that when we come up with research that says something else that does not register at all. So you mentioned a book earlier called Streets of Gold. It’s Streets of Gold, America’s Untold Story of Immigrant Success. I’m actually hoping to get the authors of this book on this podcast. But what is, what impression were you left with from this book?

Josh Smith: I think everyone ought to run out and buy Streets of Gold. I don’t get any kind of kickbacks or anything. I’m not connected to the authors, but Leah Boustan and Ran Abramitzky are two economic historians who’ve been writing about immigration for years. And …

Denzil Mohammed: Ran, by the way, is an immigrant from Israel, right?

Josh Smith: That’s right. And one of the stories that they tell in the book is about that story. So for context, Streets of Gold is about that age-old contest between America as a nation of immigrants and America as a nation of people who want to build walls and put up keep-out signs. It’s about the kinds of cultural contests and economic worries that have been the story of immigration throughout history. And Ran’s story, he talks about their research project, which is looking at millions of genealogical records and seeing what happens to someone once they arrive here in the U.S. And you can trace people through time. And in particular, you can sort of see what happens to their thinking about America. You can see what happens to their thinking about their identity. So, for example, Ran’s an immigrant from Israel. He lands in the U.S. I think he gets married here in the U.S., but maybe he comes married. But their first son they named Roe, which is a Hebrew word for shepherd. And he tells the story in the book, in Streets of Gold, saying, well, actually we meet all the babysitters, all the teachers, no one knew how to say it. But for their next child, or their third child, I think, they name him Tom, which is still got a Hebrew sort of connection, but is much more Americanized. And what they find in their research, Leah and Ran, is that that’s a common story. Immigrants, when they come to the U.S., they start off with very traditional immigrant sorts of behaviors. But as time goes on, they Americanize quite quickly. And that shows up primarily as a change in both their names. So changing something like Drumpf to Trump, as a famous example, but also in changing the names that they give to their children. And I think that reflects a sort of interest and desire to fit in and a fundamental reflection of immigration’s importance to the immigrants in the U.S. It’s a story about helping their children become American, become successful and obtain the American dream. So Streets of Gold is a beautiful book, wonderfully written, quite accessible for a book that’s about analyzing millions of genealogical records. But in a time where people are thinking or discussing cutting off immigration, even more than we already have, it’s important to keep their historical perspective in mind. What they show is, really, we’ve had these kinds of debates that immigrants don’t assimilate. We had it in 1882 just before we passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. We had it just recently with the proposal to ban immigrants from Muslim countries. We had it all throughout COVID, the implication that immigrants are carrying diseases has a great reflection in one of the stories they tell in Streets of Gold, where a representative in Congress says we can’t let in Chinese immigrants because they all have smallpox. And that kind of story is quite common, but all of their research findings are so, so optimistic. They find that people learn English quite quickly, both in the past and today. They find that people Americanize not just in measures of children, but in the types of behaviors that they have. People economically assimilate as well. So people come here and their children quickly climb up the income ladder. And those are beautiful stories of the American dream. And Leah and Ran did this great job of making the case from just the simple findings of their economic research project saying we don’t have reason to fear that people will lose out in jobs. We don’t have reason to fear people will lose wages. But we do, and we have lots of reasons to think that bringing immigrants to the U.S. strengthens and promotes the U.S. culture instead of denigrating it.

Denzil Mohammed: We’ve always been fed by immigrants and we are the greatest economy in the world. Maybe one has to do with the other, these hungry immigrants.

Josh Smith: That’s right. I think it’s impossible to view America’s history without thinking about how immigration has really seeded the success of future success. So there’s a great research paper called, titled Immigrants and the Making of America, where they analyze historical rates of immigration at the county level. And so they can look at how many counties got, how much counties got in immigration, and then they can look at the future outcomes. And what they find is that immigration, high immigration in the past, predicts future success. and all sorts of measures, both increased income on a per capita level, lower poverty rates, higher education. People are just wealthier and better off because of immigration. You see that in, that might be happening because people are moving into successful areas, but it’s also because immigrants bring new ideas. So Eric Yuan made us all better off by coming here, inventing Zoom and allowing us to have these conversations, whether it happens after the pandemic or in the middle of the pandemic. I can’t imagine not having seen many of my friends for months during COVID, but we watched movies over Zoom together. We played video games. We played board games, all possible because of an immigrant’s invention brought here to the U.S. And that’s really the story we’ve always had in economic research. It boils down to the simple phrase: People bring prosperity.

Denzil Mohammed: People bring prosperity. Josh Smith, research manager at the Center for Growth and  Opportunity at Utah State University, thank you for joining us in this podcast.

Josh Smith: Hey, thank you, Denzil. Happy to come anytime.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thanks for joining us for this week’s engaging conversation on the positive impact of immigration on the U.S. If you know an outstanding immigrant business owner or innovator or researcher that we should talk to email, Denzil, that’s d-e-n-z-i-l at jobmakerspodcast.org. I’m Denzil Mohammed. Tune in next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 63: Khamzat Asabaev

After fleeing Chechnya as a young refugee, Khamzat Asabaev couldn’t access basic dental care. This difficult experience inspired Asabaev to found SoftSmile, a software tool that makes it easier for dentists to provide affordable, accessible orthodontic care to all. Listen to learn how his story exemplifies refugees’ entrepreneurial spirit.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed. Welcome to JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Imagine celebrating the holiday season with family and friends, and then your country gets invaded. Scary. But as we see on the news, it’s real. No one wants to be a refugee, but the resilience and fortitude of refugees to withstand catastrophic displacement like that and come out the other side is something remarkable, something worthy of our respect and something that ultimately benefits the country they’re resettled in. For Khamzat Asabeav, refugee from Chechnya and co-founder of SoftSmile, which produces pioneering software for dentists to make advanced treatment plans for patients without relying on third parties, not only was he displaced, but he had to grow up in the country that invaded his, Russia. His experiences shaped his life in profound ways. In response to the lawlessness of the invasion, Khamzat first pursued law, becoming a top mergers and acquisitions attorney in the U.K. and the Middle East. Lack of access to basic care as a refugee and a minority prompted him to pursue entrepreneurship, to make basic services accessible to all. Khamzat’s story is not unique, but it’s rarely told. Refugees go through terrible things, but ultimately make significant contributions to their adopted homeland, having higher rates of employment and entrepreneurship. What does that mean? They give back far more than we give them, as you’ll discover in this week’s JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Khamzat Asabeav, founder and CEO of SoftSmile and immigrant from Chechnya, welcome to the JobMakers podcast. How are you?

Khamzat Asabaev: Thank you. Doing fine and really honored to be a guest here.

Denzil Mohammed: So tell us a little bit about your business and what makes it special.

Khamzat Asabaev: Sure. SoftSmile is a software company and I’ll give you an example. Imagine you are visiting a doctor, an orthodontist, and you want to make your smile perfect. So that doctor will take some measurements, will scan your teeth, and she will upload that information into a certain portal. So usually she, a doctor, has to wait for weeks until someone somewhere usually oversees, prepares a treatment plan and sends back this information for coordination, again, with the doctor, then there will be manufacturing. So it usually takes four, five, six weeks to have a digital treatment plan ready. But before that, upfront, you paid a few thousand dollars and it’s a very lengthy, costly process. What we are doing with our software, a doctor will do everything in-house and can deliver to you as a patient, a treatment plan just in one day. And we believe this will lead to making orthodontics affordable and accessible. That’s basically what we’re doing.

Denzil Mohammed: Incredible. And this entrepreneurial journey began a very long time ago when you, your family was forced to move. And so not just the idea of entrepreneurship, but the thing that you’re doing, which is making health care more accessible, comes from that experience of being forced to move and, hoping for better on the other side. So I know you were born in Chechnya, but you ended up having to grow up in Moscow. Tell me about that experience.

Khamzat Asabaev: Sure. I was born in Chechnya in Grozny. In 1994, New Year’s Eve actually, when Russia invaded Chechnya with full force, and we, my parents took me and [their] daughter and we moved to Moscow because we had some relatives there. That’s where I grew up. And I saw some discrimination and some, let’s say, bad things being a Chechen kid in Moscow, in Russia. And there was a lot of injustice back there. So this, even when I was a child, got me thinking that maybe something more fair would be possible with even my efforts. And regarding health care, there were cases when Chechens were rejected from getting simple health care in Moscow, in Russia. And when you see that you just get this idea, How’s it possible? And that instills your notion that actually health care is an absolutely fundamental right, and it shall be provided to everyone regardless of their skin color or ethnicity or face. So it just should, must be, fundamental. And when you see some injustice, especially biased injustice, let’s say, you are trying, growing up, you are trying to fix it. And maybe that’s led to a situation when I saw an opportunity to change healthcare a little bit. I really grasped it.

Denzil Mohammed: And that experience also influenced your first choice in a career because you first entered into law, you were a lawyer, just like your father and your grandfather.

Khamzat Asabaev: Yes, I was, actually, I still consider myself a lawyer because once a lawyer, always a lawyer and my counterparts in my business, they don’t understand it [laugh]. But, yes, you’re absolutely right. Because law of people is the only alternative to the law of jungle. And I saw law of jungle being a kid where some powerful and mighty country can completely destroy lives and entire cities [inaudible]. And, again, law is the only alternative.

Denzil Mohammed: And how did this, how did the dental care, how did that happen? Was it just serendipitous? Was it just your friend happened to be working on this?

Khamzat Asabaev: There are, as always, various events converging in some particular point. First, again, maybe from my childhood experience, I knew that dental care, orthodontics, are extremely expensive and not everyone can afford it. Second, my friend who is also from Chechnya, but who didn’t leave Chechnya through the wars, actually, his story, absolutely impressive. He inspired me to start SoftSmile because he was an orthodontist who after graduating, after getting his dental education, he got back to Chechnya and started helping people who would never be able to afford some famous brands like Invisalign or [inaudible], or something like that. So he started making those aligners and braces in-house, and I followed his career. I knew that he’s doing great. And at some point, seeing how great he’s doing, we just decided to join forces and maybe do something together. And I, being a lawyer in a very famous international firm, was able to attract investors and that’s how we started.

Denzil Mohammed: So therefore your pivot into entrepreneurship was not a difficult one. Or was it? I know you had a bad experience starting a business in Switzerland, right?

Khamzat Asabaev: Yes, yes, actually you are right. I wanted to say that there is no particular skill set for entrepreneurship and anyone can do that. But actually, absolutely right. My first experience demonstrates that there are always some mistakes and if you don’t have some safety net, some ability to continue, even though you made some strategic mistakes, it can be really devastating for the entire business. That’s what happened with our small manufacturing lab in Switzerland. We were not ready. We made some strategic mistakes and it failed, which actually was good because SoftSmile now is way bigger, way more successful. We learned from our mistakes. We’re doing things carefully. Now we’re trying to close our weak spots. So it was good experience anyway. Even though it failed, but still we learned.

Denzil Mohammed: Failure is almost like a prerequisite, right?

Khamzat Asabaev: Sometimes, yes. We were lucky to have those failures as a lesson. But, unfortunately, sometimes people bet everything and lose it. And this also happens. And that’s why I think everyone shall be careful measuring how much they’re investing, of their efforts, of their resources, and where. Because failure can always happen. It just doesn’t matter how hard you are working. It will happen if something changes. We just, so went through COVID. We just, in the middle recession, we see that there are a lot of bad things happening without our involvement, just not depending on us. And you should be ready mentally and, let’s say, financially. If something happens, it’s not your fault. Just try again. And this phrase, let’s try again, is what my friend told me when we, after the company was called [inaudible]. So when it failed just in few months, I already left Linklaters, so I didn’t have any job. And my friend told me, let’s try again. And we founded SoftSmile.

Denzil Mohammed: So how is SoftSmile doing today and how do you see its growth?

Khamzat Asabaev: SoftSmile is doing pretty well. We are a product-led company. We are very proud of our product. It’s just amazing software with dozens of intricate algorithms, which make the job, which would take hours, being done in just a few minutes. So it’s 30, 35 times faster, more efficient than any alternatives on the market. And you can imagine it just transforms the entire practice of digital orthodontics. And most importantly people out there know it. So we are getting many requests from them or from contacts. Unfortunately, I cannot due to contractual restrictions disclose names of our clients, but what I can say is about 2,000 patients every day are being treated with our software. So I know the theme of this podcast, creating jobs. So we are creating jobs globally, not only through SoftSmile, but also helping our clients to change their practice and attract more people and work with more doctors. That’s what we’re doing. And regarding the growth right now, we’re focused on the software, but the next step will be working directly with doctors and probably patients so that we will manufacture and design and we will go directly to consumers. So we, I have good confidence in the growth of the business.

Denzil Mohammed: As a business leader, you’ve developed some thoughts over the years. And this is something I’ve heard from other entrepreneurs. But you once said only after getting the product on the market, as you really see who your client base is and what level of demand looks like. I’ve heard this from many different entrepreneurs. Can you describe this a little bit more on how it might work with different kinds of companies versus a software company?

Khamzat Asabaev: Sure. So, you, as an entrepreneur, have this choice, kind of balance. One thing you want to make everything perfect or as close to the perfection as possible before you show it to even your friends. And on the other hand, you want real feedback. You want to understand whether what you’re building is worth it and here where the problem happens. So if you’re insecure, if you’re, let’s say, scared of showing your product to the market, you will find any opportunity to delay the launch and try to make it as great as possible. But the problem which usually happens, that the market evolves and your clients’ needs evolve and your competitors, they are not sleeping, so they’re also doing something. That’s why I believe, although it’s a bit scary, but you shall try to give your product to as many people as possible, provided always you protected from IP perspective, from tech perspective, because there are various strange stories where technology from a young startup is stolen by someone. So you should always think about it. But without real feedback from your customers it’s difficult to build something worth it or what people would expect. The problem we have, we gave demo to the market about 18 months ago and the real problem, that I’m chased by doctors all around the world with questions, when you finally give us a commercial product, when you give it to us. And demo was so good that people thought that everything is ready. But our software is a very complex and intricate product. And that’s why one of my problems, just to explain doctors, please wait a little bit, it’ll be way better. Just give us some time to finalize it. And finally we are at stage where it is finalized and we are getting amazing feedback from leaders of the market. And that’s what we’re proud of.

Denzil Mohammed: I see. So another thing you’ve talked about is having support that allows you to take risks. Even our own research bears that out, that having family or other social support is key to the success of immigrants. If you’re here by yourself, it’s a lot harder. But not everyone has that luxury of having family or a network of support or fellow countrymen. So how can entrepreneurial immigrants build up a support system if they don’t have direct family contacts there.

Khamzat Asabaev: There are various angles to this. You are right. Not everyone has a family, and not everyone has family which can help or support you, especially when you are overseas. But entrepreneurs, so what I would suggest, you should look toward, if you can say, what communities you belong. I’ll give you an example. To me, it was very help that I could approach lawyers or my classmates in the United States or my former colleagues. I also could approach Chechens who live in America just to get some advice from them. I also could approach some doctors and orthodontists saying that, “Look, I’m building this product for you. Could you advise me?” And a few orthodontists actually wrote recommendation letters for my green card, the same few lawyers did. So, it was helpful. So what I’m trying to say that it’s always helpful to have someone around like your family, your friends, even for moral support. But I am not buying that there is no support at all because what you are doing, for instance, helping immigrants, helping people with everything, is one of those examples that those who seek they will find. So I believe people just shall look into themself and see, okay, what kind of community will help me here? Because we all are part of some communities. There is no one completely alone. You can always find some support. There’s so many examples in my life where complete strangers help me so much. And you may say, someone may say, I am a relatively successful guy, but this wouldn’t be possible without complete strangers who were in my life, lending a hand, helping you with advice, not even mentioning friends, family, colleagues, all of them. So nothing in my life would be possible, nothing good would be possible without help of other people. And that’s my motto. We always shall look around. And also there is in law, if you expect some help from people, it is also expected that you will help them. So, not getting into details, I hope there are people who will probably remember that I helped them some point and who can say, “Yes, Khamzat was good, Khamzat was there at certain part of our life.”

Denzil Mohammed: That Khamzat was there. [laugh]. And do you think that the United States entrepreneurial ecosystem lends itself to the things that you’re talking about, that people want to support others in their endeavors?

Khamzat Asabaev: I would say the most advanced entrepreneurial ecosystem in the world, because, as I said, I’ve worked in the U.K., in the Emirates, in Russia, traveled a lot. And entrepreneurs all around the world kind of close community, helping each other, knowing that when you help someone today, they will get back to you with some response later on. But the United States simply because it’s the biggest market in the world and the biggest number of entrepreneurs and the most developed entrepreneurship ecosystem, everyone can find support, I believe.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s really good for you to say. And especially for budding entrepreneurs who may not be in the United States as yet, they have something positive to look forward to. So you spoke very highly of the entrepreneurial ecosystem here in the U.S. But you have started businesses elsewhere and even your current business, it’s cross continental. But the United States has given you, what is to date, your most successful business. How do you feel about the United States as the country that took you in, gave you a second education and allowed you to start and grow a business?

Khamzat Asabaev: I love the United States. And of course there are many problems in the United States, but those problems, if you compare to other countries, you just shall always compare what … As you know, I lived in Russia. I lived in U.K. I lived in some other countries. And I think, although there is some impact right now, I think the core of United States’ success is rule of law. And I’m saying as a lawyer, because one amazing, really amazing thing in the United States is me being a small guy, an entrepreneur, you can always seek some protection of justice in any court, and you can be sure that it will be unbiased and fair judgment. So if you are wrong, that’s fine. You will never say someone bought a judge or there was a corruption or something like that. Just everything is based on law, let’s say, on the principles introduced by the founding fathers and by the constitution. And I highly respect the U.S. commercial and corporate law systems.

Denzil Mohammed: It’s fascinating that you say rule of law is what really makes this country distinctive. Thank you for that perspective, because you certainly come from a place where rule of law probably didn’t always apply. So Khamzat …

Khamzat Asabaev: To say mildly, let’s say [laugh].

Denzil Mohammed: Khamzat Asabaev, founder and CEO of SoftSmile, immigrant from Chechnya, thank you so much for joining us on the JobMakers podcast.

Khamzat Asabaev: Thank you very much, Denzil. It was great talking to you and really honored to talk to your audience. Thank you.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and at The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for this week’s inspiring story of one incredible refugee entrepreneur. If you know an outstanding foreign born business owner or innovator we should talk to, email Denzil, that’s D-E-N-Z-I-L, at jobmakerspodcast.org. I’m Denzil Mohammed. See you next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 62: April Ryan

JobMakers podcast graphic: April Ryan paints her way to success

Russian-born entrepreneur April Ryan worried about constantly exposing her own hands to ultraviolet light for her nail painting tutorials. Her solution, a set of silicone hands for nail artists to practice upon, turned into a multi-million dollar business that countless nail professionals have benefited from. Tune in to learn how she achieved her goals despite coming to the U.S. with no English skills.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and welcome to JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Coming to the United States from nothing is not an uncommon story. After all, It’s the people with their backs against the wall who have to figure out a way to eat, feel safe and maybe just thrive. But America’s pot-holed streets of gold provide a stark reality that newcomers to the country must reckon with, and then overcome. For April Ryan, immigrant from Russia and founder and CEO of Red Iguana Nail Art Products and nail art influencer to hundreds of thousands, coming to the U.S. from a poor town where growing up her family had to grow the food they ate, the bright lights of Beverly Hills show that harsh reality so many immigrants face. Nothing is given to you. You have to work to get it without a lick of English. April tapped into her tenacity and inventiveness. When she realized video tutorials of nail art could make her famous, she went all in. When she realized working on her hands for those videos repeatedly actually ruined her nails [and skin], she developed a breakthrough silicone practice hand, which became a bestseller for nail artists in now 19 countries. April’s story is the immigrant’s story and it shows just the kind of people who take that risk to move here and use their pluck and scrappiness to succeed, as you hear in this week’s JobMakers podcast.

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Denzil Mohammed: April Ryan, CEO and founder of Red Iguana and immigrant from Russia, thank you for joining us on the JobMakers podcast. How are you?

April Ryan: Good. And thank you for having me today.

Denzil Mohammed: It’s our pleasure. So tell us a little bit about your business. It’s a very unique business, but it’s certainly booming right now. And where did the idea come from?

April Ryan: In the past, I’ve been a nail art creator and influencer, and I used my own hands a lot for videos, but after some time I started to see some damage of my skin. Because when I do nails a lot, of course you filing, you put your hands to UV light, which is not good for skin. And I started to talk, What if I will have some model for my videos? But I really loved my hands. So I decided to try and create copies of my actual hands and created silicon practice hands for nail artists, which is very popular right now.

Denzil Mohammed: Wow. And then that took you like six months to perfect, right?

April Ryan: Yes. It’s long process. It’s not like you make it today and tomorrow it’s done. It’s lot of details, a lot of things you need to follow and see if it’s working, especially from first tries. It’s never perfect. So right now working on second generation of hands, because it’s always some improvement in that.

Denzil Mohammed: Oh, wow. That’s incredible. So you invented a silicone practice hand for nail artists to practice on. That’s an excellent idea.

April Ryan: Thank you.

Denzil Mohammed: But your business journey and your personal journey both started in Russia. What was life like growing up there? And did you have any good career prospects?

April Ryan: So growing in Russia, especially in small towns like mine is not easy, because it’s not much resources for everything. So I started to be interested in beauty industry when I been 14 years young. But when you don’t have money, because it’s Russia [laugh], you don’t have money, you don’t have resources. You don’t have even ways to be closer to this industry, because where you will find it, if you in small city and it’s no schools, no stores, nothing? Even internet we hadn’t. You cannot even see what happens in the world because you don’t have good internet.

Denzil Mohammed: I read that you, your family had to grow your own vegetables. You had to wear hand me downs from your brothers.

April Ryan: Yes. Yes, because it was the only way to get some food, because it’s endless financial crisis in Russia. No job, no money. And, of course, we had our own vegetables and livestock just to be able to eat something. And, of course, when I don’t have money for new clothes, I wore my brothers’ clothes because I had no choice [laugh], actually. But I’m not thinking about something bad because it’s made me stronger. And even now I have my own house. It helped me, because I remember what I did with my parents’ own house. Yeah, it’s just experience and [inaudible]. So, yeah …

Denzil Mohammed: So obviously there was no beauty school nearby. But then something happened when you were 18.

April Ryan: Yes. My mom, she found like newspaper and it say that independent educator coming to our town with classes and she knew I loved everything about beauty. And she said, “You should try.” And I tried. It’s been very expensive. It’s like one month’s paycheck cost. But my dad helped me. He actually borrowed me this money. And I became the best student and I got the job in one of the best nail salons in my little town. It’s nothing to brag about, but [laugh], it’s how my journey started.

Denzil Mohammed: And so you got to this position and then you branched out as a businesswoman in Russia. Right?

April Ryan: So I started as nail technician. But it’s become very important for me to be the best nail artist in my small city. And I moved from my little town [inaudible] to bigger city Rostov-on-Don and started my journey there. First I worked in nail bar, like nail salon in the mall. But then I decided to open my own nail studio and this is how my journey of business owner started. And I think about two years later, I had three nail salons.

Denzil Mohammed: Wow. And how old were you when the first one opened?

April Ryan: Twenty-one.

Denzil Mohammed: Twenty-one years old and a business owner. That’s incredible. That’s really, really cool.

April Ryan: Thank you.

Denzil Mohammed: But then you and your husband made a very important, life-changing decision. You bought a one-way ticket to the United States. What was behind that? And what was the experience of moving like?

April Ryan: It’d been just one evening in November of 2013 and I felt so like big fish, when you have more opportunities but not here, not in this place. And I saw I have no future in Russia anymore. And I knew my husband always wanted to move to Canada or to the United States and just ask him, “Maybe we should move?” And he said, “Okay.” And as I said in November. And from January, we started to work on our visa. We got temporary visas in March and we moved in May. Process of getting visa and moving in Los Angeles has been easy. But of course the process when you new in county, it’s been not easy for us. So we worked. I worked for very low price for nails. My husband worked at Uber. And so I would say first year for us been very hard, very hard. But then when we figure out how everything is working. It’s new culture, new people, new business model, so it’s become better.

Denzil Mohammed: I mean you landed not even knowing English, which astonishes me!

April Ryan: [Laugh] Yes, I knew zero English and I had language barrier when I can’t even start, because you are afraid to say something wrong. But it’s because of Russian culture. if somebody speak not good in Russian, everybody starts to like, “Hey, you go [inaudible].” [Laugh] But American people they’re great. They’re so helpful. And I remember everybody like, “Your English is great,” when they know that’s just three words. [Laugh]

Denzil Mohammed: It’s a nation full of accents to be honest. [Laugh] Let’s face it. There are accents everywhere. So your career had a rocky start. You didn’t come here with a ton of money ready to open a business. As you said, that first year you needed to figure things out, see how things worked, find out, I guess, where resources were. So what was it, what happened when you were able to start your business? Was it that moment of, well, my hands are not looking great because of this so let me invent this?

April Ryan: No, I’m the person who trying a lot different ways to make money. So it’s not been like, okay, this is perfect way and this will work, no. Our first ever try to make money here in United States been to open our nail salon because it’s worked back to Russia, right? But it didn’t work for us. And after six months we closed our business in the United States and we lost a lot of money. Then my next step was I worked in well-known nail salon in Beverly Hills with Instagram influencers, with celebrities, movie stars. But when you understand it’s not what you want again, it’s another try to make money, right? I left and become Instagram influencer instead, started to make videos. And companies started to pay me. I’m like, okay, this is better money. And when you have a lot of orders for videos you need the models. And this is how I started to thinking about hands. So it was something like, okay, this is great business idea. I made it first for me just as helper for my videos. And we put, when people from Instagram started to ask me, where did you get this hand or wanted it, oh, maybe I should sell it. And it was really by accident. It was great idea.

Denzil Mohammed: So you started out as the influencer and then the problem of the hand came up. I see. And I did a little digging. I mean, 399,000 followers on Instagram is mind blowing. Two-hundred seventy-five thousand people follow you on Facebook. Did you know that you had five and a half million views on YouTube?

April Ryan: No. [Laugh]. It’s great news for me.

Denzil Mohammed: I mean, come on. So I think you were very scrappy and agile and inventive in the way that you started your business, and so successful. So what does your career in business look like now?

April Ryan: At this moment, our main product is silicone hands, of course, because it will be always main product. Even we have competitors now, and of course China copy our hands completely, not even hands, but business idea, like packaging, colors, everything. China always copying good ideas. I’m not mad at them, because it always happens. We have professional nail products like [inaudible]. They’re very high quality and the best ingredients because I’m very picky about quality. But at this moment I’m also working on education platform, because I know people want to learn from me But it’s taken too much time to make live classes in person. So I want to start, to move an education way, which is my future steps.

Denzil Mohammed: And you’ll be doing that virtually.

April Ryan: Yes.

Denzil Mohammed: Wow. So what do you think has been the secret to your success with your business Red Iguana? It seems to me as though you’ve just adapted really well to all the differences that you …

April Ryan: Yes, this is one of reasons. And I’m not afraid. I’m always trying something new and if it’s not working, I’m not stressing about it. It didn’t work. I will try something new because I know a lot of people trying, once it’s not working and they stop to try. It’s not me. I knew if it would be not working, I would try something new. Not working again, like from a hundred different ways, at least one will work.

Denzil Mohammed: Right. If you were to go back and give your younger self some advice about starting a business and growing a business, what do you think it would be?

April Ryan: I would say her hire people because people, it’s very important for business. Making everything by yourself and multitasking and you making a million different things at the same time and it not helps to grow your business. I would say her trust people more. Find your perfect employees and you will see how your business booming. So yeah, I would say people, it’s very important for business.

Denzil Mohammed: But you support fellow female entrepreneurs, and you have, for instance, several different brands on your site that don’t belong to you, but belong to other women and you’re lifting them up. What do you think is the state of female entrepreneurship in the U.S.? What do you see happening or not happening?

April Ryan: I see, I love current situation, where female entrepreneurship in U.S.A., because it’s still friendly and still supportive. I don’t see that it’s, would be very aggressive to each other. No, I love that it’s become better every year and it’s become popular because back when I started to push this movement in my industry, we didn’t have friends between professionals, between company owners. But now I more see that it’s working and it’s possible to be friends with your, I can’t even say competitors because when you making your own business, you have your own people. It’s not competition. So I love this situation right now. It’s look great to me.

Denzil Mohammed: So you’re seeing more networks of women supporting each other?

April Ryan: Yes. Yes, and I love to see.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m gonna ask a little bit of a delicate question here.

April Ryan: Okay.

Denzil Mohammed: First, how were you received as a business owner by the opposite sex?

April Ryan: Oh. [Laugh]  I wouldn’t say I had problem with my gender. So, no, actually I had. So I had disrespect from older male because in their mind they’re really traditional and they think woman cannot be smart enough to run her own business. And actually, I also met people who told if I’m speaking with accent, I’m not smart enough too. They even try to act that they didn’t understand me, what I’m talking about. So it’s mostly men but I’m used to it back from Russia, because in Russia women have less rights than here. But my husband is very supportive. If I need his help, he’s always with me. And if I don’t want to talk with some men because of disrespect, my husband talk with them and I feel great. So I’m not keep some bad emotions about it because I’m used to it. It’s our world. It’s true every day.

Denzil Mohammed: It’s your reality.

April Ryan: Yeah. It’s reality, everyday reality. But of course I get it. But not much, not like being sad about it every day.

Denzil Mohammed: Yeah, I don’t see that being in your personality at all. [Laugh] And so tell me what is next for April Ryan?

April Ryan: I don’t know. [Laugh]

Denzil Mohammed: You told me earlier that when we were talking that you didn’t even think you’d be this big in so many, what, 17 countries?

April Ryan: Nineteen. [Laugh]

Denzil Mohammed: [Laugh] Sorry.

April Ryan: You know, actually about five years ago, I talked with company owner. And company owner, he asked me, “How do you see yourself in five years?” I said, “I have no idea, but not as business owner.” Five years later, I’m the business owner! I have so many idea in my mind and I’m still artist, even though I am mainly company owner, I’m still artist. I started from art and I have million ideas. And I’m trying something new every day and every month. So of course I will have my business and I will move to a new way. But as April Ryan, as person, I want to be more grounded, I would say.

Denzil Mohammed: Well, yours has been a really fascinating and interesting story from your beginnings in Russia to where you are now in the U.S.. Thank you so much for joining us on this podcast. And if I had to ask a last question, how do you feel about the United States that took you in?

April Ryan: It’s great. It’s absolutely great country, and American Dream still exist. And I have my American Dream. I moved here. I’m successful. I bought my house and I have so much opportunity, support from this country. So I love it. I love it. And I wish well for this country, even though this current situation in the world. I love this country and think it is absolutely great.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s incredible. April Ryan, founder, CEO of Red Iguana, immigrant from Russia, thank you for joining us on the JobMakers podcast.

April Ryan: Thank you so much for having me.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thanks for joining us for this week’s inspiring story of one incredible immigrant entrepreneur. If you know an outstanding immigrant business owner or innovator that we should talk to, please email Denzil, that’s D-E-N-Z-I-L, at JobMakerspodcast.org. I’m Denzil Mohammed. See you next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 61: Aki Balogh

JobMakers podcast graphic: Aki Balogh on how U.S. diversity drives business

Aki Balogh’s family fled Hungary when Balogh was a child, leading him to embrace entrepreneurship as a young teenager to help support his family. As an adult, Balogh co-founded MarketMuse, an AI-powered content intelligence and strategy platform, and has created almost 100 jobs. Listen to learn how a diverse group of collaborators was essential to his achievements.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and welcome to JobMakers.

[music playing]

Denzil Mohammed: You often hear me say how inherently entrepreneurial most immigrants are. The propensity to take risks, try out something new, dive all in to fix something or find a solution, or to make a better life. That’s an immigrant. So I say again, it’s no wonder immigrants are more likely to start businesses and create jobs in the United States. For Aki Balogh, immigrant from Hungary and co-founder of MarketMuse, which created an artificial intelligence-powered content intelligence and strategy platform, and co-founder of DLC link, which aims to decentralize Bitcoin, he was an entrepreneur from the start moving to the U.S. after fleeing post-communist Hungary. Aki and his family did whatever they could do to survive, and that included as a young teen Aki delivering newspapers, phones, books and even starting a computer repair business at 15. Today, Aki Balogh is a pioneer in content intelligence technology and has created more than 90 jobs in the past eight years, but he didn’t come up with groundbreaking software, build a successful business alone. He had help from a diverse group of collaborators, who altogether built something great. As you’ll discover in this week’s Jobmaker’s podcast, Aki Balogh, co-founder and president of MarketMuse and co-founder & CEO of DLC.Link.

[music playing]

Denzil Mohammed: Welcome to the JobMakers podcast. How are you?

Aki Balogh: Great, thanks for having me.

Denzil Mohammed: So tell us a little bit about your two companies.

Aki Balogh: Yeah, absolutely. So MarketMuse, I founded eight years ago and the goal in the beginning was to build an AI application that actually uses, you know, large amounts of data and does something that is beneficial to society like helps solve a business problem and originally wanted to do something in health care. And I did five months of research around that, and some of my mentors came and said, “Hey, health care’s really hard for the first one. Why don’t you do something a little easier?” So I switched to content marketing because it is MarTech. So it is, you know, was sort of easier to show value, but the content side was education. And so at Market Muse, essentially we working, I worked with a scientist, Richard Mala and we invented a way of optimizing articles for improved kind of comprehensibility improved, you know, for more kind of information or topic, topical relevance. And that turned out to be the most impactful way to optimize articles for SEO, for search engines. And so we built an engine around that and that created a whole wave of SEO optimization around topics and relevance and that created a kind of a niche industry and just changed SEO. So, that was the first company I built. For over eight years, we raised 50 million in funding over the years. We have over 30,000 users that have registered. We have over 150, 200, you know, larger customers. So, so that was that. And then after actually about a year ago, I stepped back from that. We had promoted his CEO, Charles Frydenborg, internally, and I was just able to think of new products. So I started my second company DLC.Link, which is focused on building Bitcoin escrow, which lets the user basically use the Bitcoin in their wallet and they get to lock it and use it for applications like lending or trading or whatever, you know, financial applications. They might want to do bidding for NFTs, but the key is because the Bitcoin is locked in escrow, you don’t have to actually send it to a custodian. So, you know, unlike every other solution the only way to use Bitcoin right now in decentralized finance is you have to send it to a custodian and you kinda hope that they don’t blow up or they don’t get hacked, but if you lock the collateral in your wallet it’s, you know, self custody, which is kind of the goal. And the promise of Bitcoin is to give you control over your own future. So that’s what we’re building now.

Denzil Mohammed: Wow, that sounds great. And I’ve read that entrepreneurship. You talked about, you know, several of your mentors sat you down they knew you wanted to start something. So entrepreneurship was something that always interested you. And I would say that your journey and that of your parents was in itself entrepreneurial. You moved from one part of the world to the polar opposite. You left Hungary when you were just five years old. Tell us a little bit about why your family decided to make that journey and what that journey was like.

Aki Balogh: Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, I was five when we moved. So my parents kind of shielded me from some of the, you know, those initial impacts, but essentially my father was a research professor in chemistry, chemical technology. My mother was completing her PhD and Hungarian and Russian literature and pedagogy. So she had, you know, combined degrees and it was just a tough time in 1991 especially for teachers or educators or researchers. It just was not a lot of, you know, grant funding to go around. My father couldn’t do his research because the university could not afford the reagents or his work. So it just was a tough time. We were wearing a lot of hand-me-down clothing. I think that broke my mother’s heart. And so we decided to come out to the U.S for two years. My father got an initial kind of job in Lowell, Massachusetts at UMass Lowell. And yeah, we moved. Yeah. He moved in 1990, you know, two suitcases, 50 bucks, lived in an attic for a while to save on rent. And then in 91, the three of us, my brother and my mom and I joined him. And you know, we just, we didn’t speak English, but, you know, we were delivering phone books in the Groton, MA, area as a kid you know, we were just doing whatever jobs to make ends meet and, and that’s how we got started. And whether it was that or something genetic, but I started building kind of businesses and I started new projects, you know, early on. By the time I started MarketMuse, I had founded about seven different things. A computer repair company with my friends at 15, a European conference series at the University of Michigan that we ran for three years, a tech club for Michigan business school undergrads, and just a bunch of different kinds of projects. So I’ve always been just trying to find new opportunities. But MarketMuse was the first tech company where I actually, you know, were actually just wanted to create something new.

Denzil Mohammed: So the only thing you haven’t done so far is delivering newspapers.

Aki Balogh: I delivered newspapers at 13. That was my first paid job. Yeah. In, the Lowell area. So that’s funny, I forgot to mention that [laughs]

Denzil Mohammed: And just to be clear, your family was escaping, you know, Hungary was a communist nation up until the end of the eighties, right?

Aki Balogh: Yes. Yes. Then, the implementation of communism was a little different in Hungary, was a little bit more like it was a different type than they had in Russia, but it was part of that Soviet bloc.

Denzil Mohammed: And arguably things aren’t much different right now. Right.

Aki Balogh: It’s a tough time in Hungary right now. Their currency is devalued and they’ve pretty much off the EU in every way possible. There’s no free press. So yeah, it’s tough. Yeah, there’s a lot of structural change that needs to happen.

Denzil Mohammed: So you mentioned that you started one of your early businesses when you were 15. Something else happened when you were 15. So your trajectory, on the whole, is not entirely normal or orthodox, but your educational trajectory was also non-orthodox. How did you end up in community college at age 15?

Aki Balogh: Yeah. It wasn’t my invention. It was a great opportunity that we saw when we lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, there’s a college called Washtenaw Technical Middle College, WTMC. And basically, a group of people set that up to take high school students. You could not apply as a freshman, but as a sophomore you could apply. And they basically took the state funding for high school and applied it to college courses. So I became a full-time Washtenaw Community College student in my sophomore year. I just had one high school class. They wanted to keep an eye on me, make sure that I’m, you know, able to perform, but, but from then on, I had WCC classes and over the next, you know, three years, I pursued a degree in an associate’s degree in business, computer programming. All of those college courses also counted as high school credit. And I graduated with that degree, received a high school diploma. And I was actually selected to be the graduating speaker at the community college. So I spoke to an audience of like 4,000 college students as an 18 year old. So it was quite a, you know, an experience.

Denzil Mohammed: So to walk us through the beginnings of MarketMuse, you said you were going to try something in health care, then you decided to focus on this. What problem was it that you wanted to solve? And what were those first few years like?

Aki Balogh: Yeah, we basically wanted to create an AI engine that analyzes all of the articles on the web and shows writers how to write comprehensively to cover a topic. So if you want to talk about X, Y, Z topic, you know, what are the facets of that you should cover in your content just to write more well informed articles and the net result would’ve been, or is creating more informed content that uses all of the knowledge of humanity that has been written down on the web. If we analyze all the knowledge, you know, thousands or tens of thousands of articles on each topic we’re going to create more rich content, which will then just have a multiplier effect on the amount of knowledge that is on the web. And, you know, also makes it better able to train AI systems in the future to interpret that and so on. And so we just wanted to make the quality of content better. And the first step to that was actually, we could for the first time we could measure the quality of content with a numerical score, because, you know, let’s say the engine reads 5,000 articles in 30 seconds gives you an outline. And there are things you’ve mentioned in the outline. There are things you have not mentioned. We can basically say, all right, out of a hundred points, you know, right now your quality score is 50. And you can, you know, by adding these other pieces to it, you can improve the score. So that made it easy to follow. And that had just a lot of implications and kind of interesting aspects as well. But we wanted to make the quality of content measurable and improvable.

Denzil Mohammed: I see, but the first few years must have been a little bit rocky. And I remember you saying that it’s better if you start out with not with the whole big clump of money, but with less, that it sort of keeps you agile, right?

Aki Balogh: Yes. It was hard. It was very hard for a lot of reasons. I was also hard on myself. I tried to be kinder to myself these days as a 37-year-old. I wanted to create something new that also has a business surrounded. And actually the first two years, I also wanted to just really learn how to code better. At that point, I had not coded for six or seven years because of my consulting and venture stuff. I just was away from software development. So I just sat down and I learned Python. And then I learned Skyla and go, and front end design and Ruby and Angular and just all the kind of languages that were used today. And then I build systems that I learned how to build systems that were, you know, concurrent and you could do handle a lot of network IO or handle a lot of load. And, so I just wanted to do that by hand. So I did that for like a year and a half in my apartment, just kind of coding six days a week, you know, three shifts a day. So there’s a morning shift, lunch, an afternoon shift, a nap, then an evening shift till 2:00 AM. Monday through Saturday. I mean, Saturday was a lighter day. I did it, it was a very creative, but very hard, you know, we didn’t have any money. I was living off of unemployment, but when my last startup that I was at went under it wasn’t one that I started, but I was working for the CEO of a database company for two years. When that went under, I was out of a job.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s a real steep learning curve and you rattled off all of those languages. I don’t know any of them [laughs] but also you mentioned that it was hard for you emotionally as well, and you wanted to try to be kinder to yourself. And I read that you said 50 percent of a startup is emotional control. What do you mean by that?

Aki Balogh: Yes. startups are a bunch of ups and downs that are wild swings that I never experienced when I had a company job or was in school. You know, you will literally have events that look like you’re about to die as a company and events that you look like you’re gonna be super successful. And you’re really just kind of doing this OST installation around kind of a flat loop trajectory over 10 years, but it feels like a roller coaster.

Denzil Mohammad: So your new company also seems to be a bit of a first in its field. What, where are you with it?

Aki Balogh: Yeah, so early days we were seven people. We have about 15 initial pilots. We have our first prototype coming out this quarter. We’ve been working on this idea for about seven months, raised close to a million in funding in a tough bear market in crypto early on. I would say the connecting kind of piece is that we’re taking new IP that was developed. This IP was actually developed at MIT four years ago, and we’re applying it, we’re commercializing it, finding the applications and getting it to where it needs to go. So it’s moving a lot faster on, on every front, like instead of, you know, learning how to code the language. I was able to, you know, jump in with both feet. I was able to find my CTO very early on. Right at the outset versus four years later, we were able to raise some initial funding within the first six months, not within the two, three years from start for like funding. You know, we have, like I said, over a dozen pilots, so it’s just a lot faster. We have a lot better partnerships and the crypto community has been super supportive. They’re very interested in the idea of letting people own their own future and letting people use their Bitcoin in non-custodial ways, which is kind of like the big rallying cry in crypto is you need to own what you own and not just trust other entities to have your best interest at heart.

Denzil Mohammed: So one of the really important things that you do, you just mentioned Hungary, is that you’ve been mentoring budding entrepreneurs in Hungary, your home country. Why do you do this? And what has the experience been like?

Aki Balogh: For Hungarians? I feel like people like me have a responsibility to give back because we’ve seen people who have seen Hungary and another country like the U.S. I have been fortunate to be able to travel. I’ve been to over 40 countries. So, you know, I have perspectives that I can kind of translate, or maybe I come across as more credible to a Hungarian entrepreneur audience. And the thing about Hungary is there tremendously hardworking, smart people there. They just don’t have the natural access to the networks in New York and San Francisco and things that we enjoy, Boston, you know, things that we enjoy here. And so sometimes it’s as easier as just making a connection. I’ll give you a quick example. Last year I connected with a Hungarian developer, a friend of mine who runs a dev shop, tremendously talented. I connected him to a friend of mine here in New York, and when El Salvador was adopting Bitcoin and they needed a new Bitcoin wallet, my friend actually won that job and went to El Salvador and with his team built the Bitcoin wallet.

Denzil Mohammed: You talk about the diversity of your teams. They’re located all over the place, your brothers are on the other side of the world and you now have a Hungarian office. Not all Americans will agree that a diversity of thought is a good thing.

Aki Balogh: Yeah. You know, I’m not sure all Hungarians would agree that unfortunately, given the immigration and the attitudes toward LGBT the government’s showcase right now. I’m not sure that a major and the majority of people don’t even have to agree, but it’s still the right thing to do. You know, it’s the right thing to do to have different you know, people, different backgrounds, races, ethnicities, genders, you know, whatever you know, and diversity of thought, you know, it really encompasses like, not just racial diversity, although that is an important part of it. Especially as the company grows, we end up, you know, in the beginning, we’re just looking for specific technical talent. Especially in the crypto landscape, you don’t even know somebody’s name, they’re just anonymous, have an anonymous identifier, and you can work with them and they can even get funded that way, which is pretty cool. But the diversity of thought does show through. And in order to build a company, we need people with analytical dev skills like me, or you know, marketing skills, the ability to explain things to a large group of people, the ability to visualize things like a designer and describe it in, you know, a visually simple way. I mean, there are people who kind of love breaking new ground. There are people who love kind of organizing existing operations and making sure things are running smoothly and not falling through the cracks. So it really does take a large group of people. And that’s one thing I love about startups, that literally the only way it will work, is if, you know, if everybody is represented. There was one story of a company I don’t know, 10 plus years ago that only wanted to hire Princeton graduates. And it did not work out super well because, you know, just because someone went to a particular school, that’s not the best way to, you know, look at it. It was not a diverse group in, in many ways too correlated or they were prone to group think. And, you know, the only way to create a high performing team is to have different views, have openness, have radical kind of transparency, radical candor, and allow people to express their views and explore things and you know, make their viewpoint known and respected. And a hundred percent, you know, where what we are looking to do

Denzil Mohammed: That was very, very well said. Thank you for that, Aki. Thank you so much for joining us in this podcast Aki, and thank you for all the jobs that you’ve created over the years, all the technology that you’ve created, and your commitment to entrepreneurship across continents. Thank you for all that.

Aki Balogh: Hey, thank you for taking the time to welcome me. Thanks for the listeners. Yeah, I’m just looking to create more so, you know, I hope I can do it more faster over the rest through the rest of my life. Really.

Denzil Mohammed: Aki Balogh immigrant from Hungary co-founded the president of Market Muse and the CEO of DLC.Link. Thank you for joining us on the JobMakers podcast.

Aki Balogh: Thanks for having me.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute. A think tank in Boston and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a non-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for this week’s compelling story of one incredible immigrant entrepreneur. If you know, an outstanding immigrant business owner or innovator we should talk to, please email Denzil, that’s D E N Z I L @ jobmakerspodcast. See you next Thursday for another JobMakers!

Episode 60: Chet Manikantan

JobMakers podcast graphic: Chet Manikantan: innovation machine

India-born Chet Manikantan has co-founded multiple successful start-ups and worked as a partner at two venture capital firms. His highly promising career was almost cut short, however, by an immigration system that didn’t offer foreign-born entrepreneurs many opportunities. Listen to learn how Manikantan managed to stay in the U.S. and why he’s grateful for the chance to give back.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed. Welcome to JobMakers. Freedom and opportunity; these are the two words that most often spring up when I ask immigrants why they chose to move to the United States. And these two words can be interpreted in many ways. The freedom to think however you want to come up with ideas, unencumbered by laws or culture or other norms is something we take for granted, but is truly appreciated by our newest Americans. For Chet Manikantan, immigrant from India and founder of Aegis Studios, which builds crypto-games, that freedom and opportunity to ideate is what drew him here. Founder for a string of companies and a partner at two venture firms, Chet is an innovation machine, but he was almost denied the opportunity to innovate and create jobs in the U.S. by our outdated immigration system. If not for a chance encounter that led him to a fledgling initiative that offered a workaround for select foreign-born entrepreneurs, the talent Chet possesses could have benefited another country. And while we are strictly lucky to have him here, he’s also keenly aware and grateful that this country gave him what he needed to succeed, as you learn in this week’s JobMakers podcast. Chet Manikantan, founder and CEO of Aegis Studios, which builds crypto games, you’re an immigrant from India. Welcome to the JobMakers podcast. How are you? 

Chet Manikantan: Hey, Denzil. I’m doing great. Thanks for having me today.

Denzil Mohammed: So you’re a serial entrepreneur spanning two continents including your country of origin, India and your adopted homeland, the United States. So without getting to specifics, but what sort of the common thread among all the companies that you’ve helped to found, what connects them all since you are doing such different things?

Chet Manikantan: Technology at the core of it, primarily because I’m a software engineer and I’ve found technology is something that democratizes things. It scales pretty quickly, and it is easily adopted by people. It simplifies things sort of abstract, complicated human society problems into simplified solutions in the form of a user experience on a phone or a computer screen. So pretty much everything I’ve done has some level of technology involved. Maybe different industries, different kind of problem sets, but the core of it’s always been technology and innovation, if that makes sense.

Denzil Mohammed: Now your journey to the U.S. is unlike probably everyone I’ve interviewed on this podcast. Most of them came here seeking an education, but you came here on a business visa, right?

Chet Manikantan: Yeah. So it’s a long story. So which really kind of, I had visited the United States before when I was working at Microsoft, a research back in India, for some of the Microsoft events and to visit their offices in the United States prior to moving to the U.S. officially. What really changed was one of my earliest startups back in India was Guruji, it’s an education technology platform. We were selected to be part of an accelerator that was called unreasonable and to see, it selected 10 companies from around the world to be on a board to go to about 14 countries over a hundred days. We met all kinds of fantastic people, such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Megan Smith, who was the former CTO for America, WordPress founder, Richard Branson almost made it, but it was a fantastic experience. The culmination of all that was at Washington D.C. So we presented at the United States state department in D.C. And that experience was kind of what shifted my thinking because I, for the most part, had decided to stay in my home country, build businesses and make an impact, but what I really recognized was that the sheer innovation, the sheer willingness of the community to support ideas from regardless of where you’re coming from and the ecosystem is set up for innovation and entrepreneurship in the United States, like no other place in the, in the world. And that experience started to have an influence over my perception of what I wanted to do next. And when I went back home, I took about six months to think about the potential ways I wanted to move forward with my career. One of them was to say, “Okay, maybe it’s time for me to consider moving to the United States.” It’s sort of like an example that I use that, you know, you can’t grow grapes in New England, it’s, that doesn’t really work very well. The climate has to be the right place for it to be good. Napa Valley is where we get some of the finest wines like California wines. So for an entrepreneur, for a startup, you need to be in an ecosystem that is well set up for that. United States has been a center for innovation, entrepreneurship for hundreds of years for a reason and I recognized it during my trip. So I sold everything I had, whatever I had earned back in India, just told my family that I’m going to go and see what happened. So I just used my business visa to jump on a plane and landed in the U.S. In fact, I first landed in San Francisco, which is the backup startup and that’s the story. And it’s very different, like you said, unorthodox compared to most people. 

Denzil Mohammed: And as a result, I mean, you came here by yourself, you didn’t come here with family. You didn’t come here to start school and, and build friendships. So you started out sort of with a really blank slate. And I imagine that made it a lot more difficult for you to get a solid footing here. I read that you used tools like Meetup and Eventbrite to network and establish a name for yourself. What was that experience like? I mean, networking in and of itself is a sort of uniquely American thing in certain regards, right?

Chet Manikantan: End of the day when you start something, whether your life or startup or anything anywhere, a job, you have to start from the scratch. So for me, coming into the U.S. I realized that the first thing I need to have is a support system of like-minded people and people that are willing to listen to what I have to offer. So obviously a lot of tools, technology comes back to sort of helping people like me, Google Maps obviously to navigate, Meetups and Eventbrites where you can find free events where other people are present with some sort of a theme that you think is going to be useful to you and vice versa. So it became an easy way to get started, but I also used some of my connections or my old acquaintances I’d made during my trip to the U.S. the prior year to sort of get some ideas of where I should go and what I should do. And people said, go to Meetup and go to these events. So that’s how it started and frankly, when I first came to San Francisco my expectations were very high. I was very quickly made to realize that it’s harder than I’d imagined. Having said that, there were fantastic people that I met along the way. I was able to, I was staying in a host for a week trying to find accommodations to figuring out what I’m gonna do. And I met this German researcher at MIT media lab, who was visiting San Francisco for his PhD interview at Stanford. And he really liked what I was looking to build and so he invited me up to Boston saying, you can crash on my couch and, you know, see if it makes sense for you to be in Boston for a week or so. So in the middle of Snowmageddon 2015 in Boston, I took a flight to Boston because it was so cold and snow everywhere, people kept meeting indoors and there were a lot of events that was going on and Boston’s a perfect, like everything’s so small that you can get anywhere to anywhere. So in that 10 days, I met everyone including people at the MIT media lab, various entrepreneurs at the Cambridge Innovation Center. It really sort of changed my view of where and how I wanted to go build my next startup. So I ended up in Boston, so I never went back to San Francisco,

Denzil Mohammed: How fortuitous and how lucky you are that you met a fellow immigrant, but from Germany who is in Boston and it made it happen. And I like that reality check. You know, we, a lot of people outside of the U.S. do believe that the money grows on trees and that the streets are paved with gold. They should come to Boston and see our streets they’re really, really bad. So around that time that you came to the U.S. an innovative initiative was launched by several people in Boston, including someone I interviewed on this podcast last year, attorney Jeff Goldman. Describe this global entrepreneur in residence program. And what was being part of, what did that entail for you?

Chet ManikantanI did not know about it. I think it was, like I said, fortuitous for me to have met somebody who invited me up to Boston. Had I stayed back in California, I would’ve had to find other means to stay there. So being in Boston helped me make connections. I was able to speak to some investors for my startup at the time. And I kept hitting a wall where everybody said that I love what you’re doing, I wanna support it, I cannot invest in a company where I don’t know if you’re going to be able to remain in the country. So at a Meetup, which I think was organized by this organization called forward.us or fwdr.us, which is sort of an advocacy group trying to help immigrants in the U.S., the person there told me about the GIR program. And so the next thing I did, I hopped on the red line and I went straight to UMass. I had no appointment, no meeting, I just showed up to the center and I said, “Hey, so I want to talk to the person in concern and I wanna see if I can be qualified for this.” 

Denzil Mohammed: The audacity of immigrants like you. 

Chet Manikantan: Yeah, I you know, it was sort of, I guess, you know, what else, what am I, what else am I gonna do? There is an opening, right at the end of the whole knocking on 20 doors, I finally find there’s a door that might open, so I wanted to take every chance I could get. And that door was the GIR program, which I found out when I met the person there that it’s only for immigrant students from universities in the U.S. At least that’s the way it was framed. So I was a little disheartened because I was like, I didn’t go to school in the U.S. and maybe I’m not gonna be qualified for this. So what I did is I went back home, I thought about it, I wrote a long email to the director of the program, Bill Broad at the time, and sort of explained to him what I’m building and what it is that I’ve accomplished before coming to the U.S and that I qualify for the program. And I would like him to consider my application. So I think I was a 32nd or 33rd person but probably the only non-student GIR that was accepted into the program at the time. And I didn’t take it lightly, obviously that was a great opportunity, the university provided me a type of a concurrent visa program that allowed me to build my startup while contributing to the university ecosystem. And yeah, it took me a few months, but I finally was able to, you know, stay in the country and build my startup. 

Denzil Mohammed: Again, what luck. And just to be clear, that program is, it came into existence as a way to allow entrepreneurial foreign-born university students to remain in the country and start businesses without having to go through the typical work visa lottery system, which is, you know, it’s not a great system. It doesn’t there aren’t enough of those visas and it’s tough to get those visas. As you say, you kept hitting a wall. And that uncertainty of not knowing whether you stay or not. And I mean, I’ve been there, it’s not a great feeling to want to build a life, but having this great uncertainty. So you were able to start a company, one of several, perhaps describe to us one or two of your favorite companies. 

Chet Manikantan: Well my favorite company was the first one was really Guruji, which is an educational technology company that we, I helped co-found back in India. It was primarily focused on teachers and the impact that it creates is having better teachers means you’re better student outcomes. And it’s something that gets largely ignored in the discourse around improving quality of education. And especially in countries like India and Mexico and South of Africa, and other parts where the resources are so limited that the teachers are usually just the most ignored section of the our component of the education system. So we built this platform, which is an educational technology platform, which is like a gamified platform, which adapts to the teaching style of the teacher, sort of acts as a mentor for novice teachers and a sort of an assistant for expert teachers. But it’s really focused entirely on providing lesson plans and guidance for teachers to be able to make sure that they’re able to teach the topics to their children effectively. And one of the best outcomes, my favorite moments was when we first piloted it at a tiger reserve protection area in India, where there is a national tiger reserve that is created by the government of India to protect wildlife. And one of the ways it has accomplished is to make sure that the tribal communities remain in the wildlife, because for them, they care about their biodiversity. If the sanitation, health care and education is not good, they typically migrate to the big cities, but you want them to stay there, but you wanna provide them better schooling and better outcomes. So we piloted it at a tiger reserve first, and the kids there outperformed some of the best school kids in the city. So that was my favorite moment. And we finally sold the company, part of the company to one of the Indian government arms to become the national teacher platform. So it’s definitely been my favorite. The next favorite is the one that I’m working on right now is sort of gamifying that process of same sort of taking some of those artifacts of gamification and applying it to the new age financial literacy that people are struggling with, especially when it comes to introduction of new assets, like digital assets, like cryptocurrencies and NFTs. A lot of people don’t know what they’re doing, they make a lot of mistakes, they learn from the bad actors. So we are building a platform that gamifies the process and helps people become better traders and better educated financially to, to take control of their own finances. So, yeah, those are my two at this point.

Denzil MohammedSo all of this goes to show you, you’ve talked about the connections between the United States and other countries and the kind of brain gain that we receive through this foreign talent. So it all goes to show this outsized impact immigrants are having in U.S. innovation yet without that global entrepreneur residence program, it is unlikely an innovative and entrepreneur job creator like you would’ve been able to stay in this country. And it is not an uncommon story of job creators from foreign countries, unable to stay here because there’s not a visa for them, there’s not a visa for entrepreneurs. How can the United States fix this?

Chet Manikantan: So the GIR program, while it helped me and I think there is a lot to be said about how good it has been for many founders, it is an imperfect solution. It is specific to a particular state, it is specific to a particular university system. It also has a high barrier to entry for many immigrant founders. I think that an entrepreneurial visa could do fantastic. Right now I’m in a space which is highly innovative, very global in nature just because of the fact that it’s a technology that doesn’t require any kind of credentials. So I’m constantly frustrated myself, but I’m seeing that the talent is currently now going out of the U.S. because the current immigration is very hard for people whether to find jobs or to start companies. We’re seeing capital flight, we’re seeing an innovation flight, we are seeing, you know, a lot of the things that attracted me to the United States. Some of them are not entirely being protected in the manner that it should be. We’re seeing many, many companies that are billion dollars worth currently domiciled and foreign shores, hiring people from different places. And all of that, all those jobs can be created here in the U.S. all that capital can be brought to the United States. There’s tax revenues, there is so much of, what do you call it, if you do have investments, then, you know, you have office spaces, people then rent places. So much economic activity can be created out of it. And I’m very surprised that a lot of the policymakers are not able to recognize this. And I think there’s a great frustration amongst the technology innovators as well as founders. And frankly, a lot of people that I speak to on a regular basis are unhappy with the current sort of disposition. So an entrepreneur visa would be fantastic, perhaps an immigration reform would be perfect. But, you know, we can keep advocating and I think the work that you do is definitely helping change that narrative.

Denzil Mohammed: Ultimately that’s a hope. But yes, those frustrations are not restricted to any particular place across the country. People from all over the world who have things to offer and yet there’s nothing in place for them to be able to remain here. And we are shooting ourselves in the foot, especially for those students who go through our university system and gain more skills and knowledge. We want to keep that here, right? So you chose the United States and this country allowed you to flourish as an immigrant entrepreneur, apart from the fact that you did this by yourself, which I cannot emphasize enough. You didn’t have a social safety net, you didn’t have family here, you didn’t have, you know, your friend’s car to borrow to take you to this place or that, you did this all on your own. How do you feel about the United States as a place that allowed you to flourish as an entrepreneur? 

Chet Manikantan: Oh, I love it. I mean, every aspect of it, right. I think the core of which I think is current, there’s a current discourse around this topic which is kind of controversial so I’ll try to stay within the lines of what is potentially more tolerable or acceptable for a lot of people, but really the fact that there are two sort of natural rights that most of us have as humans, it’s before human laws. The natural law is that being able to express yourself is something that is very human. That is very much unique to the mankind, right? And also of course, regardless of the species, being able to protect yourself, your like the right to self defense, like those are some of the things that are natural laws. Unlike many other countries and throughout history, those things have always been somehow infringed upon by certain kind of manmade laws which is typically saying you cannot take censorship, or you cannot say certain things, you cannot do certain things, you have to conform. In the United States when the founding fathers created the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and everything, the first amendment or the freedom of speech is a right that cannot be changed by anybody, which is an absolute amazing thing which is what creates opportunities for ingenuity. People can think people can have ideas. People can present it to people. Some of them are terrible ideas, a lot of fantastic ideas come out of them. And those have resulted in the kind of economic powerhouse, the innovation powerhouse that America has been and many countries try to emulate that by creating sort of these economic free zones or certain kinds of incentives provided for entrepreneurs. But why is innovation still coming out of the United States? It’s because people are able to think and people are allowed to express themselves. It’s the idea that matters and ideas spread and not being subject to any kind of social, cultural or legal restrictions is why people come to the U.S. I don’t know if that makes sense. 

Denzil Mohammed: It makes tremendous sense. We’re a nation of immigrants in a nation of ideas. And I just love how you brought it all the way back to the Constitution and the founding fathers and what this country was built on. Chet Manikantan, thank you so much for joining us on the JobMakers podcast. It was a real pleasure talking to you. 

Chet Manikantan: Thank you so much, Denzil, I appreciate you having me on this podcast.

Denzil MohammedJobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for this week’s fascinating journey into one outstanding immigrant story. If you know another outstanding immigrant business owner we should talk to, email Denzil, that’s D E N Z I L at jobmakerspodcast.org. I’m Denzil Mohammed, see you next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 59: Pedro Zamora

JobMakers podcast graphic: Pedro Zamora on immigrant entrepreneurs in Kansas City

Pedro Zamora has blazed a trail in Kansas City through his work helping immigrant entrepreneurs create thriving businesses that have revitalized the city. As an entrepreneur himself, he understands how localities can capitalize on the hidden strengths of foreign-born business owners. Listen to learn how he’s helped more than 4,700 businesses through the Hispanic Economic Development Corporation.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and welcome to JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: I have some really special memories of Kansas City, Missouri. There, I had the warmest, sweetest churros, the most incredible barbecue, of course, and even gourmet handmade chocolates from a Swiss confectionery topped off by what? Watching a beautiful Chinese dragon boat festival. In 2000, immigrants made about four and a half percent of the Kansas City metro area population. By 2019 that had grown to seven percent. And, importantly, the area’s immigrants had $3.5 billion dollars in spending power. More than 80 percent of them were in their prime working age. And there were more than 11,000 immigrant business owners. For Pedro Zamora, executive director of the Hispanic Economic Development Corporation of Greater Kansas City, these immigrant entrepreneurs are increasingly crucial to the economic vitality of the area. Not only are they powerful economic drivers and job creators, the wealth of cuisines, cultures and art make the area vibrant, exciting, and flourishing. Pedro and his organization work to develop and implement economic development initiatives that contribute to the quality of life for Latinos in the greater Kansas City area. And to date they’ve helped more than 4,700 businesses. Immigrants there are having an outsized economic and cultural impact. And so Kansas City is yet another example of how localities can bounce back and benefit from immigrants and refugees, as you learn in this week’s JobMakers podcast.

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Denzil Mohammed: Pedro Zamora, executive director of the Hispanic Economic Development Corporation of Kansas City, Missouri. Welcome to the JobMakers podcast. How are you?

Pedro Zamora: I’m doing well this morning, Denzil. Thank you for the invitation.

Denzil Mohammed: So tell us a little bit about the Hispanic Economic Development Corporation and the kind of work that you do and the people that you serve.

Pedro Zamora: HEDC, the Hispanic Economic Development Corporation, was founded in 1993 for the sole purpose as a pass-through entity to receive $30 million of EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, dollars to clean up a brownfield site, a 26 acre brownfield site in the heart of the Latino community here in Kansas City, Missouri. There were several nonprofit organizations that were doing social work and education and health, but no one was addressing the environmental contamination that was right in the heart of our neighborhood. As a child I used to play in that area and throw rocks and break windows and things like that. Little did I know what the toxicity ground we were walking on. Then Mayor Manuel Cleaver was a great friend of the Latino community, he pulled together some grassroot leaders and formed HEDC to give us ownership and the right to organize, to get the community and the business industries to come to the table to talk about what should we do at this location? It was an abandoned railroad maintenance yard. And today it’s home to a high-tech warehouse that employs roughly 600 employees from across the city. About 375 of those employees come from our neighborhood still today.

Denzil Mohammed: Wow, that’s terrific. And so bring us up to today, the work that you do now, and the kind of impact that you had.

Pedro Zamora: The Latino population in Kansas City began in the west side and it’s grown into all 17 counties. We see a 33 percent increase in the past census that was completed, a 33 percent increase in a 10 year cycle of Latinos migrating into our greater Kansas City metropolitan area. HEDC’s responsibility is definitely focused in entrepreneurship development. We couldn’t do just entrepreneurship development unless we took a snapshot of that individual and got them comfortable with where the world’s going today, online. Today, we focus on our digital literacy, integrated financial and business training. Our clients don’t come in for one siloed initiative activity. It’s integrated. And through our modularly designed program where we take the client through a very interesting wake-up call of assessing themselves in the first 12 hours of our program. They come into a 40 hour program, they’re gonna take 12 hours to think about who they really are. They’ll turn on the computer. They’re gonna be responsible for capturing their own story and then build out their strategy of where they want to go and who they want to bring with them are. Through this model of helping the individual reestablish trust in themselves, trust with our organizations, we find a common theme amongst all our clients. And then we create these small cohorts so these cohorts can now trust one another and stay together and become part of the community and create their own community in their community. So if you can see, we’re just trying to put people together to help them support one another and support other folks within the community to elevate them. We don’t market. All our services are done word of mouth. And we’re pretty busy.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s not uncommon because The Immigrant Learning Center has a free English language program. We’ve never had to advertise.

Pedro Zamora: Yeah, that’s fantastic.

Denzil Mohammed: And we always have a waiting list of several hundred, sometimes over a thousand. So immigrants, and, again, counter to the prevailing narrative of not wanting to learn English, not wanting to integrate, immigrants are signing up.

Pedro Zamora: Well, the interesting part about our focus is we do not want to be known as an English learning facility because our clients don’t have the time to learn and to master the English language because they’re trying to survive as they’re building and scaling their business they’re surviving as well as their employees. So we just don’t touch the business owner. We touch the employees of the business owner. We have relationships that tell them, bring us in before your restaurant opens up. We’ll give you a two hour training on financials, digital literacy, communications to the school systems so the workers are talking to the schools and learning about the students, looking at the reports. So it’s pretty in depth. The importance in taking 100 words in business. finance, marketing concepts and building off those 100 words in these categories has proven and has now taken our clients to well over 2000 words in each one of those categories. So their conversation learning is definitely built beyond that.

Denzil Mohammed: Therefore describe to me the entrepreneurial ecosystem in areas that you serve. Who are the job makers? What kind of businesses do they have? What are they like? Where do they come from?

Pedro Zamora: Well, the high number of job makers are always those fantastic restaurants that we get to frequent from time to time. And those restaurants are no longer the Tex-Mex style. You’re seeing everything from seafood to really unique dishes. We have a lot of local, I call them food artists that are coming in, delivering fantastic cuisines. That was pre-pandemic. During the pandemic, they had to rethink themselves. Restaurants got closed. Keep in mind, the first round of assistance from the federal government did not include non-U.S. nationals. They weren’t a part of that help assistance. So they had to rethink themselves. So pop-up restaurants and pop-up markets have popped up in our communities across the city in Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas. And it’s a different menu, but the street tacos are still prominent there. The second largest industry we see that we support both with our financial business development training, and as well as our loan portfolio that we lend to through our CDFI fund, we’ve seen a lot of landscaping, yard maintenance companies come to fruition. And then, of course, the third one that’s high in numbers and high employer is our construction field. Our job is to try to move them out of those three high industries and to try to get them into coding or other forms of business work. We are accomplishing this through our integrated digital literacy courses that we teach. We have three courses certified by the U.S. Department of Labor, as well as our University of Missouri school system, postsecondary educational system. These are career stackable credentials, and they go into financial processing, entrepreneurship, financial management, risk management, learning all the Microsoft Excel tools. And then we have a third one that is for networking, becoming a network using these modern skill sets that will help the first generation or a second generation, a family that has a second generation within their business model to think of the new industries that they would like to expand in. Now that they’re comfortable with their operating capital, they should be thinking of a secondary market to spread out their risk in earned incomes. What we saw during the pandemic is if you have mom and dad and the children all working in the restaurant, it was very painful during the pandemic. What we did in 2020 was take 77 small businesses that were in the restaurant industries that we knew were not getting support from the federal government and our local relief assistance programs. And they spun up, they had to go back. As I mentioned, we’d like to see them move into the technology sector. We took them back into the construction market. Now they, the men were now back in the construction field, the women were waiting to see if the restaurants were gonna be able to reinvent themselves and do to-go orders as the regulations opened up. Now, we’re having these families, these business owners think of how they can balance their risk of where they’re gonna earn their income. The conversation doesn’t stop there. They’re still looking at the technology.

Denzil Mohammed: What are some of the success stories that you can tell us about, some of your favorite businesses perhaps, or some of the businesses that really grew into the ways that you wanted them to?

Pedro Zamora: I would say those 77 families were a great success, but they’re not just businesses. The individuals are ones that we really are making an impact with. And one great success: I can use his first name, Josh. He was 82 when he started working with us, could not read or write in his native language, Spanish, had lived in, had worked in the agricultural field, picking fruits and vegetables his whole life while he was in the United States, and never learned to read or write in English or Spanish. We were introduced to him during our research development phase of our digital literacy program through a parents / teachers program. He had no children, but he was the only living survivor of his niece and nephew that his [inaudible] parents got killed in an auto accident here in Kansas City. And Joshua became the parent to raise these kids. He had to learn real fast, how to extend his skill sets and communication. Using technology we were able to teach him how to read and write in English and in Spanish. Joshua today, he’s probably 85, 86. The kids are doing great in high school today. But he’s dealing with dementia, early-stage dementia, but using technology, he keeps his mind refreshed. And that to me is to take an individual who has sacrificed so much in his life to work and grow his assets, his net worth, but then also to be put in a position where of the unknown, raising kids. It’s an amazing story in how he has been able to communicate better with his doctors, better with extended family members and his community. He’s been a leader. We call him one of our lits, Latino and technology. He’s one of our leaders. He gives a great speech, very articulate individual.

Denzil Mohammed: So a lot of what you’re talking about taps into the American dream, this concept you state explicitly that your organization is an institution that significantly contributes to enabling the Latino community to realize its full participation in the American dream. How alive is the American Dream among the people you serve?

Pedro Zamora: A great question. It is amazing observing how we go about measuring that. Economically there’s not one individual that we run across that’s either documented or undocumented that do not want to show that they’re paying their fair share. And we help them achieve that with our online bookkeeping platform, as well as the financial risk management courses. Not all businesses are perfect. It was tough during the pandemic and it was even more important to see how their financials were in order. For our community, the Latino community, the immigrant community, they trust very few people, but they trust their churches, their families, and they trust the first kid that may go get Financing 101 done at college or high school [laugh] and they become the financial leader. What we saw, the American Dream is alive and working, but if they really want to participate, we gotta get their financials and their tax consequences in order too, and I honestly will sit here and tell you that 100 percent of every person that we talk about in the financial business as an entrepreneur in the Latino community, want to fully pay their way. They’re not here to cheat the system. They’re not depending on the system, they can’t get access to the system. So the American Dream to them? Have a good tax return submitted [laugh]. So those are words that I can’t pull out in my head. We had a pop up this past Saturday, 35 small businesses. The temperature was well in its 90s. The humidity is high, but these folks were having a fantastic time, and getting a chance to meet some of them for the first time and visit with them. They showed their ledgers that they were keeping on their phones and whether they were using an online fintech product or not, they were keeping sure, they wanted to make sure they were tracking their expenses and their earnings for that day.

Denzil Mohammed: You raised a really important point there that undocumented immigrants really want to be, to pay their fair share, to be on the straight narrow. I remember experiencing that heat of humidity in June, in Kansas City was not pleasant. But I also was there when they had this beautiful Chinese dragon festival one day, I think it was a Saturday in Kansas City. Can you talk about the broader demographics of Kansas City? You mentioned the change in just 10 years in the Latino population. And how are the different groups getting along? It’s pretty diverse, right?

Pedro Zamora: It’s very diverse. We have one sector of our community, which is the Northeast not far from my office here, Northeast. It’s called the Northeast neighborhood. Independence Avenue has roughly 69 different countries represented on that corridor. It’s about a three-mile corridor. And that’s where the immigrants settle. That’s where they start their businesses. They go to these vacant storefronts and they pull their money together and they begin their journey of contributing. And they’re settled by other nationalities from their country and who take these old homes and they start refurbishing these old homes. What happens then is that they get along together. But what happens? Other high investors want to come into those communities because they see the economic boom that’s taking place there and it’s eclectic. It becomes desirable and they start using their high level dollars and powerful lawyers to come in and work with our city to be, to talk about building other forms of development projects in those communities. So it’s a challenge, it’s a double edged sword. So it’s not the immigrants that don’t get along. It’s the system that once we do good, once we stabilize the community and we uplift a community, then it’s that gentrification steam shovel that comes rolling over right behind us, very close. It’s happening faster and faster with us today.

Denzil Mohammed: One thing that Americans take for granted is the tremendous variety of cuisines and cultures that we have access to. We really take for granted that we can have Thai food tonight and Mexican food tomorrow and Ethiopian food the following day. The most popular fast food chain here is Taco Bell for crying out loud. Can you speak a little bit to the value of all these? You mentioned all the different kinds of cuisines that we’ve had. I remember having the best churros of my life in Kansas City and then having Peruvian food from somewhere else. What is the value of that kind of diversity to the United States?

Pedro Zamora: See, it’s an amazing journey to come down Independence Avenue or Southwest Boulevard or Minnesota Avenue today, and Central Avenue. These corridors are known for their diverse cuisines and you can go from Tex-Mex all the way to rich seafood dishes out of Mexico and other Latin American countries. We don’t have any national franchise chains like the wonderful Taco Bell you mentioned. And we have to go out of our community to go there, which is a blessing. It’s a blessing to have everything from A to Z in the cuisine space in these communities we’re talking about. It’s important because life journey experiences are pretty exciting when you don’t have to leave. You know, you can go five miles and you’re hitting all these very elegant dining experiences. And that’s important because we all are struggling in from the different ethnic groups that we are settling in, but we have one common theme: family and creating community. And if we can maintain that cultural arts and demonstrate the economic impacts that we bring with that I think folks really find it a journey when they come visit our communities.

Denzil Mohammed: Your role in immigration story goes back, really far back. Would you mind just sort of sharing your immigration story?

Pedro Zamora: Yeah, I’m a son of an immigrant family. My dad was born in Mexico and brought into the United States, even though my grandmother had already been living in the United States since the late 1800s and early 1900s. My grandmother arrived in the late 1890s into Kansas City. She settled here. There was unrest in Mexico and she was, my grandfather and her were just victims of being the landowners that were, they had to do something. And they came to Kansas City because of the railroad. On my dad’s side, my ancestors are all railroaders on the men’s side. My mom is a third generation Nebraskan Latina, who was in a migrant family. So there’s three generations of migrant workers that finally obtained success and bought farmland in Nebraska. And that’s how my grandfather raised 21 children in Nebraska on my mom’s side. So I’m a sibling of 17. I’m one of 17 in my family with my parents.

Denzil Mohammed: And it’s what makes this country special. It really is. And the fact that we all have these common threads despite incredibly diverse backgrounds. Thanks for sharing about the diversity of Kansas City and even your own immigrant story. We all have these immigrant stories, whether they’re short or long. Pedro Zamora, executive director of the Hispanic Economic Development Corporation in Kansas City, Missouri, thank you so much for joining us on JobMakers.

Pedro Zamora: Denzil, thank you for the invitation. It was my pleasure.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for this week’s story on how immigrants are building up Kansas City. Remember you can subscribe to JobMakers on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And please leave us a review. I’m Denzil Mohammed. See you next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 58: Mei Xu

JobMakers podcast graphic: Mei Xu on the slow burn to success

Chinese American entrepreneur Mei Xu’s career began with struggle, bad timing and failure. With determination and hard work, Xu turned her fortunes around and built Chesapeake Bay Candle, a company she ultimately sold for $75 million. Tune in to learn how Xu now dedicates her time to supporting women entrepreneurs around the world. You can learn more about Xu from her profile in The ILC’s Immigrant Entrepreneur Hall of Fame.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed. Welcome to JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: I was once given some interesting career advice. Create your own job, bit of a daunting task if you ask me. Yet for millions of immigrants to the U.S., that’s exactly what they do. They become entrepreneurs. For Mei Xu, immigrant from China and founder of Chesapeake Bay Candle, which was acquired by Yankee Candle parent company, Newell Brands, for $75 million, dashed dreams and miserable timing forced her to create opportunities for herself. She describes this journey to entrepreneurship and what it takes to be successful. Today, she seeks to empower women business owners around the world so that they too can expand economies and horizons with a little guidance. As she says in her new book, Burn: How Grit, Innovation, and a Dash of Luck Ignited a Multimillion Dollar Success Story. She’s come to convince you that the American Dream remains vital and accessible to all of us, as you’ll discover in this week’s JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Mei Xu, founder of Chesapeake Bay Candle, and YesSheMay and author of Burn: How Grit, Innovation, and a Dash of Luck Ignited a Multimillion Dollar Success Story, welcome to the JobMakers podcast. How are you?

Mei Xu: Very good. And thank you for inviting me, Denzil.

Denzil Mohammed: We’re honored to have you. So tell us who is Mei and what does your company stand for?

Mei Xu: Mei is someone that’s passionate about creating a little bit better things that we use on a daily basis, while doing so providing a better experience to consumers. That’s what I did with my first company, Chesapeake Bay Candle, and what I’m trying to do is building on that. I also want to be able to help other women entrepreneurs.

Denzil Mohammed: Could you just sort of give us, paint us a picture of what life was like back in China when you were growing up?

Mei Xu: I actually moved here after Tiananmen Square, after 1989. I moved January of 1991, when I was growing up. I was born in 1967 so you can see how old I am. It was an era when China was completely blocked off from the rest of the world. It was very singular. The race of the country is all Han mostly. There are 50 other minorities. But you listen to the way that people talk. You look at the way they dress. You look at everyone’s salary, it’s all transparent. You see exactly how much everybody’s making. Everybody’s living exactly the same style. Buildings, you used shared bathrooms and kitchens. So it’s a very interesting time when there’s not a lot of desires, but there’s also not a lot of comparisons because everyone gets exactly the same. Remember, it is socialism after all.

Denzil Mohammed: Very interesting. It’s a life that I can’t even begin to imagine what that was like, shared bathrooms and kitchens.

Mei Xu: You know, I grew up … in my book I mentioned I grew up until age eight sharing a room with my mom and dad and my sister, one room and my sister and I squeeze into a little bed. And my mom and dad is on the other bed. And then we don’t even have much furniture. So there is a table for food. And that also serves as our desk. And we have one cabinet for clothing because we don’t have that much clothing and one trunk. That’s about everything I can remember.

Denzil Mohammed: So when China opened up after President Nixon’s visit in 1972, you’ve said the government needed diplomats to all these countries that were suddenly going to do business with. Mei, you were one of those selected for the very first batch and you enrolled in a boarding school where you were taught English and learned all about American culture and ideology. That must have opened up a whole new world for you to learn about other cultures like that. Especially since growing up, it was so insular and parochial.

Mei Xu: Isolated.

Denzil Mohammed: Exactly.

Mei Xu: Exactly.

Denzil Mohammed: So, therefore, what prompted you to start Chesapeake Bay Candle? It seems like a whole other world compared to diplomacy.

Mei Xu: So I met a very interesting sociology professor who was teaching at that time in Beijing, but a visiting scholar from Dartmouth College. And she recommended me to work for her husband who is in charge of one of the offices affiliated with the World Bank mission in Beijing. So that’s when I started to work part-time for the Bank as a translator in the beginning, but later on taking on more coordination roles. And I loved it and I wanna work for the bank after I graduate. But I graduated in 1989. If everybody remember, the world witnessed in the summer of 1989 the brutal incident on the Square. What the world didn’t know is that those of us who graduated that year got the worst bargain, because we were all sent away from Beijing or Shanghai, so that students won’t gather immediately again. And I was assigned to look after a warehouse of minerals for export to other countries, and it would not allow me to practice any foreign language, let alone diplomacy. So I resigned, which in 1989 was unheard of, particularly with such a training and such a prospect of being a diplomat in the future. But I resigned because I just feel miserable and I felt I’m going to lose my 10 years of learning. And I always wanted to advance my degree anyway and the United States is always my numbered one choice because I was majoring in American Studies. That’s how I ended up in Maryland. University of Maryland saw me in the beginning of 1991 because I want to learn mass communication and journalism so that I can go back to help the World Bank missions, where they work with the local community and the government to achieve their goals. But again, I graduated with unfortunate events. In 1992, when our country, the United States, was fighting Iraq, and because U.S. is the biggest donor for the World Bank, they did not have enough money to make their pledge. So I instead took myself to New York City, very exciting, but the job was not very exciting. And it, the salary, is even worse, $19,000 to be an assistant export manager, helping a company export medical equipment to China. That’s when, although I wasn’t happy with my job, I was put next to an amazing place called Bloomingdale’s. And Bloomingdale’s to me is like paradise. Imagine I grow up without much of a material indulgence. So Bloomingdale to me is like a fairy land. You look at the perfumes and the fashion, and I loved the fashion at that time because it already had a very strong point of view. I don’t know if you remember, the shoulder pads were very in for the nineties. But then as I went up the floors on Bloomingdale’s escalator, I recognized that more floors I went up the more ordinary and mundane and unattractive the merchandise become until I went to the top floor. And it’s the worst, that’s the home product floor. And it’s just like you entered what in the movies would be some old, very antique home. So I just asked myself, I said, if someone was wearing this powerful Donna Karan power suit, why would she wanna go back to such a dark and old fashioned home? So I talked to my then husband, David, who’s working in D.C. and I was in New York during the week, so I was commuting, every night on the phone. And we also have a lot of friends in China at that time who’s now dealing in foreign trade. So one day he just said, “Mei, you’re so unhappy. I’m very unhappy that you’re not here with me. Why don’t you just quit? And I will quit too. We’ll just start a business. And we’ll maybe do something with home products because you seem to have a lot to say about what you don’t see and why is that the case.” So that’s how we started because we don’t find any opportunities for ourselves. So we created opportunities. And that’s what I think going back to your immigrant story is probably what happened to be the decision. A lot of us made … we’ll just have to risk it all because we don’t have a lot to lose. So as China become the factory of the world, what they really need is also a lot of people that can be in foreign trade. So that’s what happened. A lot of my friends end up being foreign trade for the country as a lot of those initial foreign trade organizations are government owned. And I asked them for help. I said, “Do you guys have any home-related products?” So they sent me a lot of product. We resigned, both in 1994, and I moved back from New York to Maryland. And we went back to China and we took with us a ton of samples ranging from silk flowers, those fake trees and fake flowers so that people don’t have to water them, to cushions for your car seats, to musical dolls and decorative fence on the, with the Chinese calligraphy, to some very unassuming candles. They’re shaped like a ball and they have patterns like stain glass, stainless steel, a stain glass. So we didn’t know what to do with it. We just brought everything with us to a trade show. And until today, I still tell everyone who come to me and say, “How can I validate an idea if I have a great idea for product? How can I validate a service?” I always say, “Stop asking your parents. Stop asking your friends.” They’re not gonna be as helpful as taking it to the market, because the market is very efficient in this country. It will tell you whether they like it or not. So when I came back with all the samples, it was already in September. So I scrambled and I found one trade show is in North Carolina, in Charlotte, North Carolina. It’s a very, very small regional cash and carry, which means it’s so late that people will pay you and you ship them right away so they can make it to the product for holiday. It’s a cash carry trove. We drove all the way there with our borrowed van. And we put all the silk flowers, all the seat cushions, fans, music dolls and the box of candles. And we arrived and set up a 10 by 10 booth, but we don’t really know how to set up. We just put small items in the front, bigger items in the back, and we just wait for orders. And guess how much orders did we get in five days of trade shows? Just take a guess.

Denzil Mohammed: A hundred.

Mei Xu: A hundred orders, yeah. Worth how much? Take another guess. The candles cost about $5 wholesale, the most expensive item, maybe $20 wholesale.

Denzil Mohammed: A thousand dollars.

Mei Xu: Take a wild guess. No. Much more, $52,000. Probably you are right, about 100 orders. I would say probably a little bit more than that. That is 100 small retail stores trusting us to provide them product before Christmas so they can sell them. And that’s not a small change even after our business is much bigger. We went to New York, which is an international trade show, $52,000 for five days. It’s a fantastic number. Not only did we get a lot of good feedback, but we know what we should focus on after that, because most of the orders were placed for the candles. And it was the least expected because it’s so small. And we just don’t know because we are from China. We don’t use candles to enhance the mood or to set a romantic dinner. We just use them when the light went out. And guess how much we sold the first year from September to December?

Denzil Mohammed: Given the 50,000, 100,000 dollars.

Mei Xu: $550,000. So it’s an amazing … even for now I can’t believe how fortunate we are. It just shows to you, if you have observations, if you see a gap, if you see an opportunity and you bring it out at the right moment, with the right pricing, you get rewarded. And that’s how good we got rewarded. First year, people love the candles. As a result, we learned that they buy those candles to give each other a gift. Everybody has 20, 30 people on their list. Ten dollars, it’s not a big gift, but it’s very special. You light it up. It is a topic for conversation.

Denzil Mohammed: You know what I gave my boss for Christmas last year, I sent a candle. I can …

Mei Xu: [Laughs] Okay. Now, you know, right?

Denzil Mohammed: And one thing that really strikes me in just having this conversation with you is that you did not have a business background. You didn’t study business, you didn’t get an MBA, but all of this business savvy is just flowing out of you right now. And that’s quite incredible.

Mei Xu: Finance is always part of my work as well, because I’m very customer-facing. I was the one that negotiated most of our first relationships with big companies. And when you deal with them, you have to understand your numbers. You have to understand how to ask questions. You have to be able to digest information in a way that you see trends so one of the things I say I’m very good at.

Denzil Mohammed: But your latest endeavor, YesSheMay, is a very unique business. Why did you choose this particular kind of business and what makes it special?

Mei Xu: I think I’m the only one that is doing a for-profit business for women. We have a lot of nonprofit that advocate women’s entrepreneurship that are investing in women-owned companies in funding, or help them in connecting with major buyers. There are … I can name a lot of them. What is different in what I’m trying to do is that I often see what their restraints are. So I have a very good friend in Elizabeth Vazquez, who is the founder of WeConnect. It’s an organization that promotes big companies like IBM or Target or Walmart to buy from international women-owned businesses so that they can help them to grow their business savviness and their economic power. That has implications. When women are more economically independent, they can send their kids to school and they can take those kids out of the streets. They can provide opportunity for them to become entrepreneurs or have a regular job. That means they’re not fighting on the street. They provide stability and growth. So that’s why a lot of big corporations work with her to certify those companies and then train those women to work with bigger companies. The problem is even when they are making that connection, can a Target really work with someone in Tanzania that’s never even made $100,000 worth of product? Because the first order, most likely is gonna be a million dollars for a 1,800 store chain. Can they figure out how to teach them all these things in a short period of time, so they can graduate, have the best practices and continually supply them? It’s very hard. So to make that leap frog of a development, they need people like me, people that are incubators, that can train them to first work with smaller companies or smaller businesses, that can be patient, that can let them learn their ropes, even translate their instructions into English, take good photos. And then gradually, if they continually have product that people want, then they get to the next level to work with bigger companies, such as a 10 store chain or website that has more traffic. Eventually, if they get everything right, they may have a shot to work with a Macy’s. So to me, this is fundamentally an incubator.

Denzil Mohammed: From your writing, it is that the connection between being an immigrant and being an entrepreneur is something that is very, very real. Can you expand on this? And what is the connection between being an immigrant and being an entrepreneur?

Mei Xu: I would say, Look at how many major companies started by immigrants. So if you look at Google, if you look at Zoom, DoorDash, sure. I can go on and on. And I think it’s not accidental, it’s because I think they do have something they share in that they’re not afraid to abandon what’s known, what’s arranged for them, what everyone else is doing. They’re willing to take a risk to give their passion and their dream a real shot. I do see the similarities between entrepreneurs and immigrants. And I do see that that’s one of the reasons why they create companies because often they have nothing that is offered to them on a silver platter.

Denzil Mohammed: One thing that has occurred to me in hosting this podcast is that that thing called the American Dream appears to be stronger outside of our borders than it is among its residents. In your book Burn: How Grit, Innovation, and a Dash of Luck Ignited a Multimillion Dollar Success Story, it’s inspirational and optimistic but you do write that the world has become more pessimistic, protectionist and insular and that ultimately you hope to convince the reader that the American Dream remains vital and accessible to all of us. How do you go from pessimistic, protectionist and insular to believing in the American Dream?

Mei Xu: When I was writing the book I had just came out of four years of being under this president who was very undiplomatic, not very democratic himself, but for the first time, really put into the very front, a national dialogue about the dislike of immigrants, the displeasure of other cultures, the judgment of other races, which is so, to me, so blatant. So I would not ever imagine when I came here in 1991 that this could happen. I know they existed. You know, we see the KKK’s demonstrations. We know that African Americans being lynched. The Asian Americans called names. Our Chinese Americans being called the chinks. These things didn’t happen to me, fortunately, but I can relate to those. So to hear your own president talking like them is shocking to me. It’s a real wake up call that not only those sentiments exist, that it exists and it’s alive and it’s actually growing at that time. I’m very hopeful that our children … that’s where I find hope, is that my children and many other children that I’ve known since I have children … I think they do recognize that we cannot go back just like China, cannot close its door and pretend that nothing will ever happen the way that it was for the last 40 years. People have tasted the power of freedom, the power of free speech, the power of free economy. And they have benefited. Why would they go back to an era where they can barely afford to have meat every day? They can barely afford to have new clothes when they really wanted it. So innately I feel we are always making progress as a race. We’re just taking two steps back, maybe three back, three steps forward. And at the core of this nation is that fundamentally, we are a nation of immigrants.

Denzil Mohammed: This was a really, really incredible and fascinating conversation. I so thank you for making the time to do this. I know how busy you are.

Mei Xu: No, Denzil.

Denzil Mohammed: Mei Xu, founder of Chesapeake Bay Candle and YesSheMay and author of Burn: How Grit, Innovation, and a Dash of Luck Ignited a Multimillion Dollar Success Story, thank you so much for joining us on JobMakers.

Mei Xu: Thank you, Denzil.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and at The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for this week’s inspiring story of immigrant entrepreneurship. Remember, you can subscribe to JobMakers on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and please leave us a review. I’m Denzil Mohammed. See you next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 57: Cris Ramón

JobMakers podcast graphic: Cris Ramon on how to build up immigrant businesses

As the son of El Salvadoran immigrants, Cris Ramón understands the entrepreneurial spirit of migrants firsthand. The new report he co-authored, Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Economic Potential and Obstacles to Success, highlights ways that municipalities could capitalize on the amazing contributions of immigrant entrepreneurs. Listen to learn why he believes immigrant entrepreneurs benefit all Americans.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammad and welcome to a special edition of JobMakers. 

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Denzil Mohammed: If you haven’t heard me say it yet, you haven’t been listening. Immigrants are twice as likely than average to start a business here in the U.S. And these businesses are having a real local and national impact, but the reception to these business owners is uneven. And there are many municipalities that can learn from places that actively and authentically engaged with their newest residents and helped build up their entrepreneurial capacity to the benefit of all residents. For Cris Ramon, son of immigrants from El Salvador, immigration policy analyst, and co-author of the new report, Immigration Entrepreneurship, Economic Potential and Obstacles to Success published by the Bipartisan Policy Center. He scoured the nation to learn not only what immigrant entrepreneurs need, but what municipalities and the federal government can do to help build up these businesses. The report shows that immigrants are primed to take risks due to their willingness to move to the United States. But politicians aren’t doing much to facilitate that entrepreneurial spirit. The report offers case studies, recommendations and stories that demonstrate the value and impact immigrant business owners can bring, as you learn in this week’s JobMakers. 

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Denzil Mohammed: Cris Ramon, an independent researcher and policy expert on immigration, welcome to the JobMakers podcast. How are you? 

Cris Ramon: Thank you. Great to be here and very much open to having this great conversation with you and obviously happy to chat with you. You’ve been doing amazing work that I’ve been following for many years now, so it’s great to be here. 

Denzil Mohammed: Yeah, thank you for that. You have been studying immigration for a very, very long time. You are a Fulbright Scholar studying migration as well in Spain. And you recently co-wrote a report for the Bipartisan Policy Center called Immigration Entrepreneurship, Economic Potential and Obstacles to Success. Could you just, just give a little background about you and then this project? 

Cris Ramon: Sure. So, my folks are Salvador immigrants. I was born in LA. My folks actually met in Los Angeles, so they didn’t immigrate together, but they came here actually the same year in 1974 through some pretty different routes. You know, my mom was an undocumented immigrant and my dad came here because my grandmother who immigrated to the United States in 1968 was able to get him and my uncle you know, helped with processing their immigration cases because she cleaned the house of an immigration attorney. So, they got really lucky in the lottery of life to be able to get be able to come here. So, you know very much immigration’s a part of my story. But you know, in terms of you know, the work that I do in this report, you know, I had an opportunity to really look into you know why immigrants become entrepreneurs? What are the challenges they face? Sort of the policy responses that you see at the federal and local level and then policy recommendations to do that? 

Denzil Mohammed: So just give us an idea of the landscape of immigrant entrepreneurship. What, why did you find generally speaking, what kind of sectors are immigrants concentrated in? Do they have a higher rate of entrepreneurship? How are they impacting their localities and regions? 

Cris Ramon: Yeah, so I think the key thing is that you know, immigrants are, you know, immigrants can, are represented across different industries. You always hear the story about the immigrant entrepreneur that starts a high-tech startup in Silicon Valley. But also you see immigrant entrepreneurs in main street businesses particularly restaurants and service industries. And so you do have this broad distribution. I think one thing to note with the distribution is oftentimes, particularly immigrants who are here they will sometimes start businesses that represent or reflect the cultures that they came from. So, restaurants obviously is a major story that comes up when you see these folks in terms of products, you know, one of the interesting stories that we heard about, you know, in this sort of vein is that there was a Syrian soap maker who wanted to make their soaps in the United States. And so they were able to put together their business in the St. Louis area to be able to do that. So I think that that’s something that’s important, but the key thing there is that immigrants do start businesses at much higher rates than even native-born Americans. And the data really backs this up. It’s just incredible to see how active they are in building the businesses. You know, it’s not to say that native-born Americans aren’t like creating businesses. It’s just that immigrants are doing this at much higher rates. I think the last thing is in terms of the impacts, you know, we didn’t dive into that information as much, but overall there is a sizable impact to be considered in terms of the because there are just more immigrants, foreign businesses that the impact has to be strong and significant because they are creating jobs that are employing individuals and they’re paying taxes. So I think that that’s really something to consider. It’s a, it’s definitely a win for the national economy, but for local economies as well. 

Denzil Mohammed: And we are recording this podcast over Zoom. Guess who founded Zoom? An immigrant. Yeah, you paint a really good picture here. And, you know, if we open our eyes just to main streets and see the variety of businesses that we have the variety of cuisines that we have access to, that’s really unique and important for us. So you said you found that I read that rates of entrepreneurship for immigrants increased over the past few years and actually decreased among the U.S-born, but, you know, COVID obviously affected many of these businesses in a very, very significant way. And you found that minority-owned businesses and immigrant business owners suffered some of the highest losses. Can you tell us a little bit about that? 

Cris Ramon: Yeah. And I think, you know, the reason you see that those losses suffered is that particularly service industries or industries were minority business owners and immigrant business owners were really hit hard especially during the first year with the pandemic because obviously individuals largely remained at home. And so the fact is that if you have individuals who are using these services at lower rates, you’re gonna have businesses going under a lot more at higher rates. So I think that the distribution of these individuals and their businesses, unfortunately, really put them in a tough spot when it came back from the pandemic. 

Denzil Mohammed: Well, I interviewed a guy called Daniel Perez. He’s an entrepreneur here in Massachusetts. He has a very successful transportation business. So transporting businessmen from the airport to their meetings, to their hotels. And obviously, when the pandemic happened, people weren’t moving, people weren’t going anywhere. People were confined to their homes and he found a way to be able to use his vehicles in a profitable way during the pandemic. They became mobile health clinics during the pandemic. So some immigrants did find ways to navigate successfully throughout this very trying time. So when it comes to some of the hurdles you found, you know, obviously immigration status, the stagnant immigration policy, there are many, many reasons why immigrants should not be able to start businesses. What are some of the hurdles you found? 

Cris Ramon: Yeah. So to your point, I think with the immigration system, I mean, first and foremost, we do not have a visa expressly designed for immigrant entrepreneurs. You’re an individual who needs to get funding from a venture capitalist to be able to start your, startup for instance, or you’re an individual who wants to start a main street business. There isn’t a visa for you to be able to come to the United States to do that. And so that’s kind of the first problem is that the ability to attract talent, at least through those channels just simply do not exist. You know, and the second issue with the immigration system is we’re not really designed to retain talent particularly, you know, not just simply, you know, workers who can bring in their skills and stay here. I’m thinking obviously foreign students are one example who are here on a student visa. And then, you know, if they don’t have a job lined up and get sponsored and be able to get a visa to stay here the, you know, their dire straits, we just do not have a status for these individuals to adjust into, to be able to become entrepreneurs. So, we have this dual problem where we’re not able to attract talent or in this case, the ambitions, the skills, the knowledge, and the drive for immigrant entrepreneurs to come here and to be able to retain those individuals that they’re already here, but they’re on a temporary visa. That’s, that’s a major issue. You know, another issue is access to resources. So, it’s interesting because one of the drivers of immigrant entrepreneurship is social capital. So, the networks that you have you know, this is why you say you’re sort of seen over the course of American history, these immigrant enclaves emerge. And one of the reasons that, you know, those communities you know, have been able to really sustain themselves financially is because a newcomer comes to the United States and they’re able to sort of navigate the business starting process. And this is obviously a long-term project, you know, for, for many, you know, for decades even centuries in the United States with the history of immigration. But of course, those social networks allow individuals to be able to navigate the system to be able to set up their businesses. But the issue of course, is that if you’re a newcomer and you’re trying to start a business, now those issues around say accessing alone, maybe you don’t have a credit history in the United States. You don’t have assets to be able to offer to a bank. And so that can kind of put you at a disadvantage especially if you’re coming in and, and maybe you may not have the savings to do that. It’s not to say that it makes starting businesses impossible for immigrants, but it certainly is a major challenge. So those are the two things to consider with the major, major obstacles that immigrant entrepreneurs face here in the United States.

Denzil Mohammed: And despite this. So again, immigration status, immigration policy, as you say having a credit history, you know, 90 percent of immigrants who come here don’t even have a clue about a credit score. That’s something unique to the U.S language barriers, as you say, collateral having social capital is so important for anyone to succeed anywhere, having parents or children or cousins or family, or for any kind there. And yet still they have a higher rate of business generation, is that astonishing, 

Cris Ramon: You know, individuals come here and that’s a risky move. I mean, I recently just moved to Chicago. And, you know, there was a cost-benefit analysis that I made. And it was still risky, but if you’re moving from one country to another oftentimes permanently, you’re, you’re your, your ability to be able to assess risk and, and your willingness to do that, kind of primes you already to be able to take other risky steps, particularly start in businesses. And so I think that that, that the, that mitigate the experience of migrating to the United States really does mitigate the awareness you might have towards taking risks. So that’s one factor. Another important factor is a lot of these individuals who come to the United States are, you know, they have knowledge, experience and skills, whether it’s formal channels that they want to university or trade school, or it’s informal. You know, and sometimes it’s very hard to find jobs that can, you know, really fully use this in the United States. And especially if you’re, you’re coming in from licensed professions, you need to get credentials renewed or, or need to take up additional study. And so these individuals oftentimes start their own businesses to be able to use the experiences that they’ve gained over a lifetime to be able to do the work that’s meaningful for them, and also probably to get paid at a decent rate. And, and so I think that there’s that also the drive saying I can’t find a way to integrate into the labor market. I will create my own path to do so. 

Denzil Mohammed: So, what are some of the ways that we can address these issues? Let’s say let’s start at the federal level and then come down to the local level. 

Cris Ramon: Yeah. So, so Congress has recognized this issue. So, I’m gonna give them pride upfront that they’ve recognized that this issue is something that we need to focus on, and they’ve proposed Democrats and Republicans. So, it has been a bipartisan issue have proposed bills to be able to create an immigrant visa and an immigrant status that people can adjust into if they’re already here and the visa will allow people to come here. But I think one of the key things that need to be done is they just simply need to pass it. And I think that as much as I think that you know, that a comprehensive immigration reform bill, that addresses those multiple issues is the most ideal. I’m also being, you know, you have to be a little bit of a pragmatist and a realist and recognize that you may need to do reforms in a piecemeal fashion and get the wins where you can get the bipartisan consensus where you can and do that. At the municipal level, you are seeing cities really stepping up in, in some big ways to be able to provide technical assistance. And in some instances, you know, loan programs for minority-owned businesses and immigrants. So, you are seeing that there are these municipalities that are doing this. One of the interesting things in the conversations that I had with the experts on this, though, is that you wanna be able to, first of all, you don’t wanna have services. And, I didn’t really dive too deeply into this, into the report, but I can say this a little bit more now here. One of the things that somebody who works in the mid-Atlantic city, he mentioned that one of the well-intentioned efforts is to have a lot of funding to be able to provide technical services for minority, potential minority business owners and immigrants. And that’s good naturally want the funding. The problem is that the funding actually started going into duplicative technical services that didn’t really adjust to the needs of the communities. It was just simply the same program. He literally almost said it’s basically almost like a copy and paste job, and, and that doesn’t benefit anybody. So, one of the things that he said that municipalities really need to do is they do, you know, their services and, and see where they can try to reduce redundancies and adjust the services to meet the actual needs of the individuals that they’re meant to serve. Another issue is obviously language services providing them in languages and also recognizing that the immigrant populations are gonna shift. So just because you are providing languages language services and five languages in you know, 2018, that’s not to say that in 2022, the population hasn’t shifted. So that’s something else to consider. There are trusted community navigators that are an important component of this is that you need to be able to reach out to the community and have the folks that people trust to be able to sort of do outreach to immigrant entrepreneurs and to know what their needs are and how you can access them. Some of these can be, you know, a mayor who goes out and actually connects with the community with other members of important leaders in their communities, whether it’s police chiefs or representatives of chambers of commerce. But it can also be you know, nonprofits, chambers of commerce and community development corporations that can help you get a little bit more in the sense of what the actual needs are. I will say I will point to one interesting example of, I did think was really interesting in terms of particular kind of doing this all well, is that you know, the city of Philadelphia ended up kind of canceling all these grants for these programs and actually just brought in, they had a common pot and they brought in consultants 1099 experts who could provide targeted services depending on the needs of the community at any given time and pairing them up with individuals. Not only are they saving money because they don’t have to pay into health care or pensions, or what have you. They’re able to bring in individuals that are targeted to specific needs and the needs and the things that are important for these communities. 

Denzil Mohammed: Could you probably give us some cities that have been doing have been successful in building up the entrepreneurial capacity of the immigrant populations? 

Cris Ramon: St. Louis to me is actually something that’s just fascinating because and we mentioned this in, in our report, we highlight St. Louis. There’s just a high propensity of nonprofits that are doing very good and long-standing work on providing immigrant entrepreneurs with technical services with loans and with just being able to connect with them. One organization that I’ve known about since at least 2012 is the Mosaic Institute in St. Louis, Betsy Cohen, I think is the individual who works in that. And, and so she’s been doing groundbreaking work in this whole area, for now, at least 10 years. You know, we mentioned the city of Chicago. I think one of the interesting things there is that you’ve been seeing the little village chamber of commerce. So that’s a community in Western Chicago that’s largely Latino. And they’ve, you’ve been seeing, you know, little village, the little village chamber of commerce the foundation of little village setting up some interesting programs. One is sort of a 12-week class for new and existing business owners that are offered in English and Spanish. There’s also the chamber of commerce is starting this project which is like a commercial cultural center that will actually have a business incubator. So, individuals can start their own businesses and there will actually be a kitchen there to be able to allow food vendors to sell their items and learn from that. You know, we did mention Malden, Massachusetts you know, is one of those interesting examples where you did see the mayor really doing some great outreach work, largely under like a nonpartisan banner of say, we’re just gonna reach out to immigrant entrepreneurs, get secure support from all sectors of society to be able to support these individuals and doing it in I think a non-political way, because sometimes you’ll see cities, municipality saying we’re a Welcoming City. They’ll do that under the auspices of Welcoming America, which is an amazing organization really appreciate their work, but they’ll say, oh, we’re a Welcoming City, or they’ll pass policies, like say we’re a sanctuary city, which of course, there’s no definition of what a sanctuary city is, but they’re, they’re saying that to try to, you know, whether or not it actually proves outcomes limit cooperation with immigration enforcement. There are these things that can symbolize that there there’s an openness, but I think molding Massachusetts is interesting because the mayor was deliberately non-political on this. And you can show that you can actually kind of approach this issue in a less, in a less polarizing way and, and get a community buy-in, which is, I think is so vital to ensuring that people feel secure and support 

Denzil Mohammed: At the local level. How do we move the needle on this? How do we spur some change so that we can foster the entrepreneurial capacity of immigrants in our communities, which is obviously to everyone’s benefit? 

Cris Ramon: These issues of competition for resources with other minority groups always come up. And I think there’s feelings that are, are related to that, that people feel that this might be a disadvantage. This might disadvantage minority business orders from other communities, but oftentimes minority business owners have immigrants in their ranks. So, it’s not to say that it’s a competition for resources, but that I think is a very real concern. So, I think the first thing is just ensuring that you know, municipalities nonprofits, community development corporations all are ensuring that minority business owners feel like they’re being supported and that they’re also that their needs are being met, and really acknowledging that. So, people don’t feel like there’s a competition, even if there isn’t necessarily one just to ensure that that concern is addressed. And you know, what you see in cities and municipalities is sometimes they’ll just offer services for minority business owners. And that might be the assumption is that some immigrant immigrants might be incorporated into that minority group, because they’re already a large number of immigrants there. I think that’s one thing that’s incredibly important to build in that stakeholder relationship. I think another thing to consider too, is that, whether it’s at the national level, the state level, the local level is trying to sort of delink immigration as an issue that is a single issue. You know, I think, and specifically related to the border, like I said, there’s a legitimate policy conversation to be had there. You know I’m more critical of the politics around it, but I think in terms of effective policies, certainly there’s a discussion there to be had. I think though that when you’re talking about immigrant entrepreneurs, the thing is that you wanna, you know, it’s to say these are individuals who are here right now that are contributing to our communities. And they are a vital part of the economic and the community life here in these areas. And they think that you really need to be very intentional in understanding that you have to delink this, there are people who won’t at the end of the day, everybody, there will be people who you can’t change. There are views on this, but I do think that you are, if you’re able to at least get people to think through that immigration as an issue, whether it’s policy or political it isn’t just simply the border even though that’s natural default, so really being intentional to do this. And I think that as a part of that, and we go back to like said Malden, Massachusetts is to really get a read on the community and how they view these issues. Particularly the non-immigrant individuals. You know, like I said, it might be the case that in a very blue city stating that you’re a Welcoming City or you’re a sanctuary city might run a little bit better with some of the residents, but I do think that a depoliticized approach that doesn’t try to make this already a polarizing issue more. So, I think with the issue around a sanctuary declaration, as opposed to the “Welcoming” one, because I think Welcoming America does good bipartisan work and works across the entire country. But I do think that kind of more hard-line political stance on we’re here to protect immigrants from immigration enforcement and so forth. I don’t think that actually does anybody any favors in the end, especially if you’re dealing with areas where people might have more, I think complex views around immigration. So I think it’s more depoliticize it, delink it from some other issues that make consensus very hard to find and ensuring that all community members feel like they can get services that they need. I think those are sort of three things that you can do to feel like to get people, to support these individuals already, if they’re not, you know, at least among the individuals who are worried about it and but are willing to have a conversation to see if their minds can be changed. 

Denzil Mohammed: I love that idea of decoupling immigration immigrants are part of our community. So, our neighbors, they’re employers, they are workers. They’re our friends, they’re soccer players. So, it’s not a separate issue from anything else in the community. It’s a community issue. It’s an economic issue. It’s a social issue. It’s not just an immigration issue. And I’m glad that you, you made that point. So, Cris Ramon, immigration policy researcher and analyst, and co-author of Immigrant Entrepreneurship, Economic Potential and Obstacles to Success. Thank you for joining us on the JobMakers podcast. 

Cris Ramon: Thank you so much. Appreciate the invitation 

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and the Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thanks for joining us for this week’s look into how we can better grow our immigrant-owned businesses for the benefit of all Americans. Remember, you can subscribe to JobMakers on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. I’m Denzil Mohammed. See you next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 56: Julie King

JobMakers podcast logo: Julie King brings authentic Mexican cuisine to Boston

Julie King was a high-powered attorney in her native Mexico. That ended when she married and moved to the U.S. The only way she could practice law in the United States was to earn a second law degree from a U.S. school. Starting over, King went from delivering newspapers at 3 AM to eventually becoming a successful business owner in the financial district of Boston. That journey was anything but easy, but her perseverance paid off. 

Denzil MohammedI’m Denzil Mohammed and welcome to JobMakers. Moving to a new country is usually hard, emotionally, financially, even health-wise. And it’s not atypical for the immigrant to start at a lower rung of the economic and social ladder than they previously enjoyed. But it’s a win when he or she perseveres despite the pains and is able to thrive. For Julie King, immigrant from Mexico and founder of Villa Mexico Cafe in the financial district of Boston, that step down was steep. A powerful lawyer in Mexico city, she ended up delivering newspapers at 3:00 a.m. for work in the U.S. A widowed mother of one, the American Dream to her was a nightmare. That was until an opportunity, driven by a yearning for real Mexican food, collided. Even then the nightmares didn’t entirely stop, but she kept at it, and after 20-something years is full of admiration and respect for the country that allowed her to become a business owner. Respect for sure, but maybe not love as she tells her tale, she gives a nuanced take on the idea that you can love both of your home countries the same, as you hear in this week’s JobMakers. Julie King, founder and owner of Villa Mexico Cafe, Water Street, Boston. Welcome to the JobMakers podcast. How are you?

Julie King: Good, good, thank you, my dear. To be honest with you, I’m a little tired because I have been working today since six o’clock in the morning.

Denzil Mohammed: I was about to say it’s a Friday afternoon, you must be really exhausted. Tell us a little bit about your business and why do you think it’s special? 

Julie King: Okay. Villa Mexico Cafe, it started in 1999. Why? Because I wanted to show the people what is the authentic Mexican food. It is special because we serve authentic Mexican food in this place. And since I opened it day one, they know that I don’t serve nachos because they are not from Mexico, they are from Texas. We don’t serve nachos and we don’t serve, for example, avocado with lobster, because we are not a food place. We are authentic. That’s what makes my place special, because I think that we are one of the few authentic Mexican restaurants in the whole New England.

Denzil Mohammed: I would imagine so. And a lot of people in America, I’m sure they’re feeding new Mexican food.

Julie King: For example, today the lady told me, do you put lettuce and onion in your burrito? I said, no, I don’t. “Why not?” “Because that is not the way that we do it in Mexico. It’s only rice beans, the meat of your choice, the salsa, avocado, and that’s it my dear.” “Oh my God, but that is not Mexican food.” I said, “No, you are right, it’s not Mexican food, authentic. It is Mexican food, but authentic Mexican food. You are here to get authentic Mexican food.” And they still don’t get it. And you know, what is the worst thing? 

Denzil Mohammed: What?

Julie King: The worst thing is that I know that Mexican food is a very good business. When they said that’s a Mexican restaurant, let’s go, and they spend a lot of money for eating Mexican food. But to serve authentic Mexican food and especially homemade, there is nobody but us.

Denzil Mohammed: I love how you stick to your guns, you know, keep it authentic Mexican despite what the customer may think that they want or may expect. But you were actually a lawyer in your previous life in Mexico. 

Julie King: Yeah. 

Denzil MohammedSo how come this drastic change of course in your life? 

Julie King: Completely, my dear. In Mexico, my husband used to tell me that I was a big shot because I used to be the legal director for the Holidays Hotel chain in Mexico City.

Denzil Mohammed: Wow.

Julie King: That was beautiful. It was an incredible, incredible job. I loved it, I was traveling, I used to go to talk to ministers, you know, in the Mexican government, even with the president, we’d have breakfast and meetings and things like that. With the ambassador of the United States, big, big people, you know, and I was only in those days 27 years old, but I was a big shot. Like my husband told me. That was my best, best job I ever had because I enjoy it, it made me really responsible, but then I got married. I met my husband and he was American, an American officer, a Navy American officer. We got married and then I have to quit my job to come to the states and live in the states. But yeah, I was a big shot and I loved it. 

Denzil Mohammed: Arguably, you’re still a big shot now, “Mama King”. So take us back to life in Mexico City.

Julie King: Beautiful. Of course, I mean, like in your country, you know, my country is Mexico. It is, it was so nice, so beautiful because all the families in those days, they are very conservatives. They are all the schools. So we were educated like that. We didn’t have the rich people, medium class or the poor ones. Everybody was the same, the same thing. And we used to go, everybody, to the same official school. We didn’t have private school, everybody. You could know your friends, your neighbors, and everybody was a family and that’s the way we grew up and I love it. And that’s why we are, I am very, very attached to my country because I love my country a lot because of all the memories that I have when I was a kid with all my friends that I still have. My friendship still exists with those guys and we had a very good friends, we have incredible memories when we get together, and we go like, “Remember what we were used to do in the kindergarten, or remember what we used to do in the elementary school?” And this is real life and I tell you a secret, my dear, all the immigrants come to the United States because they have a big dream, which they call the American Dream. You know what, being in the states is not my dream, it’s my nightmare. Why? Because I really suffered a lot when I came to the states, even when I was married. And I was living in Texas, I moved, we moved from Mexico to Texas. And then when I moved to Boston with my daughter, oh my God, it was a nightmare because I received such an insult that people were extremely. Right now is better, but in those days everybody could insult you and nobody would say anything to you. It was really hard to me getting into the Bostonian’s life because it is not easy for them to open. It is so difficult and as a woman, you know, single mother be by myself. And in Mexico, I used to have a lot of friends, my family, my business as a lawyer and in here, it was horrible. For example, let me tell you, in Mexico, we have a beautiful house and things got easy to have it. And it is a big house with garden and four bedrooms and living room, a huge living room or whatever, but it is not my house. In here, I didn’t know how the rents were and I had to go into a little bitty place with two small bedrooms and I was like, oh my God. It was the first time I used to live in an apartment. Then in Mexico, I have my daughter’s nanny and the people who help me in the house and my gardener and my driver, because like my husband said, I was a big shot, you know? And in here, we are not used to do anything, but the problem is that we are not used to cleaning the house or we are not used to washing the dishes or to wipe the clothes. We are not used to that things, especially because I was having my daughter’s nanny. When we moved, me and my daughter to the states, I said, “Okay, I don’t mind. I’m going to get somebody to clean my house.” And just to get a person, she charged me like $200 in those days for cleaning my house and washing my clothes. And I said what? 200? It was very expensive and I couldn’t afford it. So besides working and getting up at three o’clock in the morning and coming back and washing, my day, I have to clean my house, I took to wash dishes, to go. It has been a nightmare, my dear, and I didn’t know your regulations in the states. There is a lot of regulations completely different, like my country. And I was like crazy, I was crying every day, I was really bad and nobody could help me. But at the same time, in the meantime, I was opening my way to being in Boston. I found good people that would welcome me and probably they feel sorry for me, you know, because I was, I don’t know, I was really lost, lost being by myself and my daughter.

Denzil Mohammed: Without a solid support network, you’re really just on your own. Not having family around is, and this is why family reunification is so important to the American immigration system, because we need our families there. We need our parents, our kids, ’cause that’s what we rely on. We don’t have anything else to rely on. So I can imagine how difficult that must be and a lot of Americans don’t realize that when immigrants move here, they often take a step down. You know, your first job is not gonna be anything like the job that you had in your home countries. You have to work yourself back up. Even for you as a lawyer, you would have to retake all your law years of law school, similar for doctors who have to redo residencies 20 years ago. They would’ve been markedly fewer opportunities from the SBA, from different lending organizations. I’m sure a lot of discrimination with banks. How did you do it? How did you start this business? How many times did you fail? 

Julie KingWell, you say it right. Without family, with no help, with not somebody to put my head on the shoulder and cry with, doesn’t receiving any advice or at least welcome home or nothing, I didn’t have any of my food. I couldn’t find good Mexican food in Boston. So I said, “Oh my God, no.” And every time I wanted to go and have some breakfasts or some kind of my food, you know, we were me and my daughter were so sad and very disappointed that I said, “Okay, I’m going to show these people what is the authentic Mexican food,” because I didn’t like the way they were serving the Mexican food. So that’s why it made me start my business. How? Only God knows. Because to be honest with you, I thought to come and work as a lawyer in the states and you just stayed right. I said I don’t care, I’m going to work as a lawyer because I am a good lawyer. And when I went to apply for the first job, they requested my license and I gave them the one in Mexico and they said, “What is this? You cannot work in here with that.” So I said, “So what do you mean? I am a lawyer.” “Yeah, wonderful, but you need to request your license.” I said, “And where do I gotta go and get it?” And they told me, “You gotta go to the school.” I said, “What do you mean to the school?” Yeah. You have to start your law school again to get your license. And in these days…

Denzil Mohammed: That was an option.

Julie KingIt wasn’t like now that in less than six months you can get your license. In those days, you have to go to the school for three years. And then I said, “Oh my God and what do I do?” I raise my daughter and I take care of my daughter or I go to the school and pay for my school. And one day my sister took some vacations and she came to visit me in Uber. And we were walking by Google center and I saw this little bitty place, a very nice place and I said, look, there is a place, let’s go see how it looks inside. And we both were seen through the window, like, oh my God, this is a restaurant and this and that and look at it, got chairs and tables and a counter. And she said, “Do you think that it could be a good place? So you can set a business?” I said, “My God, I don’t have any money, how can I start a business? Why do you go and ask how much they want to have for rent?” So I went next door and it was a laundry and I asked to the guy, I said, “Would you know somebody who can give me information about the place next door?” “What do you want to know?” I said, “I would like to know how much is the rent and what do they need too, what are the requirements? And I would like to know who do I have to talk?” “What do you want to do, what do you want to have the place for?” And I said, “Okay, I would like to have a Mexican restaurant in there.” “Oh, wow. It used to be like what they call it? Roast beef. Yeah, it was a roast beef place, but the guy couldn’t pay the rent and he left everything.” I said, “Are you kidding me? I would like to talk to the owner, to the landlord.” And he said, “I am the landlord. And how much do you want for rent?” And guess what? He said $500. I said, “What? 500?” “Go ahead, I will help you to grow.” And what I did was a dream. God helped me and my sister stayed there for three months and we both cleaned the restaurant, painted and we, but of course, I didn’t know the requirements. This guy told me that I sit and use the license that were for the grocery place and I believe him because he was the landlord. But when I tried to open the restaurant and I remember this day, I was on my knees washing the floor and cleaning everything and we painted the chairs and it was so bright, so beautiful, red color, yellow, navy blue and it started looking so beautiful and then I was on my knees cleaning the floor and when I saw a pair of shoes and saw pants, I pick up my face and I said, “Oh, I’m sorry, we are not open yet.” And he said, and he told me, “And I don’t think that you will open for a while. You said you are going to have a Mexican restaurant and this is for another restaurant.” I said, “Yeah so what do I have to do?” And here he is, he said, “I am from the bottom field. You need to get the permit to the neighborhood, you need to get a meeting, you need to apply for your license.” That took me three months to get everything ready. In October of 1999, October the first, I could open my location. And that’s the way we started.

Denzil Mohammed: Wow. That is such an ordeal. I know that you ended up having to close that location. You opened another one in Woburn and then you closed that and opened up your first Boston location in Beacon Hill, out of a gas station and now you’re on Water Street in the financial district. You’ve come a long way. How has your cafe been received by the financial district?

Julie King: I had a lot when I was in Woburn, in my location, I have a lot of people coming from Boston and the surrounding areas, Boston, Lexington, Arlington, Stoneham, everywhere. And I have a line on the door trying to get inside. And then it was incredible, beautiful, beautiful place, really. So we grew up and then when we ended up in Beacon Hill in the little gas station, the people in Beacon hill, of course my dear, I mean, just the rich people lives in Beacon hill, but they were so nice and beautiful to me because I don’t know why everybody said that I am a funny person, but I am not funny, whatever I am like, I am a very honest and direct person. I see you and I tell you, and I talk to you with the truth. And I met congressman for the English, very rich people, director for the banks from big companies. And when I saw them, to me, they were not the rich people living in Beacon Hill. They were my friends, you know, like you and I talking, and to me, everybody is the same. And they was having a ball with me and we become good friends and they were helping me and they were happy with the food and they were really taking care of us. That’s when I start being a really happy person with a neighbor who, because they accept us, are incredible, incredible good.

Denzil Mohammed: So you have stated in the past that your mission is to not only bring authentic Mexican food to New England, but also culture to educate your customers about the real history, culture and lifestyle of Mexico. Why is this your mission? Why do you think that’s important? 

Julie King: That is very important because, for example, I give you a little example. Everybody goes crazy about Cinco de Mayo and Cinco de Mayo is just, we want a little bitty battle, that’s it. And it’s not as, I mean, it is important, but not in the way that is in here. We really appreciate our independence day. And it’s a big thing in Mexico, but the Cinco de Mayo is nothing, you know, and when I moved to Boston, and I start finding out that Cinco de Mayo is wow, Cinco de Mayo is incredible. I said, wait a second but you know what is Cinco de Mayo? And I was the first person that in the local TV, I told them Cinco de Mayo is nothing important so please stop treating us like if it was somebody’s independence day. Cinco de mayo is Gringo de Mayo.

Denzil Mohammed: You’ve expressed tremendous pride in this interview about your home country, Mexico. Is it possible for you to love or for anyone to love two countries, two cultures at the same time? 

Julie King: It’s not possible. 

Denzil Mohammed: Really? 

Julie King: Let me tell you. I born in Mexico City, I was raised in our lost and with a love of family all together. And like I told you, in the beginning, we were exactly the same, but we were taught to respect our father and mother, to love our family, and to be quiet whenever they call our attention. We, I didn’t grow up with a cell phone, with a Gameboy, or with the big machines, and we didn’t play all day long in the TV. In here, everybody is doing their own stuff. They don’t get together and if they go together, the parties, you know, they are always drinking. And to me to be here seeing different aggressive things, it is like, I cannot get it. I cannot, I just cannot get it. I feel so sorry for all the kids that they don’t have the education that they deserve to have because the father is working, the mother is working and nobody’s taking care of them, that they are not growing a good families together with values, but it is very difficult to love one country and to love the other one in the same way. Because just for one thing, I born in one place, not born in the states. I feel extremely respectful for this country which offers you many, many things. And I love it because I have to respect my second home and I have to respect and love the country that it give me my business and it helped me to grow. But in here, when we came, it was a big change and I in a state to feel like happy, I was suffering. But at the same time, I feel welcome because this was my husband’s country. And I work in this country as mine, but I cannot feel the same love that I have for my country, because I grew up in my country with probably with not too much money, but I got it with too much love. And in this country, I work so hard, I cry a lot, I make myself like my second home, I love Boston because it’s a beautiful place, I love it. But I still miss Mexico. It is like mixed feelings, you know?

Denzil Mohammed: Oh, I totally get it. I totally get it. That was very heartfelt and very thoughtful. Thank you very much for opening up your heart and telling us your journey and your story. I was very moved by it. I think that this is gonna reach many Americans and they’re gonna learn so much more, not just about Mexican culture, but about the idea of the immigrant and the kinds of conflicts and stressors and things that we have to go through starting fresh in a new place. Thank you so much, Julie King, owner and founder of Villa Mexico Cafe in Boston’s financial district. Thank you so much for joining us on this podcast.

Julie King: God bless you and thank you for this opportunity.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not for profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thanks for joining us for this week’s beautiful and complex story of immigrant entrepreneurs. Remember, you can subscribe to JobMakers, Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And please leave us a review. I’m Denzil Mohammed. See you next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 55: Daniel Perez

JobMakers podcast logo: Daniel Perez takes tenacity to transportColombian-born entrepreneur Daniel Perez founded his company, DPV Transportation Worldwide, to provide transportation for athletic teams. When the pandemic hit, he pivoted to health care and community service, moved by a desire to give back to communities like the one he grew up in. Listen to learn how he’s encouraging entrepreneurship opportunities for young men of color. A video interview with Perez is also available here.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed. Welcome to JobMakers. Of all the sectors hardest hit by the pandemic, transportation was one of the worst. McKinsey and Company predicted it would take more than five years for muted recovery in the transportation sector. So how could a transportation business survive two years when people didn’t really have anywhere to go? For Daniel Perez, immigrant from Colombia and founder and president and CEO of DPV Transportation Worldwide in Everett, Massachusetts, it meant tapping into that entrepreneurial spirit that made him a success in the first place. He pivoted to health care and community service and found a way to use his fleet for good and for survival. Daniel’s agility and acumen served him well, but the place where he wants to have the most impact is in the communities like the one he grew up in East Boston, a gateway for immigrants. Not only is his firm minority-owned, its staff of 80 percent minority, and Daniel is focused on building opportunities for youth of color, including entrepreneurship, as you learn in this week’s JobMakers. Daniel Perez, President and CEO of DPV Transportation Worldwide, immigrant from Colombia, welcome to the JobMakers podcast. How are you? 

Daniel Perez: Great, thank you for having me here today. 

Denzil Mohammed: So, tell us a little bit about your business and why it’s special. 

Daniel Perez: Sure, so DPV Transportation is a worldwide chauffeur service specializing in providing ground transportation services for corporations and institutions that are looking for a consistent and reliable service to go to the airport for client meetings and special events. We have two main divisions, one which is our chauffeur services. Again, it’s mainly a black car service where we service this corporation and, and CEO level executives with a white-glove service experience to go to the airport for meetings and other private events. And then we have our shuttle bus division, which pretty much is our, is our largest component of our business that focuses on Fortune 1000 companies as well. And we transport their employees from their headquarters to train stations, train stations to headquarters, or within the main headquarters as well. 

Denzil Mohammed: And how did you get into this? I don’t think you had it in mind that you were going to start a car business when you were growing up.

Daniel Perez: Yeah, I always tell all my folks and friends and family that I started with pure ignorance, not knowing what I was going to get into. If I was to redo it all over again, I probably will not do it. But how I started is it was I was a wild teenager growing up and my dad highly recommend me to get a job where he was working and it was another transportation company, but they mistreated their employees. Their customer experience was horrible and for some reason, I said to myself, “Hey let me create something better, something unique with a better experience to the customer and make the most out of it.” And I started from my parents’ kitchen. I turned the home phone, I turned into an office. So when everyone used to call, I used to tell everybody to keep it down, because most likely it was a client. And I turned the kitchen into a whole office. It started, you know, working day and night from, from my parents’ kitchen. And from there, I was able to scale up the business working very hard at that point, now working smart, and I moved, I transitioned into a small office where I work day and night. 

Denzil Mohammed: Well speaking of that, this white-glove service that you talk about, how were you able to position yourself in the market and how did you grow over the years? 

Daniel Perez: That is a great question. Thank you for asking. So what I was able to do is move from a younger entrepreneur of working hard, 24/7 to a more mature entrepreneur, working smarter and hard, but more on the smart perspective. So smart was put in more systems and procedures in place, being more strategic instead of tactical, and really narrowing down who is, who was the ideal persona or client persona that will get us to where we wanna go, cause when you’re lost, any bus will take you there. Right? So, I decided to really narrow down the scope of where we wanted the business to be in three years, in five years. And we just laser-focused and massive action. 

Denzil Mohammed: I recall you saying once that you got this business savvy from your father, is that correct? 

Daniel Perez: He gave me really good advice at the beginning. I love my dad. I love my mom. My dad grew up with a different business methodology about working really hard. So you know he served me very well but nowadays the skills that he taught me you know, where we managing now about 220 employees as in served me as much as he used to serve me back then. But definitely, I got his entrepreneurship spirit and dedication and tenacity too, to not give up and, and pursue the dreams. So, I definitely got his persistence out of that. 

Denzil Mohammed: And speaking of your dad, you grew up in Colombia. What was life like back in Colombia when you were growing up? A lot of Americans don’t know what life was like in South America. 

Daniel Perez: Sure, I appreciate you asking the question. So, I grew up in Colombia. I was born in Colombia until I was 11 years old originally from Columbia. And then I moved from Colombia to Boston, where we moved pursuing the American dream from Boston to New York, New York to North Carolina, North Carolina, to New Hampshire, and then New Hampshire back to Boston. So, going back to your original question, growing up in Colombia was fun because I didn’t have to worry a bunch about producing income and worrying about bills. And we were, you know, we, we were middle, middle high-class family with all the amenities to live a good bringing as a teenage boy. So it was fun. But then when we came to the U.S everything changed. We went from being a middle class to more of a, you know, sort of a poor family where we were living in a 10 by 10 room. And there was like six or seven of us and the first year or two, which is horrible, you know, the change of weather not speaking the language, different cultures. But it was kind of who made me say it an individual, all those adversities that I could bring it into the business ecosystem and just embrace adversity because you know if you are once, you start learning to get comfortable and the uncomfortable, that’s when we grow the most.

Denzil Mohammed: Learning from adversity, I love that. So, you said that the first couple of years were hard, and a lot of Americans don’t realize that when immigrants move here, they often take a step down in their careers, in their income and in their standard of living. So, guide us through the way you grew your business. You went from home kitchen landline into something that is huge now. I mean, when I met you in 2017, you had 49 employees and now you have over 200, that’s pretty incredible. How did you grow the business? 

Daniel Perez: I would say, there’s not a secret formula. There’s not a secret recipe. I just rode on a lot of other people’s waves for wisdom and advice. I’m sort of a sponge. I analyze, I listen, and I observe what other successful people in my industry and other industries are doing. And I’m always willing to see what is it that I’m not seeing and what is it that I could learn. And lately, throughout the years my brother was a huge asset to the business. He recently, a year ago, he pursued his own dream of opening a boutique business consultant, which he also has a PhD in humanities. So, he went on his own and we were fortunate to find a COO, which is pretty much my right hand at this point as well. Leading the organization forward. 

Denzil Mohammed: Now you pride yourself on being a minority-owned business and according to your website it has 80 percent minority employees. Why is that important to you and why should that be important overall? 

Daniel Perez: And that is a great question. Thank you for asking. So overall, I am a minority. I’m proud of creating more minority impact in our communities. And I guess the key element is to be mindful of the ripple effect that minority-owned communities have on our communities. The more success that we get within our communities, the more that it will benefit our children, the younger generations where they’re able to get jobs at this sort of communities and benefit overall from the success ’cause otherwise the world gap continues to be massive right. So, we contribute in one way or another to try to minimize the gap, not only financially, but to support to the communities. Whether you’re Black, Latino, Asian, whatever it might be, where we could contribute in any aspect that we could too, to our communities. 

Denzil Mohammed: So, it’s all about community impact, uplifting your communities, while also putting money back into the community, correct? 

Daniel Perez: Correct, again, and again, nowadays, I get love for my business, I love making money, but there’s the way that I define being rich is when I’m well rounded, where I am striving in my family and my relationships and my spirituality. Most importantly contributing to society, especially to other com you know other minority populations too just like myself. 

Denzil Mohammed: Now I want to bring it into the present need. Let’s just say your business was heavily impacted by the pandemic. I think you, you said that 95 percent of your business vanished. How did you ride that wave? 

Daniel Perez: That’s a really good question. So, Mike Tyson said if best, everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face. Right. And we got punched in the face and we didn’t get knocked down. We got knocked down, but we stood up and it was two years of working day and night with a lot of tenacity. Two years ago, when I was in the trenches in the storm, it was all about mindset, dedication, commitment, and just trust, trusting that this was happening for us. And once, I accepted that we were either going to file for bankruptcy, or we were going to strive. I said, operating from a peace of mind and knowing that I have given my oath, my 100 percent.

Denzil Mohammed: So, you mentioned that quote from Mike Tyson, I guess I’m trying to think of some of the things you learned as a result of the pandemic that may prepare you in the future for when next you get punched in the face. 

Daniel Perez: One of them is we obviously become who we hang around with most of the time and the five people who we hang around with or surround ourselves with. And that’s helped me a lot, just positioning myself in the right environments with other savvy and experienced entrepreneurs that have gone through other economic recessions that provide me with a ton of support emotionally and intellectually to get me out of those situations. So that was one of them, to always keep surrounding myself with the right people, to also as a leader, to have the right mindset, because especially as an entrepreneur and as a leader, there’s so many emotions that we have to manage where we when we managing either a small or a large organization, there’s too many components and a lot of human errors and emotions to deal with. But the more the one that you have to for me personally to control my own emotions and my own state of mind. So a way when these adversities come you could actually embrace them, learn from them and keep moving forward, not idling or this on the size of where to go. Right. 

Denzil Mohammed: You mentioned spirituality a little bit, a little while ago, I cannot imagine how much pressure was on you in 2020, with 250 employees under, you know, getting through all this pressure. So yeah, I’m sure that your spirituality is gonna help you out a lot in this role. You’re not just doing transportation though. You are in tech so tell us a little bit about DPV Mobile Lab. What are you currently doing and what do you plan to do in the future?

Daniel Perez: Yes, so pretty much when the pandemic hit, we had about a hundred buses sitting in the parking lot and between my brother and we started brainstorming, what do we do with all this equipment? And what we were able to do is pivot into the medical sector. So, what we were able to do is transition our buses into mobile clinics. So about 50 percent of our buses, we transformed them into mobile clinics. And we were at the beginning, we started doing mobile sort of help support where we were delivering mask and anything to support with the pandemic, right. And we partnered with several hospitals in the area to support them as well. And then when the pandemic hit, we transitioned to delivering the vaccines. So, we opened several mobile vaccine clinics in New York, in Massachusetts, where residents will comment to the bus, and we will get them vaccinated. And this was again through, through partnerships with several hospitals in, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York. 

Denzil Mohammed: And you also have apps that go along with your ride services, right? 

Daniel Perez: Correct. Yes. So we have apps that will show the riders exactly where the bus are located. How far is it how many riders in the bus are they hitting any traffic? For the most part we deal with large organizations where we’re managing their transportation program. So that’s what allows the transparency from the rider to the provider to see exactly how their transportation program is being run. 

Denzil Mohammed: How, what, how has that experience been going into some sort of tech aspect of what you’re doing? 

Daniel Perez: It’s one of our key differentiators. It allows us to be more agile and to keep innovating in our industry. We’re always looking for ways to innovate. That’s one of them. And now we’re looking to keep expanding into different markets. We recently started we go into more into the health sector as well as other training sectors as well, where we training the workforce on how to obtain their CDO license. We’re doing that in a couple states, and then we’ll also transitioning into mobile health. How do we get into minority communities to support them with mobile health initiatives? 

Denzil Mohammed: Wow, that’s great. And you are, I mean, even pre-pandemic health care transportation were the two of the fastest-growing industries. So you are very well positioned to embrace the future. Finally. you had your father to look up to as an entrepreneur growing up but not everyone has that privilege of having a mentor. What advice would you give young entrepreneurs of color? 

Daniel Perez: Well thank you for asking the question ’cause honestly, this is a question that we gotta keep asking within our communities, not only to ask, which I’m a huge believer that the better, the questions, the better the answers. And this is one of the key questions that our younger crowd needs to really keep asking themselves because it’s such a great time to strive being a minority, being an individual of color, to go out there and, and pursue your dreams when there’s so much support for minority-owned companies. And sometimes we believe, and we create beliefs that this is a disadvantage when it’s actually an advantage for us to be companies of being a minority-owned companies, especially if you’re able to partner with corporations that are looking to partner with minority-owned companies. And that’s one of the big elements that we use. There are a ton of corporations that support minority young companies, and it will be dumb not to pursue those opportunities. And this one of the errors when it has been the easiest to grow, especially as a minority young company, 

Denzil Mohammed: Capturing those opportunities, right. And just being aware of what opportunities are out there. And I imagine a lot of young people growing up don’t, aren’t aware that there is support now, probably not 22 years ago, but certainly now. I imagine there’s a lot more support now than when you started the business in 2006. Daniel Perez, founder, CEO of DPV Transportation Worldwide. Thank you for joining us on the JobMakers podcast. 

Daniel Perez: Thank you for inviting me. Appreciate it. 

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for this week’s powerful story of immigrant entrepreneurship and ingenuity. Remember, you can subscribe to JobMakers on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and please leave us a rating and a review. I’m Denzil Mohammed. See you next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 54: Mariam Nusrat

JobMakers podcast graphic: Miriam Nusrat takes gaming to new heightsAs a Muslim woman, Pakistani-American Mariam Nusrat has always stood out among STEM startup founders. Her venture-backed Gaming Revolution for International Development provides a platform to easily create low-cost video games, and her not-for-profit Gaming Revolution for Inspiring Development creates games with a positive social impact. Tune in to learn how she plans to empower every smartphone owner in the world.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed. Welcome to JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: What is the average age of a gamer, someone who plays video games? Bet you didn’t guess 35. That’s right. The profile of gamers today spans every demographic, not just kids. But it doesn’t have to be just fun and games. What if we could be educated from gaming? What if we could have social justice impact from gaming? And what if we could become the game creators ourselves? For Mariam Nusrat, immigrant from Pakistan and founder and CEO of both the venture backed Gaming Revolution for International Development and the not-for-profit Gaming Revolution for Inspiring Development, both, of course, with the acronym GRID, these things are reality. GRID, the for-profit arm, is democratizing the creation of video games with a software as a service platform called Breshna. And the not-for-profit arm creates low cost social impact games that educate, engage and empower people towards positive behavior change. However, this economist turned tech entrepreneur stands out. A Muslim immigrant woman in tech, Mariam is doing it and aims to empower many of the 3.2 billion smartphone users worldwide, as you’ll discover in this week’s JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Mariam Nusrat, immigrant from Pakistan and founder and CEO of GRID, welcome to the JobMakers podcast. How are you?

Mariam Nusrat: Thank you so much Denzil. I’m excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me. And I’m excited to have a conversation with you.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m excited to meet you because you have such a cool product. Tell us a little bit about your business and your particular market. What does GRID stand for, first of all?

Mariam Nusrat: Absolutely. So GRID is an acronym that actually stands for two legal entities. So Gaming Revolution for International Development, which is a C corp, it’s a tech startup building the TikTok for video games. So basically Breshna is a platform that allows anyone to create their own video games without any coding, without any design skills. Anyone can come on and make their own video games, be it entertainment games, or education games or marketing games. But this is … Imagine if you wanted to make a Super Mario for math learning, you can go on to Breshna and create that. And Breshna itself means lightning in the Pashtun language, which is my mother tongue. So it’s video games without any coding and at lightning speed. So that’s GRID on the C-corp. And then Gaming Revolution for Inspiring Development is our not-for-profit arm. And that’s where we create low-cost mobile games for positive behavior change. So GRID stands for Gaming Revolution for International or Inspiring Development.

Denzil Mohammed: That is very cool. And you mentioned international development, you’re an economist, an educational specialist, you’ve worked in international development. How did you end up in gaming?

Mariam Nusrat: Yeah, Denzil [laughs], I often ask myself the same question. So it’s like my … I’ve done my bachelors in econ. My first master’s from LUMS was an econ. My second master’s at GW was in International Development Studies. There is no computer science, no game development in any of that. And I worked for 12 years at the World Bank across 22 different countries, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Middle East. as an education specialist, as a policy maker in the education space. And eight years ago, one of the things I realized was that purposeful communication … So if you wanna raise awareness on education or health or behavior change or financial literacy, it’s often, “Here’s a brochure. Here’s a website.” Maybe if things get really exciting, “Here’s a video.” But that’s not how behavior change happens if we look at the western world, what Fitbit did for health, where it completely gamified health. What I grew up playing, games like SIMCity, where I was learning about urban planning without even knowing I was learning about urban planning, we just don’t see video games being mainstreamed for behavior change so that I was actually doing my second master’s degree. So I was a consultant at the World Bank, a student at GW. And that’s when I said, “You know what? I don’t see video games being mainstream for a purpose beyond entertainment. So I’m gonna make a gaming studio where we’re gonna create mobile games for positive behavior change.” So I put together a team of game developers and designers, and we started creating one of our first games. [It] was actually a menstrual health game, a period game, a mobile game, which was in English, Urdu Swahili, Nepalese. And basically the big idea was to build awareness around reproductive health and menstrual health. So that was kind of the beginning of gaming. It came from a pain point of making purposeful communication fun.

Denzil Mohammed: Making personal, purposeful communication fun. I love that. And this ties into something that I think is sort of inherent in you. And maybe you got it from your parents. You once mentioned that the idea of public service is something you got from your parents. So why is it important to you to use technology in this way?

Mariam Nusrat: Yeah, absolutely. So, Denzil, I grew up, my dad was in the public service all his life. So I’ve seen policy and public service as I’ve been growing up. And one of the things that my father, this is I think I was in third grade, he came back from an executive course and he literally had these three newspaper cuttings. Okay, the first one had the logo of LUMS, which is the top business school in Pakistan, Lahore University of Management Sciences. The second one was a logo of London School of Economics. And the third one was a logo of the World Bank. I’m in third grade, and this guy is like, “All right, child, you’re gonna go to LUMS. You’re gonna do your bachelor’s in econ. Then you’re gonna do your master’s in econ. And then you’re gonna go work at the World Bank.” And I’m like, “Whoa.” And then he held my fist and he was like, “The world is in your hands.” And he was like, “No matter, like it is directly proportional to the hard work that you put in.” So I think that lens of public service, international development policy was something that was really built into my DNA. But over time, one of the things I realized is that I have the solutions-oriented approach to things. And I think the more and more I discover technology in my daily life and video games as, how are we not unleashing the power of video games for a purpose beyond entertainment? Look at the time that we spend on games, there are one billion video game players playing video games for one hour on average around the world. One billion people, for one hour every single day they’re playing video games, can be unleashed this time for a purpose beyond entertainment. So that was kind of what led me to it. So I think the pain point I realized, to my nurture and training, but the solutions came from my passion for technology.

Denzil Mohammed: And I think you mentioned at some point that the average gamer is a 35-year-old woman on the subway playing Candy Crush.

Mariam Nusrat: Yeah. And I think we’re also one of the most overlooked demographics in video games. Like when you think about a gamer, it’s often the 22-year-old in a basement playing Call of Duty for seven hours. But actually the fastest growing genre of games is the hyper-casual genre of games, which is mobile games, so games like Candy Crush and games like Angry Birds. People spend a lot of their time waiting. So on average a person in the western world spends seven years of their life waiting for stuff to happen. You’re on the metro waiting. You’re at the DMV office waiting. You’re in the line, you wait for things to happen. And that’s where people weave in video games. So games become a part of their daily routine. And I believe that Breshna now is empowering that 35-year-old woman to not just play her own games, but also to make them. It’s just like the TikTok for video games. So it’s about this idea of there’s one billion players around the world. Can we also have one billion makers that can tell their story through video games?

Denzil Mohammed: Oh, that is so cool. And I brought up the 35-year-old woman on the subway, because … just to show the cross section of people you can reach. And you mentioned TikTok and I think about my eight-year-old and ten-year-old nephews who spend so much time on TikTok and on video games. But they’re very … They learn a lot from some of these videos. They come with all sorts of trivia and they get interested in animals or climate change, things like that. So they are open to learning from these things, from this kind of technology. So I really am happy that you brought that up. As we brought up your parents, let’s take it back. You mentioned LUMS, it’s a university in Pakistan. You are from Pakistan and you still identify as Pakistani. Can you describe for listeners what life was like in Pakistan growing up?

Mariam Nusrat: Yeah, absolutely. So Denzil, I was born in Quetta, which is actually one of the most conservative provinces within Pakistan. My mom is originally from that province. And my dad, he migrated from India when he was young and everything. So then I grew up in the capital, which is Islamabad, and often, it’s actually funny, Denzil. I’ve had interviews where it’s been like, “Oh, you were the suppressed woman in Pakistan, and what does life feel like in America?” But actually, I grew up with a father who just believes in empowering daughters. And I think that level of confidence that my dad put into me, this idea that there is no ceiling, that I can push through with hard work with the right amount of passion. We grew up as a middle-income family, but our education was the top priority. So my parents were just investing in our education, private schools, French classes, swimming classes, whatever it took. Even in Pakistan it was, Hey, that is the biggest investment they could make. It wasn’t buying properties. Even today, they live in a rental house. But for us, the biggest thing was … It wasn’t buying cars. It wasn’t buying properties. It was putting money into our education and that’s been the biggest investment that they could’ve made. So that’s kind of what life looked like. I think, I hope that I’ve made them, I think I’ve made them very proud. They do say I’ve made them very proud. But it’s also very Asian parents. I remember I was on stage with President Clinton, and as part of the Clinton Global Initiative University, and I called my dad. I was like, “That was so cool. Did you see that it got livestreamed on [inaudible]?” It was like, “That was amazing. What a great honor. Now make sure the next one is a sitting president.” [Laughs] All right. I guess we’re on it, but yeah.

Denzil Mohammed: Difficult to please guy. But you know, as a past interviewee said on this podcast, “You know, if you’re gonna dream, don’t just dream high, dream higher.”

Mariam Nusrat: My first few years in the U.S. are a complete blur, because I think I overworked and I over-studied. But you know, I think that I’ve always approached every single day with the three Ps. And I think it’s perseverance, passion and purpose. If you show up every single day working towards a goal with the passion, I think it just becomes relatively easy and relatively fun. And then you just have to enjoy the ride along the way.

Denzil Mohammed: I don’t imagine that you came to the U.S. with the intention of being a business owner or certainly not gaming. So what was it like when you first started? How did you get funding? How did you go about scaffolding this business?

Mariam Nusrat: Absolutely. So, Denzil, I’ll actually touch on a little bit the very beginning and then bring you to this actual, the C-corp, which is the venture-backed business, where we have venture funding and investors and all of that, because that’s a really exciting part to it. But I think when I started off I had achieved the dream that my dad set for me, which was work at the World Bank. So I was on this path of economist, senior economist, education specialist, manager, country director, vice president, like that. I had it all charted out for me and everything. So I think this idea of starting GRID and in the beginning, like a side gig … Oh, okay. That’s cute. You’re making video games, that’s cool and everything, but it started to take a life of its own. And I did it as a side gig for a while and everything. But last year, when we started building Breshna under a C-corp, it was like, Okay, this is getting real and we’re gonna go raise funding for this. And we’re gonna raise venture capital. And when I started then I’m an East Coast founder with no business, no tech background. I did not know the difference between a VC [venture capitalist] and an angel. And today it’s really cool. We’ve raised $2.5 million in venture capital over this last span of seven months. And we have all our cap [capitalization] table … This is something that I can actually share now, we have on our cap table the American billionaire Bill Atman. Or, for instance, we have some really cool Web3 crypto funds, Web2 funds. So it’s been a really epic journey and everything. And I think what, the way I approach it is, I know nothing, but there’s so much to learn and that’s the exciting part of it. We live in the world of the internet. Twitter is out there. We’ve been building in public. We’ve been making connections. I think what COVID did was really bring people to the virtual world. So the opportunities that were at first limited to Silicon Valley all of a sudden became global. You did not have to be in the Bay Area to go meet someone. You could just get on the Zoom. So I think I’ve had 320 investor meetings where you just knock on doors and you get a lot of Nos, but then once the dominoes start falling, you get a lot of Yeses. And all of those, mostly out of those, I think 90 percent of those have been virtual. People have never met in real life. I have investors in our cap table that I still haven’t met. And I think that is just such a cool opportunity, where it’s not just where you are as an immigrant in America, you could be anywhere, any part of the world right now, and have access to the same opportunities.

Denzil Mohammed: What did it feel like, however, going and asking and being an immigrant, having an accent?

Mariam Nusrat: Absolutely. So I think, Denzil, I have to admit the imposter syndrome is very real, saying, “Hey, do I belong? I mean, do I belong in the gaming industry? Do I belong in the Web3 world?” I mean, the blockchain industry tech sector is just expanding and growing so rapidly. And do I belong in any of these spaces? And I think honestly the biggest barrier is your own mental barrier, being able to say, “Okay, you know what, I’m gonna give it a shot. I’m gonna show up with authenticity and I’m gonna show up with my passion and then let the space decide whether they wanna accept me or not.” And I’ve just seen such an insane amount of acceptance and this is the beautiful thing about America. I do believe that if you want, there’s a community that gets created around you and then they rally you and they mobilize you. It’s at that point, I do think, it becomes irrespective of your gender, the color of your skin, the religion you are, because at that point, it is that based hard work, that sheer passion that just runs through. And then everyone just rallies behind you. So I think immigrants have that resilience and that grit to have that passion show true. So I think it’s been really interesting.

Denzil Mohammed: Give us some examples of your favorite or most impactful or original games and the issues that they tackled.

Mariam Nusrat: The most creative ones are someone will make a simple birthday wish for their mom where it’s, “Hey, here’s a video game that I made to wish my mom.” But I think the ones that are the closest to my heart … Entertainment is awesome. But I think the ones that are closest to my heart are the climate, are the social impact ones. So games around women in tech, games around drug use, games around structural racism, games around this idea of, It’s startups and entrepreneurship. Or I think the most favorite ones are the math learning games that are being used in schools. We have a teacher in South Africa and a teacher in East Asia, and they both collaborate and they swap these games. So it’s like, Look at the connections over here. And each of their students will make games and then they’ll swap them. But then I also had a father who made a period game, because he’d lost his wife. He’s single, parenting a daughter who just reached puberty, and he had no idea how to talk to her about periods. So he came on Breshna and created a game around menstrual health to kind of break that barrier because then the father and daughter were just playing a game. And it wasn’t something that was stigmatized to talk about. So I think video games have such a powerful communication aspect, and we just wanna empower everyone to tell their own story through video games.

Denzil Mohammed: So where do you see business going as you forge ahead and [inaudible]?

Mariam Nusrat: So that’s kinda crazy. I’m an avid user of Canva. And Melanie Perkins, she’s a woman, she’s Australian. So I’m an avid user of Canva and Canva democratized design for people who had no design skills and everything. And I think Melanie Perkins, she started that business at the age of 17. She started with school books, like basically designing school [year]books. And now that business is valued at $40 billion. And I think that if you look at the business side of it, one of the goals I have … And they always say, If you visualize your goals … So I have my whole IPO speech and what I’m gonna wear and everything sorted out. But I mean, one of the biggest things I wanna do is be the first immigrant woman who IPOs a decacorn at NASDAQ. I mean, forget decacorn. A woman, an immigrant woman, the first white woman to IPO a unicorn at NASDAQ was Bumble’s founder. And that was only a few years ago. So that representation has just not happened, and I absolutely want to be the first or among the first. I want a bunch of us to show up there, ringing that IPO bell. And I think that’s definitely on the business side. But at the end of the day, my biggest vision is what we are building for. And what I’m building for is a world where everyone can tell their story through video games. When I grew up, when I was playing video games, I always saw the New York city skyline and the yellow cab and the white dude. And the first time I saw an Arabic in a video game, unfortunately, was in the context of terrorism. It was the person you were shooting at, the Muslim you were shooting at. And I think, for me, it’s just so important that video games are such a cool tool for communication. But why should the rest of the world play games that have been made in one part of the world? Why can we not flip the script and have … If there’s one billion players around the world, why should there not be one billion makers of video games that tell their own stories in their own language, with their own music, with their own avatars and with their own content. And that’s the world I wanna build.

Denzil Mohammed: So how do you feel at the end of the day about the United States as the place that gave you this opportunity to build a community and build a business and build a nonprofit?

Mariam Nusrat: I really do think that there’s something in the DNA, there’s something in the water in America where we, where just cultures collide and experiences collide around a shared goal. So if you have a clear vision, and if you are able to communicate that vision, and say, I am gonna go for … build this world that has never been built before, there is something about innovation that excites this country. And it’s just everyone in this country where they just rally around you. And I think that excitement and that ecosystem, if you think about it, regulatory ecosystem, how easy it is to register an LLC, how easy it is to be able to engage people. Compared to some of the other regulatory environments, like being able to fundraise, being able to bring on investors, being able to work across state lines, I really, really do think that this country is set up. The DNA is set up for innovation.

Denzil Mohammed: You weren’t inhibited by the fact that you were a woman, that you were Muslim, that you had an accent, that you have a different name?

Mariam Nusrat: I see it as a strength. You know, I personally think the fact that I’m a woman, the fact that I have these lived experiences, a lot of times the … Every single solution that I’ve come up with, it’s been the way I’ve looked at the pain point. It’s my lived experiences that have led to that diverse perspective where I’ve been like, “Oh, interesting. Maybe if we could do education like this, or maybe if we could leverage, like I played SIMCity, and how about we do it like this?” And I think it’s that diversity of perspective that leads to innovation. So I actually see it as a strength.

Denzil Mohammed: Oh, wow. This was really inspiring, Miriam Nusrat, immigrant from Pakistan and founder / CEO of GRID. Thank you so much for joining us and the JobMakers podcast.

Mariam Nusrat: Thank you so much, Denzil. It’s an absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for this week’s inspiring story of immigrant entrepreneurship. Remember, you can subscribe to JobMakers on Apple Podcast, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And please leave us a rating and a review. I’m Denzil Mohammad. See you next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 53: Yuliya Tarasava

JobMakers podcast graphic: Yuliya Tarasava invests in Americans who need it mostBelarus American Yuliya Tarasava’s impact investment platform CNote facilitates investments in women, minorities and low-income communities. Tarasava founded CNote to dismantle systemic barriers to success, and her efforts have provided 4,000 jobs in disadvantaged communities. Tune in to learn how her immigrant background made her passionate about giving everyone a chance at success.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed, welcome to JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Let’s face it. The United States doesn’t always work as well for some as it does for others. Looking at the wealth gap and who it affects in this country is but one very revealing example. And particularly if you come from a place of sameness, like the former Soviet Union, for instance, those gaps in inequities likely stand out even more. For Yuliya Tarasava, immigrant from Belarus and co-founder and chief operating officer at CNote, an impact investment platform that delivers returns by investing in women, minorities, and low-income communities, America’s inequities stared her in the face. So she and a friend, also with immigrant roots, decided to do something about it. The result is astonishing. In just six years, CNote has helped create or maintain more than 4,000 jobs in disadvantaged communities; invested more than 50 percent of capital into small businesses owned by black, indigenous and people of color; and invested more than 40 percent of capital into women-led small businesses, eight times the national average. Yuliya believes everyone deserves a chance at success and dismantling the systemic barriers to such success is what she and her business are all about, as you learn in this week’s JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Yuliya Tarasava, COO, and co-founder of CNote, thank you for joining us on the JobMakers podcast. How are you?

Yuliya Tarasava: Good. Thank you for having me, Denzil.

Denzil Mohammed: So tell us a little bit. You have a very unique company, I would say. And what was the problem that you saw to address with the idea behind CNote?

Yuliya Tarasava: Yes. So why CNote exists is to use financial innovation to solve for wealth gap, to help to reduce the wealth gap. That was the intention and that was … it kept myself and my co-founder [unintelligible]. And that’s what we really wanted to solve by starting CNote.

Denzil Mohammed: How successful has your company been since you founded it in 2016 in meeting its goals?

Yuliya Tarasava: Yes. I think that time really will tell. Obviously, as you can imagine, closing the wealth gap, it’s a very aspirational goal. And I think we can all argue, how do you measure that? I think for us, we are thinking about some of the concrete numbers that we can capture, which is the capital that we deployed in underserved communities that helped with creating wealth or leveling the field. And so far we deployed over I think $150 million in capital in underserved communities around the country. And we have about $200 million that is [unintelligible] constantly circling on the platform. And we can also count the number of jobs that we created, which is also in hundreds. And we can also count how many affordable housing units were created by using that capital that we deployed in the communities to build affordable housing. And on the top of it, the capital is also used to create community facilities where kids can gather for post-school education or some activities. We help to build health clinics. We helped to build healthier food stores in a food desert. So the capital’s really being used to make communities more sustainable, more resilient, and create opportunities for people in those communities to really get to the next level. And, again, leveling the field and giving them opportunities that otherwise they wouldn’t have because they don’t have access to capital. They don’t have access to certain financial products and services that we all use.

Denzil Mohammed: And I know that you are headquartered in Oakland, California, even though your team is entirely remote and actually always has been even pre-pandemic. And clearly it works very well for you. But you chose Oakland intentionally. Can you give us perhaps your favorite example of opportunities that you have created?

Yuliya Tarasava: Yes, Oakland. I’m not sure how much  as a [unintelligible] Oakland was happening there. I really think about Oakland as this renaissance story. I think it was forgotten and ignored for a while. It was really considered to be one of their most crime heavy or riskier neighborhoods in the Bay Area. And yet with the support of the communities with the right intentions, the right people really taking ownership of what’s happening there, it’s seeing that renaissance that it’s going through right now with new businesses popping out, with new development coming in, with, again, communities really standing behind and creating that new future. I mean, we can also talk about all the gentrification that is happening there, which is obviously a part of it, unfortunately, of all their new movement that is happening. And you definitely see it, not just in Oakland, but around the country. But I think for us, again, it was very intentional to be there because of all the good stuff that is happening there when it comes to new life, new development, new air that it was bring into the Oakland economy. And to your point, even though we’ve been remote even before pandemic, we’re going continue to be remote. The intention is still there to be in Oakland and to continue supporting this economy, to continue supporting this community, first and foremost.

Denzil Mohammed: I just looked up to see if there was a Whole Foods in Oakland and, yes, there is. [laughs]

Yuliya Tarasava: It is, it is.

Denzil Mohammed: Talk about gentrification. Okay. So take us along the journey with you and your co-founder. What was it like to bring this company to where it is today and what were some of the lessons you learned in starting this company?

Yuliya Tarasava: I actually listened to some of your podcasts in preparation for this one. And I heard someone talking about answering similar questions in a way that always have a co-founder running the company. On your own, just so hard. I will totally sign up to that. It’s really, really hard to start and to grow the company on your own. I really think about the company, it’s a child and it definitely takes a village. And it takes two parents to begin with and then their whole village to support. And so the relationship that myself and my co-founder has … Catherine Berman … we’ve been friends before we became business partners and we were very much aligned first of all as people, like what we want to see in the world. Like how do you really see yourselves? Like what’s really important for us? We’ve gone through a long journey together, really aligning ourself personally, and then moving on into [unintelligible] how we’re seeing the world and what do we want the world to be? And so having that alignment is incredibly important, because things will go sideways. It’s obviously an entrepreneurship journey. It’s always ups and downs and it’s gonna be frustrating. It’s gonna be annoying. It’s gonna be devastating. It’s gonna be all the things that sometimes you just want to stop and resign or when you’re [unintelligible]. And then what really keeps you going is that alignment and that keeping your eyes on that north star. And as long as you have those eyes on north star, and you’re aligned with your partner, with your business partner, that’s what really keeps you committed and keeps you on this journey. And then beyond that, obviously, it’s not just me and Cath who’s running the company, it’s the whole team. And now we are about 25 people, and this is the whole village that takes to raise the child, to bring CNote to the level where it is right now. And bringing people on board, again, understanding they’re not just here because of their job security or because of the money, but they’re really here because they share your vision, they share your mission. They share the passion for economic justice, for social justice. They really share that desire and the intention that the world needs to look different. That’s what really brings people on board. And that’s what really keeps people around in spite of the fact that, again, startup journeys can be volatile. And you don’t … We kind of like building. We often give this analogy. We’re building the plane as we go. We have the direction. We know the destination. But there’s a lot of things that happen along the way. And we have to be flexible. We have to be agile. We have to be really good communicators. So there’s a lot of things that have to go right in order to get us there. And, again, having the right team and having a very committed team and passionate team, and also that clear communication, matters a lot in that journey.

Denzil Mohammed: You once said that gender equality and women’s empowerment are the DNA of CNote, your company. Can you explain this a little bit?

Yuliya Tarasava: Yes, of course. So we are female-led and female-owned at CNote and we very much recognize that women founders have been neglected. We very much recognize that the culture as we know it and the companies have often been defined by maybe overwhelmingly male energy in the companies rather than female. And for us right now, if you look at who we are, and, again, who is a part of that village, we have a lot of women. We are very, very proud to say that engineering team is the biggest team at CNote and I think 80 percent of the team is female. And we continue effort on … keep growing the team and keep giving young, promising female professionals opportunity to really raise up and be successful and get exposure to that, to the corporate role, to that impact investing world that we operate in. So, yes, we care who we bring on board. We care how the company runs. I think the fact that we are female-led and female-owned creates a certain culture that also attracts more women.

Denzil Mohammed: So I’ve spoken to several entrepreneurs who are in this finance space, Christina Qi from Domeyard, for instance, and other minorities who talk about they went to a conference and someone asked them to get them a Coke because they didn’t look like they were traditional finance people. So it’s really amazing that you’re doing this kind of work in this space. But let’s take it back to your background. You mentioned background. You come from a place where [laugh] the president has called himself the last dictator in Europe. He’s your one and only president. What was life like back in Belarus growing up?

Yuliya Tarasava: Growing up in the Soviet Union was probably more instrumental to my development as a person, but also creating that real interesting contrast between communism, socialism and capitalism and really seeing pluses and minuses behind those systems. So for me growing up in Soviet Union I’m very much used to everyone is the same. Everyone is getting exactly the same. Everyone looks the same. Everyone wears the same. Everyone have access to quote-unquote same opportunities and stuff and some of the things provided to you. And I can tell you when the Soviet Union broke up, a lot of people were not really happy because not only you’re older you have to readjust to a new way of living. And probably [unintelligible] my parents and my grandparents, who were definitely not a big supporter of going into this new system, because they were just so, their mind was just so baked in the old way and old world. And then, honestly, the transition was obviously not the best for an average person. I remember we very quickly went from having everything to suddenly having nothing and using our food stamps to get any type of food that we could not grow for ourselves, using the piece of land that we had or growing animals. So it was a really interesting experience, remembering that again, going from abundance to now some sort of poverty and standing in line in stores and literally facing empty shelves. And so that’s, I think, really, really formed my, I don’t know if it’s understanding, but kind of formed my maybe multi-structural, multi-vertical view on the world and, again, understanding that capitalism and free markets, it’s working to a certain extent. But there’s also some of that social aspect that is actually really interesting to bring into that system. And I think that’s what, that’s the whole, that’s what we are trying to do right now is this whole concept of social enterprise. When people say to me, Hey, just focus in on your maximizing your return and maximizing your revenue, maximizing shareholder value. It’s not necessarily the right thing. You have to start thinking about their, the welfare and the impact on the whole world. And I think some of that, I could definitely see some of that connection back to my childhood and just how excited I was to actually explore this new models of creating the value.

Denzil Mohammed: Clearly that had an impact on how you saw economics.

Yuliya Tarasava: Yes.

Denzil Mohammed: And when you came to the U.S., which of course is the shining example of free markets and capitalism, how did that make you feel about economics in the U.S. and this idea of free markets?

Yuliya Tarasava: Yes, yes. When growing up in Belarus, and, again, especially Belarus was going through transition and we became more open to the Western world and start hearing more stories on how people live in Europe or in America. Very often there, the perception that we had is America is the richest country and almost to the point that money grows on the trees, which obviously [unintelligible]. To some extent, that’s how America was portrayed through shows and media, et cetera. And so I remember when I was [unintelligible] to United States, there’s definitely that excitement to experience that, it’s like, oh my God, I’m going to that land of honey rivers and, again, money growing in the trees. It was definitely like this idealized view of America. And then coming to United States very quickly that view was shattered in pieces and it is because I came to United States. I decided that I want to continue my education and I really wanted to study finance given that it was my interest, that I identified studying economics back home in Belarus. And then being here in United States, going to school, realizing that I cannot get access to loan and I have to have support from some of their communities that already created so they can vouch for me. And still being able to pay in cash and working long hours and living in the cheapest place I can possibly find, I found myself in Bridgeport. And then in Bridgeport, it’s a very divided, it’s [unintelligible] Connecticut generally it’s a very divided state. Like you have this concept of redlining. You have across the line is primarily BIPOC community and then across the street [unintelligible] is gonna be primarily white community. And at that time it didn’t really make sense for me. I didn’t really know the concept of redlining, but then, as I started going through school, and as I studied more and more about it, it just suddenly was realizations like, Wow, America, the way we see it from outside, is actually not the America that you experience when you come here. And the color of your skin very much defines the future that you have here. Again, what zip code you were born into, again, defines that, your opportunity to actually generate wealth. And then understanding how a lot of the issues that we are dealing in America right now is really structural issues. It was just result of the way the laws were written, the way the history unfolded and us procrastinating as a society doing something about it. Now we dealing with the largest wealth gap in the history and all this health issues, educational issues. I mean, you name it right? And it goes back to that, to those systemic changes that we’ve been not willing to tackle.

Denzil Mohammed: You moved here when you were 20 years old in 2004. And I really appreciate that the nuanced understanding you have about how things work in the United States, that’s really terrific, and that you’re working very steadfastly to address that. So how do you feel overall, personally about the United States as that place that allowed you to actualize this particular Belarusian American dream?

Yuliya Tarasava: No, I don’t want to sound like a downer on the United States. I think United States does give a lot of opportunities to people. And I think if you are, if you’re smart, if you’re driven, if you’re dedicated I think there’s a lot of doors. That resilience, I think that’s a big part of it as well. I think a lot of doors can really be open to you. And, again, I’ve obviously experienced it myself. I work hard, I studied hard. I put myself out there and I was knocking the doors until the door opened. And at some point the doors open. So I absolutely don’t want to diminish the opportunities that America has given to me. And, honestly, I’m also interestingly enough surrounded mostly by people that are immigrants here. Just, I think, we just have so much to resonate with. And we have so much in common that I think it’s very normal that I’m gonna be surrounded by people like me who’ve gone through similar journeys. So yes. And most of them have wonderful lives and have families and they build the beautiful life here. So yes, absolutely, America is a wonderful place for people to really try their energy, to try their ideas, to try their projects that they have in mind.

Denzil Mohammed: As a fellow immigrant who is, who does not have his family here I can tell you that I know how hard it is just to exist, much less thrive, just being by yourself. You don’t have that social capital to count on. You don’t have mom and dad to crash if you lose your place.

Yuliya Tarasava: Exactly.

Denzil Mohammed: So I really appreciate the success that you’ve had so far, and I look forward to so much more success coming from you. I really appreciate the work that you do, and thank you for creating the jobs that you’ve created.

Yuliya Tarasava: Thank you. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you for reaching out, Denzil. It’s fantastic to connect. And thank you for letting me tell the story.

Denzil Mohammed: Yuliya Tarasava, immigrant from Belarus and co-founder and chief operating officer at CNote, thank you for joining us on the JobMakers podcast. This was great.

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Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contributions produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and at The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for today’s powerful story of immigrant entrepreneurship. Remember, you can subscribe to JobMakers on Apple Podcast, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And please leave us a rating and a review. I’m Denzil Mohammed. See you next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 52: Jackie Krick

JobMakers podcast graphic Jackie Krick trains the next generation of entrepreneursColombian-born Jackie Krick struggled when she first tried to start a marketing communications firm, but her hard work has paid off. Now she runs a thriving business that specializes in cross-cultural services. Krick also founded a not-for-profit that offers education and skills training to underserved youth. Listen to learn why she thinks immigrants are twice as likely to become entrepreneurs as U.S.-born people.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and welcome to JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Arguably entrepreneurship is what sets the United States apart from the rest of the world; it’s made by and for entrepreneurs. And it is uniquely suited to capitalize on the entrepreneurial spirit of its newest Americans, immigrants. That’s a big part of the reason why immigrants are twice as likely to start a business and create jobs. For Jackie Krick. immigrant from Colombia and founder, president and CEO of ECU Communications in Manassas, Virginia. it took a few tries, but she learned the system and used the resources available to her, available to all Americans. Today, she runs a successful digital communications and cross-cultural services agency focused largely on federal contracts. However, Jackie takes that love of entrepreneurship further. She started an award-winning nonprofit called Impact to Youth to give underserved teens access to education and skills training, and she co-founded CenterFuse, a co-working space for micro entrepreneurs to discover, learn, train and be mentored by successful business winners like Jackie, as you’ll discover in this week’s JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Jackie Krick, founder, president and CEO of ECU Communications in Manassas, Virginia, welcome to the JobMakers podcast. How are you?

Jackie Krick: Thank you, Denzil. I’m doing great. Happy to be here.

Denzil Mohammed: So tell us a little bit about your business and why it’s special.

Jackie Krick: So ECU Communications is a leading woman-owned small business. We’re a full agency specializing in digital communications in cross cultural services. We were founded 18 years ago. We celebrated our 18th anniversary at the end of April. So we’re very, very proud of the accomplishments that we’ve done. Today ECU Communications services clients across the U.S., and we provide a multitude of digital communication services, including branding, media, website development, app development, all types of communication. Very proud to be part of the organization.

Denzil Mohammed: Even coming up with taglines and slogans for businesses, I know. And you have a range of very different, very diverse clients, from the government to the private sector to nonprofits. Is that correct?

Jackie Krick: That is correct. Our primary market is the federal government. When ECU was founded, we started with servicing the federal government. We became 8(a) certified in the Small Business Administration. It’s a certification for nine years and we successfully graduated from that in 2015. So we’ve serviced the federal government for all these years. And along the way we’ve expanded our services to nonprofit organizations, state and local organizations and also the private sector, which is a growing area of interest right now.

Denzil Mohammed: Really. But did you always want or expect to be a business owner?

Jackie Krick: That’s a very …

Denzil Mohammed: Was that in the cards?

Jackie Krick: … interesting question. I think I grew into that. So I started working, my first jobs were just normal jobs and … but I always felt that I wasn’t really happy in the role that I was. I always felt that I could do things a little bit better in my way obviously, a little bit faster. And I felt myself pulling out of the everyday kind of activities to want to be more in command of the things that I wanted done. So I think over the years I did fall into that role. To say that I woke up one day and I wanted to be a business owner, maybe not so much. But I’m very happy with the decision that I made.

Denzil Mohammed: Right. I think you should be very happy with your decision. It’s been such a success. So a lot of Americans don’t know what it’s like growing up in other countries, particularly South American countries, developing countries. And you yourself have a really diverse background stretching from France to Chile to Bolivia. Take us back to, let’s say, your grandfather and bring it up to today, up with you in Manassas.

Jackie Krick: So my grandmother, my grandfather was French. His family was a hundred percent French. They migrated to Columbia and that’s where he was born, he and 13 other brothers and sisters. When the oldest kids became eligible for the military, they went back to France. And so my grandfather was one of that first batch of kids that were born, went to the military in France, and, when he was done, he decided to go back to Columbia to see the country where he was born. And of course he met my grandmother, fell in love and married and they had five children. One of ’em was my mother. Moving forward, my mom was an adult, she fell in love with a Chilean man.

Denzil Mohammed: Wow.

Jackie Krick: He had traveled to Colombia and fell in love, got married. My oldest brother was born in Chile. I’m sorry. My oldest brother was born in Colombia. And then she [mother] went to live in Chile for a few years where my two other brothers were born and then they went back to Colombia where I was born. So I’m the youngest, the only girl, and, well, I’m the baby of course. Baby, not a spoiled one though.

Denzil Mohammed: And then your stepfather came on the scene and he was American.

Jackie Krick: Correct. My stepfather, my mom met my stepfather when I was nine years old. They got married. He was in Columbia doing a mission with the Department of State and was there for a few years. At age 15 – he was transferred. When I was say 15 we got news that he was getting transferred to Bolivia. So we all moved – my mom and my brothers and I, and my stepfather – moved to Bolivia for six years. And that’s where we basically lived. I loved Bolivia – wonderful place, beautiful people. The indigenous people were amazing, the food, everything else. I hold Bolivia very dear in my heart.

Denzil Mohammed: And so you moved at 15 and then you moved again when you were 21, when your stepfather’s transferred back to the U.S., right?

Jackie Krick: Yes.

Denzil Mohammed: And what was that experience like, moving to the United States of America?

Jackie Krick: Wow. So through those years we had visited the United States and we knew what it was like and spoke English. But I can tell you that nothing can prepare, would prepare me to come and live here. It was very different. When you are visiting one location is one thing. When you’re living and working and doing your daily activities it’s completely, completely different. So it took getting used to it. Even though I spoke English, it took getting your ear accustomed to everybody speaking English to you all the time. The way of life was completely different. So it really was a hard thing for me. I remember going to sleep and really crying myself to sleep sometimes.

Denzil Mohammed: Really.

Jackie Krick: Just because I was in a very different environment. I was living with my brother and his wife away from home for the first time and moving into a world of working and just being an adult.

Denzil Mohammed: Navigating the system.

Jackie Krick: Yeah. Very, very different. So it took me a little while, but eventually I surpassed that and here I am.

Denzil Mohammed: So we talked about your business a little bit earlier, and we’re gonna talk about it a little bit more, that you started in 2004 ECU Communications, but you sort of started your own business way back in 1990, didn’t you? You went off on your own doing graphic design, right?

Jackie Krick. Yes.

Denzil Mohammed: What was that like? Tell us why you ended up having to close it. And what lessons did you think you learned from that experience?

Jackie Krick: I started it because I, again, wanted to do something on my own. I really felt empowered to try something new that I could drive on my own and make something out of it. The reason I closed it, quite honestly I went through a divorce and it became really hard because … I’ll tell you in a minute what lessons I learned. But it became really hard for me to be the one going out looking for work and then coming back and doing the work. So I was an organization of one person, which … very difficult to do. You cannot be all to everything and do every other work. So it was very difficult. I eventually decided to just fold the business and get myself employed again. It was a very hard decision. I can tell you that I didn’t wanna do it. But I had to. Some of the lessons that I learned definitely is that you need to, if you want to grow your business, you cannot do it alone. You need to find the people that can help you, the great talent that can help you. You have to have that collaboration and you have to have the right tools, depending how big you wanna be. Obviously I learned a tremendous amount of lessons during that time, because the second time around when I started ECU, I knew it in my mind that I wanted to do something completely different and that I could not be the lead. I could not be the graphic designer. I could not be the writer, and also the business development. When you start a business you do wear a lot of hats, but you cannot do that constantly because that will never get you to the next level.

Denzil Mohammed: And you’re also the janitor. And you’re also the technician. And you’re also the driver. Let’s not forget those things.

Jackie Krick: Yes, that’s right. [Laughs]

Denzil Mohammed: Your current business, which you started in 2004, is now flourishing. Take us through the different steps and stages of how you grew that business.

Jackie Krick: Well, one of the things that I learned when I went back and got myself employed again, it was working in the IT sector, but always doing marketing and advertising. And they were doing government contracting so I learned how to work in that environment. I learned a lot about contracts and managing contracts, although I was not doing that, but I learned a lot about that. And so that gave me the ability to say, Here’s an opportunity. The government does a lot of business with a variety of sizes of business. Like you have the small businesses, the large businesses, the 8(a) businesses. And so I saw an opportunity there to really get started as a small business first and then apply for the 8(a) certification, which, it’s a certification for specific folks. So being a Hispanic woman, I definitely was. I want to be able to get that certification because of who I was. And I knew that with the broad range of competitors that there are out there having the access to a smaller pool of opportunities would definitely help my business grow. So I went after that application. And then after that, I started going after the government contracts. It took me a while. It really did. You really need to know and have access to a lot of different tools. So if I had to do it all over again I probably change it up a little bit. But those are the things that you learned along the way, right? And now I love to help others and tell others how they can do it too, because it’s not … you have to try certain things before you can really get that, the right path. I would’ve waited a little bit longer before getting my 8(a) certification. I would’ve waited until I had a larger base of business. If the 8(a) certification is only nine years. Once you get it, you get into it. Nine years go by and you’re out. So …

Denzil Mohammed: And just for listeners who may not be familiar with it, could you just describe it a little bit?

Jackie Krick: So the 8(a) is a Small Business Administration program to help underserved people from countries, like Hispanics, African Americans, Asians, they can apply to become 8(a) certified. And what happens is that the government agencies, they set aside a portion of their purchasing contracts, they set ’em aside as 8(a). That means that the pool of competitors can only be 8(a) so that you have a bigger opportunity to have access to those contracts.

Denzil Mohammed: So you found the opportunities and you went after them. That’s what a business owner does. But you spoke a little bit about creating opportunities for others and sort of letting other people, other probably budding business owners, know the kind of knowledge and background that you now have. First off, I wanna bring up Impact to Youth. This is where you want to create opportunities for young people to learn and develop their skills. And they come from vulnerable communities. And you said once, I heard you say that this was your real passion. Can you describe this a little bit for me and why you decided to do this?

Jackie Krick: Yes. So I think that everybody has such great potential to do something with themselves, but it really all depends on the path that they get on. And the reason why Impact a Youth was founded was to give so many kids, young adults, young kids opportunities to dream. My mother used to always say, “You know, when you dream high you need to dream higher because chances are you’re going to get to a certain point, maybe not as high as you’re dreaming.” So I wanna give kids the opportunity to dream as high as they can, and be able to get more than what they think that they can get.

Denzil Mohammed: More than what they were born into, I guess.

Jackie Krick: That’s right. That’s right. So the other thing that I believe is that when you give those opportunities to young people, you’re teaching them something with a great foundation. You’re teaching them that they’re able to go and do things on their own, that they’re capable of being self providers. And that’s really what I want to teach them, to go out, be self providers, help yourselves learn and accomplish a lot of great things, because that’s the greatest feeling when you go and get it yourself, rather than be there waiting for something, somebody to give it to you.

Denzil Mohammed: Does any particular young person come to mind when you think of the program?

Jackie Krick: We’ve done Impact a Youth Academy, where we brought in kids from the high schools around here and mentor them through soft skills and career planning and things like that. And some kids came back to me and said, “You know, everything we learned there we’ve applied.” And so some kids were starting their careers as entrepreneurs and learning new things. It’s really … it touches me a lot. It really does. The one thing that I did learn is that we need to start younger, not just high school kids, because when you’re in high school you’re already, it’s kind of too late. So we are learning that we need to start more in the middle school to really touch the kids and really get them interested in thinking about … it could be a career. It could be an entrepreneur. Not everybody’s made to be a business owner. And not everybody’s made to have a four-year degree. There’s other things that kids can do as long as they’re willing to learn something. That to me is the basic thing.

Denzil Mohammed: Wow.

Jackie Krick: I get very passionate about that.

Denzil Mohammed: I can tell. But what was the main driving force for you to do this?

Jackie Krick: Yeah, I wanna give back to the community. I wanted to share some of the success that I’ve had with the community. I wanted to give something to the young kids to help ’em.

Denzil Mohammed: And you’re also helping budding entrepreneurs, because I know that you have a relationship with the city of Manassas and there’s a co-working space that incubates budding entrepreneurs who may wanna start their business. Can you describe that for me?

Jackie Krick: So about five years ago we engaged … I’m a co-founder, one of four, and we engaged in a private – public partnership with the city of Manassas to open up a co-working space here in the city. And the idea is to help entrepreneurs, micro, tiny little companies come and have a place where they can discover new potentials for opportunities to grow, for training. We have the SDBC here. I think they come to the office maybe two times a week, and they meet with businesses that either are starting their businesses, or they already are, have been founded, but they need more guidance and more mentorship. So we do that through the SDBC. And then it’s very economical. It’s only like $10 a day that they can come here and they can have access to all the resources, a table, networking. They can print materials. They can also meet other like-minded individuals that … where they can engage and have new business opportunities. And that actually has happened a lot here. So very interesting and very engaging. I love everything about growth and entrepreneurship and being able to connect with others. That’s what CenterFuse does.

Denzil Mohammed: It’s almost like you’ve come full circle since you first moved to the U.S. and would cry yourself to sleep. And now you’re actually actively giving back to other people, other young people probably from immigrant families as well, vulnerable families, too. Which is really, really very cool, which brings me to my last question, which is the United States has allowed you to thrive and be successful. Maybe it took a couple tries, but you got there. And I’m sure you’re still dreaming higher and higher. How do you feel about the United States as the place that allowed you to succeed as a woman, as an entrepreneur, as someone who has dreams,

Jackie Krick: I love this country.

Denzil Mohammed: Hmm.

Jackie Krick: I love it. I really think that it’s all inside of you. And I really, I am a force inside of me that really wanted to push forward just who I am. And I am so glad and thankful and appreciative of the United States. In the ways that, yes, we have a long way to go in so many things, right? But I had the opportunity to do it. And that, I mean opening a new business here is as easy as going and getting a license for your business.

Denzil Mohammed: Mmm.

Jackie Krick: Obviously that’s not something I would recommend because you need to know a little bit more than just that. But what I’m saying is there are so many things that facilitate you doing something. And if you put yourself into it every single day, you dedicate and you believe what you’re gonna do, and you have a computer or you go talk to people, it is so much easier to do business here. In Columbia, maybe other countries too, when you reach a certain age, you’re pretty old and there’s no more work. There’s no more opportunities. In the United States you have limitless opportunities where you can work and you can start your business even when you’re a senior citizen. It’s amazing. I love it.

Denzil Mohammed: It’s almost as though it’s built to foster entrepreneurship, right?

Jackie Krick: Pretty much, pretty much. Yeah.

Denzil Mohammed: And capitalize on the entrepreneurial talents and desires of immigrants like you. Jackie Krick, founder, president and CEO of ECU Communications in Manassas, Virginia, immigrant from Colombia and business owner, thank you so much for joining us on JobMakers.

Jackie Krick: Denzil, thank you so much. It’s great speaking with you.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contributions produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for this week’s inspiring story of immigrant entrepreneurship. Remember, you can subscribe to JobMakers on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And please leave us a rating and a review. I’m Denzil Mohammed, see you next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 51: Artur Sousa

JobMakers podcast logo: Artur Sousa's social entrepreneurship pays offHis own experience adopting a rescue puppy inspired Brazilian-born Artur Sousa to create a platform to make pet adoption easier, less expensive and more accessible. Sousa has used his tech expertise, international experience and passion for social entrepreneurship to enable thousands of shelter adoptions. Tune in to learn why Sousa believes not all immigrants have access to the American Dream.

Denzil MohammedI’m Denzil Mohammed and welcome to JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: What is social entrepreneurship? According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, social entrepreneurship is the process by which individuals, startups and entrepreneurs develop and fund solutions that directly address social issues. A social entrepreneur, therefore, is a person who explores business opportunities that have a positive impact on their community, in society, or the world. For Artur Sousa, immigrant from Brazil and founder and CEO of Adopets, a pet adoption platform that simplifies the work done by shelters and improves the pet adoption experience, fixing problems and doing good in the world is his business model. Unnecessary bureaucracy in the adoption process led him to create a platform that today has more than 40,000 registered users and maintains more than 300,000 adoption listings. Artur is a problem solver and his series of businesses and technologies have proven that, but he’s keenly aware of the factors that enabled him to succeed in the United States that not every immigrant experiences. The American Dream, as he says, is not always fair to everyone. He shares with us how opportunity, capitalism, circumstance and a rescue pet successfully aligned in this week’s JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Artur Sousa, founder and CEO of Adopets, welcome to JobMakers. How are you?

Artur Sousa: I am good. Thanks for having me, it’s such a pleasure.

Denzil Mohammed: So tell me a little bit about your business. It’s very unique, right?

Artur Sousa: I would like to think so. We chose to begin our journey within the pet adoption space. Basically we started because my wife and I decided to adopt a pet. We saw quite a few bureaucratic pieces of the adoption process that were very manual, very paper heavy at that point and we thought that we could be of help. I’ve always been involved in technology in one way or another and thought that we could maybe help out an organization that we have been working with. And once we did it, it became a little bit more of a thing and was like, well, maybe it can actually be a system that can serve the space in general, not just a little side project for our organization that we were supporting. And then with that in mind, Adopets was born at that point. Our focus really is on optimizing the adoption experience. The way we present ourselves is as a shelter, animal shelter that is, but shelter efficiency platform. So we are focusing really on the flow of their visitors all the way through meeting animals, through adopting animals, submitting their interests to those animals, signing contracts, paying adoption fees and so on and so on. So it really covers the entire spectrum of the adoption process, whether it is a actual animal shelter with the animals right there in a building or a foster based rescue with animals spread around volunteer houses and so on.

Denzil Mohammed: I see, so you’ve encountered a problem and you decided to fix it and out of that, a perfectly beautiful business was born. And this is not your first business either, is it?

Artur Sousa: No, it isn’t, I’ve been a little obsessed with it, fixing things. 

Denzil Mohammed: Tell me more about that. 

Artur SousaI think if I look back, and that’s not an observation that I do often, but when I look back to our business journey it has always been in that same context. What problem that annoyed me and that I thought maybe I could fix and that I had a specific type of passion for the outcome. So if I look at the very, very first one when we were working, I was working with a nonprofit, a very large nonprofit in Brazil, and the way we were project managing the projects that we have was very inefficient. We had a really large staff, mostly volunteers, to run the operations for the organization. So I decided to optimize that through a series of process-driven platforms. And that very first project created a whole other universe in my mind and journey and career then because we just reduced their general staffing 95 percent but we doubled the outcome from an impact wise just by being professionally organized. And that kind of triggered me, each of the social impact area of things. And I was just wanting to what if we could do something, but we have some money in return. And that makes us do even more and then it just makes this scalable model. I didn’t know what that was, social entrepreneurship at the time, mind you, but it ended up being what let me, led me to actually, to the U.S. to get a master’s in social entrepreneurship much later than that, but eventually was a cause.

Denzil MohammedSo take us back to you’ve mentioned Brazil and that’s where you were born. Paint us a picture, what was life like back in Brazil when you were growing up? 

Artur SousaBack home? I never really spent more than a year in one place, right? So from a financial standpoint was always moving to a new place so I had never, until college, I had never spent more than a year in the same school ’cause we would move and go to a new place ’cause you know mom couldn’t always afford rent and then we had to go into a new place there. We never, you know, there are many struggles in the world and I don’t don’t think mine was the worst there could be, but it had an impact. It had an impact in which, you know, I’ve actually gotten used to never settled and always keep moving and, from place to place. In Brazil, just college I spent in five different universities across five different states, just transferring when I would get bored and go to a new place. Cause it really gets you used to that movement. You get, you know, as a defense mechanism that, “I got to move, I’m done with this place. I gotta go to a new one.” So anyway, I think at Brazil was, it’s still the place that I need to go to recharge my soul when I feel empty. 

Denzil MohammedWow. That’s, that’s quite incredible. And the idea of, of constantly moving, obviously move to the U.S. which was a huge move. You said you did that to further your education and career. What was the experience like when you first moved here? 

Artur Sousa: It was weird at first, I was very excited, but it was, well, I didn’t have, especially with the foreign exchange coming from Brazil. I didn’t have all the funds that would require for comfortable stay during masters and it was a full-time master’s degree, so it wasn’t like I could be working. I wouldn’t be able to work either away from a visa standpoint if I could. So I came with my suitcase and stayed there for my master’s. At first was really weird to not fully understand the language. I had gotten enough that I had the grades qualification from an English standpoint, but because I studied very, very hard, not because I actually had mastered the language. So at first a lot of the things in classes, I would understand a lot more by context because I had been working for a long time, not by the textbook, or the teachers. But that lasted for a couple months. I had made a hard decision to not actually be with any Brazilian friends while in the U.S. So I would only hang out with English speaking ones, cause would force me to be more comfortable with the language and that really over time.

Denzil Mohammed: I can’t imagine going to do a master’s degree without having mastered the language that you were going to do that degree in. I mean, that must have been a really, you said weird, but it must’ve been a struggle those first few months. What motivates you most of all? Is it fixing problems and making, you know, just things easier for people? 

Artur Sousa: That is one of the things I think fixing problems is just on my personality, to point that I keep doing new things over time, cause once my business gets to a point of stability and more, you know, bureaucratic arrangement from a corporate standpoint, it’s not for me anymore. So I like to be in the mass of fixing things. That’s one big part of my personality, but the, the other part is one … this a funny story. Actually, I had a boss in Boston that I loved and he was very, very good to me. And he’s still a good friend and he, one day he told me that I was fundamentally unmanageable. I really like, and I took that as a, as one of my biggest compliments in life. Mind you because I, I don’t, I, I like thing, I like things that I can fix. I like going and experimenting and, and getting it wrong and breaking things and I’m fixing them again and seeing the best path for it. And in that sense, I don’t always, or have never, quite frankly, fit into a box in which I would just do the predetermined things that have been assigned to me. I always go beyond and, and entrepreneurship is the best place for that. 

Denzil MohammedSo as a social entrepreneur and a serial entrepreneur, talk us through the start of your current business. You mentioned that it was a bureaucratic problem that you wanted to solve, but get us into the sort of the nuts and bolts of the genesis of the business,

Artur SousaThe application process to adopt a pet varies from organization to organization, from state to state, city to city. It all varies quite a bit. But it’s overall a, a time consuming paper-happy process that relies on a lot of really loving, caring animal people that are behind those organizations, usually underpaid if paid at all, helping animals that don’t always have the time to do the process in a, in the most efficient way. When you’re looking at an adoption individual, we might be talking about, you know, few hours of time if you put together what the staff’s time and the adopter’s time to get the adoption concluded doesn’t sound all that much. But when you go to other organizations who have a partner, for instance, in New Zealand, that process is 40,000 adoptions a year. So if you have a couple of hours that you’re taking away from 40,000, you’re thinking 80,000 hours away just by using a system that simplifies it and takes the process to a more automatic approach of triggering communications and so on. You’re basically saving so much time that gives you the ability to save more animals. So that was the math behind the efficiency there. What we had to focus on was like, “Alright, so how do we make this?” from a monetization standpoint and from a scalability standpoint, a practical answer. And it took a while for the majority of the time that I was built, not majority anymore, but for the first two years of Adopets, I was building that while having a job and at that point we already had 70 members in the, in the organization, but I was still with my day job on, on, on, on the side until 2018 when I quit. And then I quit in 2018, we moved up to Maine and then my entire focus had me being on the business and that’s when we really focused on scale. And I kept saying on the blessing side, cause I believe that there’s gotta be some universe plan out there, because, you know, should the tragedy that pandemic was for society as a whole, if I can’t put a pin on that side for a minute, the pandemic, for the business really propelled it. Because when the pandemic hit, they didn’t have a choice, they needed to go online and nobody had been doing that at all. And we were right there, we were ready to go. We were ready there, society was not from a using digital tools for the adoption of animals. And then it caught up and then we were right in the, in the right place at the right time. 

Denzil Mohammed: You were perfectly positioned to, to, to deal with this pandemic and the fact that everyone wanted to have pets, all of a sudden. 

Artur Sousa: Fair. 

Denzil Mohammed: Give us the numbers. What’s, what’s the impact that your businesses have, has had over the years. 

Artur SousaOh, so last year alone, we had 70,000 adoptions going through the system. We are serving clients in Australia, in New Zealand, in the, in Canada and the U.S. haven’t gone into Brazil quite yet. Still a goal. We had about, at any given time, about 70 to a 100,000 animals available for adoption through our platform in majority of the U.S. states in there. And I will send you a note after this complete, ’cause it’s still confidential, but we are about to go into a really big change in, in the coming weeks with another partner in the, in the space. 

Denzil MohammedThe United States is sort of inherently entrepreneurial. I mean, we, it was built on that kind of spirit, and I like to say that immigrants themselves are inherently entrepreneurial because they take a risk, they don’t know if it’s gonna be better or worse. They pack a suitcase, leave everything they know behind and, and start fresh in some place new. What do you think makes the United States special when it comes to being a business owner, an entrepreneur? 

Artur Sousa: The American Dream story, right? That was built as a story first. It actually is a realistic approach that can be taken. It is still an unfair approach, you know, depending on your race, depending on your origins, depending on your language. Is not fair to all how the American Dream plays out. I say this in a very sad way, I am white in the sense that if I don’t speak, people don’t even know that I’m a foreigner. They don’t even guess that I’m a foreigner and it’s a horrible thing, but that plays out, in the U.S. plays out positively because of how the society is wired around the us. So I had many opportunities that came because I wasn’t really facing a biased approach prior to it. I had to make some changes, we were just joking before the call about that, but I would never send an email as Artur, I would always send an email as Arthur. But putting all of that aside, there is an opportunity. There is an opportunity where entrepreneurship is actually highly glorified in the U.S. That taking risks is actually a mundane thing. It’s not a, this when you’re born in a Catholic country, heavily Catholic country is, you know, we wanna have that little routine and you have the most stable job and the things, and the west is not so much about that as I believe some of the Hispanic countries or Latino countries like my own. Culturally, and we are all about that pursuing the dream and that’s powerful. Whether or not we get to realize it, whether or not it gets materialized for most people is that source of the debate and we can talk about that forever. But the pursuit of the dream really drives people. The idea of coming here and giving your all, because of that really well told American Dream story actually gets you places. It’s very little because of the American dreamD but a lot more because of your effort, in my opinion, and because you are pursuing it, you’re pursuing the idea of it. So you’re building your dream, not necessarily because the society is built out in a way that helps you get there, ’cause let’s be honest, it doesn’t. Right, finding funding depending on your color, depending on your race, depending where you’re from, it is very different now if you are, and I’m sorry if I’m being too direct about this, Denzil, but if you are, you know, a white kid that graduated at MIT, you get funding like this, you get funding with an idea before getting anything. Now, if you are a Latino entrepreneur or an African origin entrepreneur or a Black entrepreneur you actually get, or even middle eastern entrepreneurs too, like you tend to have a lot more hoops to navigate through. There are many funds that have been popping out, they are more focused on diversity and other things, but that’s still a minority consider compared to the other venture capital funds and other things. So the, the, the pursuit has to be what’s driving you, because it’s not really the, the context that is getting you there is that you really not dropping it, not giving up on it. And I think in, immigrants in general are very good at that because they already gave up all they knew coming here. So there is no choice, there is no going back at that point, you’re just is either make it or make it. 

Denzil Mohammed: There’s, there’s no safety net, there’s nothing to fall back on there. You don’t have your parents house to, to crash in if, if you enter a bad patch. You just, you have to make it work regardless of, of what you encounter. And I really appreciate the very nuanced and detailed way you painted the pursuit of the American dream and how it’s different for different people. A lot of people like to ignore that, these facts, that it is harder for some people based on very superficial things. I wanna pull it back a little a bit, we did some research in the greater Boston area and found that Brazilian, immigrants from Brazil had the highest rate of self-employment, up to 27 percent of Brazilians in Greater Boston said they were self-employed. This is incorporated and not incorporated businesses. What is with that? What is, what is it about Brazilians and starting businesses?

Artur Sousa: When I think about Latino entrepreneurs in general, not just Brazilian, we usually are talking about really resourceful people that, that really make things happen, you know, in a MacGyver way before they are there. And you’re just improvising and getting it there because of your drive. I think Latinos are very driven people generally on, on being better to their families, to themselves. 

Denzil Mohammed: I am happy that you are here in the U.S. and happy that you are making positive changes and happy that you are creating jobs. You’re currently employ 33 people and to date you’ve employed  hundreds. So you are a job creator, you are an indispensable member of this, of our community, and thank you for creating jobs and, and being innovative.

Artur SousaVery kind of you and thank you for having me here. Thank you for the work you do on bringing you know, immigrants to the spotlight. So we all are more comfortable with the contributions that immigrants build in this, in the country and how much we are actually a country of immigrants all together, building this together. 

Denzil MohammedArtur Sousa, founder, CEO of Adopets, thank you so much for joining us on the JobMakers podcast.

Artur Sousa: Thank you for having me. And if I can be of any help to anyone out there, let me know.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for this week’s powerful story of immigrant entrepreneurship. Remember, you can subscribe to JobMakers on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And please leave us a rating and a review. I’m Denzil Mohammed. See you next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 50: Karina Calderon

JobMakers podcast logo: Karina Calderon on how immigrant entrepreneurs help cities growAs a first-generation immigrant and successful businesswoman, Karina Calderon is perfectly positioned to help immigrant entrepreneurs thrive through her work with The Lawrence Partnership. The partnership helps Lawrence’s businesses grow and strengthen the local economy. Listen to learn how Calderon believes their model can scale to help more communities replicate their success.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and welcome to JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: The city of Lawrence, Massachusetts, is one we’ve talked about before. Why? Well, out of its 90,000 strong population, 40.8 percent is foreign born and more than 80 percent identify as Hispanic or Latino. According to The Immigrant Learning Center, it has the third highest concentration of immigrants in the entire Commonwealth and it’s buzzing with immigrant entrepreneurs. For Karina Calderon, deputy director of the Lawrence Partnership, a collaboration of business and civic leaders started in 2015 to help grow businesses in a way that benefits all its residents, that immigrant entrepreneurship is the engine driving the growth of the city. She and the Lawrence Partnership are tasked with incubating, training, assisting, loaning, basically doing everything they and their partners can to grow the city’s businesses. The model they’ve adopted is replicable, for sure, and is one based on long standing relationships and trust between new and longtime residents. Karina explains how it works, shares some of the success stories of the immigrant small business owners and details her own immigration story of making it in the States by herself, as you learn in this week’s JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Karina Calderon, deputy director of the Lawrence Partnership, how are you? Welcome to JobMakers!

Karina Calderon: Thank you. I’m very good. I’m very happy to be here. Thank you for the invitation.

Denzil Mohammed: So tell us a little bit about the Lawrence Partnership. It’s a fairly new initiative and it’s all about making Lawrence bigger and brighter and better, right?

Karina Calderon: It is for sure. So the Lawrence Partnership, it came out of a collaboration of the private sector, the public sector and also the nonprofit sector. So we have a very robust board of directors of 30 to 32 leaders, local leaders that are executive directors, presidents, CEOs of local, big companies that are here in Lawrence. They saw a need of coming together and in working towards creating an inclusive economic development for the city of Lawrence.

Denzil Mohammed: And what does inclusive economic development look like?

Karina Calderon: So we do that through different initiatives and I can tell you a few of them. So you know how I told you that we have a very robust board of directors? Some of them are presidents of different banks in the area. And something that they did was that the bankers in our board, they came together and they invited some other banks, also local, to come and put together a fund. And it’s called a venture loan fund. And the idea of this fund is to be able to provide loans to businesses, small businesses that are considered non-bankable. So if a small business owner needs a loan, goes to bank X-Y-Z, which is a huge bank, and they get denied, they can go to our venture loan fund and apply for a loan there. And the main interest of our bankers is to inject this money into the community and help the small businesses with the needs that they have. So what they did was they each came with about a hundred thousand dollars, and right now we have a $1.1 million venture load fund. And [to] date, if I’m not mistaken, I know that we have lent a little bit more, but last time that I checked, that I had an actual report, it was about $600,000 that we had put out in the streets to the small businesses since last summer when we relaunched the venture loan fund. So that’s a way for us to create that inclusive economic development. That’s one of the initiatives, that it’s big on that.

Karina Calderon: Another initiative that we also have, it’s called a revolving test kitchen. It started as an incubator. So it started … It was a collaboration between Sal Lupoli, who had a restaurant actually in our building on 420 Common Street, Northern Essex Community College, the Lawrence Partnership, and also the city of Lawrence. Sal had that restaurant there. It didn’t work out for him. It wasn’t a Sal’s Pizza or anything like that. It had a different name. So then Northern Essex, who rents the building, told them, “Sal, you have that space there with all that equipment, let’s do something about it.” So we came together and we were able to give this space to a food entrepreneur that wanted to test his recipes, test his business plan. And we gave him the space for a year, so they could run it as a restaurant. They didn’t have to worry about overhead or anything like that. They did have to pay $500 a month, which if they, by the time that they were done with their one year period, if they opened a brick and mortar in the city of Lawrence, they would get all their money back. So we did that for three years. It was a successful program. Also, let me just say that, let me just add that besides using the space and that help with the rent and stuff like that, they also got technical assistance. So the team from Sal Lupoli was giving them some pointers and education on certain areas that they needed help with, like setting prices, cost of good salt and things like that. The city facilitated them getting certain licenses that they need in order to operate their business. So it was a true collaboration. So, like I said, three years we did that. Three successful businesses came out of there. CocoRay’s on Market Street in South Lawrence, El Encanto who ended up opening a food truck and then Bocaditos who decided after that she wanted to do safe-surf classes in Spanish for the Hispanic community. So three success stories each in their own way.

Denzil Mohammed: This does sound very, very collaborative. And I, and when you introduce the ideas of getting licenses and permits and that kind of thing, that is, especially for immigrant entrepreneurs who are not familiar with the system and need that kind of technical support, that’s really important.

Karina Calderon: About two, three weeks ago, we had an event. We called it How to Start a Business and Expand it in the City of Lawrence. And we were very intentional because you may know that about 89, 90 percent of this community is Hispanic. So we were very intentional about making this event in Spanish.

Denzil Mohammed: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative]

Karina Calderon: And we had simultaneous translation services inside so people could feel comfortable. Because if there’s something that is true, is that I feel like people get to trust you a little bit more when they, when you are speaking their same language. They feel more comfortable. The walls come down. We had two panels. The first one was different business owners, local business owners talking about their experiences, giving tips, what worked for them, what didn’t, things like that to inspire the entrepreneurs that were there watching them and listening to their stories, so they can know that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. And then the second panel, it was organizations like ours, like Mill Cities Community Investments, Entrepreneurship for All, Merrimack Valley Planning Commission, Federación Hispana de Comerciantes, which is like a Hispanic chamber of commerce type of organization, they were there and also the city of Lawrence. They were there talking about the resources that are available for business owners. And it’s unbelievable the lack of information that it’s out there. It’s a huge challenge. People are not aware of the resources and some resources are going untapped because not everybody has access or not even, they don’t even know about their existence. I learned about a few things there, myself.

Denzil Mohammed: It almost seems as though immigration was a key, played a key role in the model of the partnership, because you had to reconcile with and recognize that their language barriers, because these are new Americans and immigrants learn English over time, that it happens, but at the start when they need to get a leg up speaking their own language literally, as you said, builds trust. But I wanna ask this. This is happening now. You said you, the Partnership, started in 2014. Why did it take so long for something like this to happen?

Karina Calderon: Relationships, they take time to build that trust. It takes time. So I think that possibly, maybe that had a little bit of a factor. But we are not being shy now. Before, I remember we didn’t take credit for anything. We would do the work. We would work with a group of partners. We would do the work, we rolled up our sleeves, do the work, and we didn’t need to take credit. Not that we’re doing it now. But we’re just doing it a little differently because we do want people to know that the Lawrence Partnership is here. And it’s very important. It goes back to trust, that they don’t only know that we’re here, but that they see the people … We are a team of three, George Ramirez, the executive director, myself, and then our new star Giselle Peguero. And it’s important that when they see us, they see they can picture themselves because we look like them. We are here because we care about the community, and the community … We look like them, they look like us. We are one and … our priority is to bring this community forward.

Denzil Mohammed: And I imagine, of course, that’s not just the Hispanic community that you’re reaching out to. It’s everyone.

Karina Calderon: Everyone, exactly. Everyone. And thankfully we can navigate in the different cultures. And we have partners, also. Like I told you, we’re not doing, we’re not necessarily doing this alone. So where one is lacking, the other one is compensating. So I’m not worried.

Denzil Mohammed: And you mentioned Entrepreneurship for All, a really, really fantastic initiative. I see that they’re even in northwest Arkansas now.

Karina Calderon: Yes.

Denzil Mohammed: Started by Desh Deshpande, who’s also a big legend in the Merrimack Valley area, legendary entrepreneur. So what does the economic landscape in Lawrence look like today?

Karina Calderon: So right now, let’s say we have a group that it’s working [on] revitalizing the downtown of Lawrence. We have these beautiful flower pots on every corner, beautifying the streets. We have building owners working on the facades of their buildings on Essex Street, trying to make it more appealing and more inviting for people to feel comfortable and come to Essex Street and to Lawrence in general. We have great restaurants. So I hear some people, that they say we wanna make Lawrence the mecca of food. I’m like, yeah, sure. Bring it on. Let’s make it happen. And we have people that are working on that. We also have huge companies, local companies that are affecting the economy positively. We have Gemline, Able Womack, and both of them in an industrial park, and New Balance, it’s also here in Lawrence, very committed to the city and in helping it succeed.

Denzil Mohammed: I like the idea of a destination city for food because Malden, Massachusetts, is that. We take so much pride in the fact that we have such a variety of restaurants and just so many of them. You can get pho. You can get Thai food. You can get Mexican food, everything. A new ramen place just opened up on Pleasant Street.

Karina Calderon: Nice.

Denzil Mohammed: And you talked about Essex Street, which, of course, is like Main Street in Lawrence.

Karina Calderon: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. [Affirmative]

Denzil Mohammed: So tell me about the role of immigrants in the economic development of Lawrence overall, especially those immigrant business owners.

Karina Calderon: I think that they are the ones running the city. A lot of our businesses are immigrant, sometimes non-English speaking. And I have to give some kudos to our partner, Entrepreneurship for All, ’cause they have E para Todos, which is the Spanish version of their program. And sometimes I’ve seen reports of the work they do and they would tell you so many immigrants, and it’s like 93 out of 100. [Laughs]

Denzil Mohammed: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative]

Karina Calderon: It’s a big number. And these are people that, they’re hungry, they want to succeed. They came here because they had a dream and this is the land of opportunities. That’s what I was told before I came, before I moved to this country. And that’s how I see it. And many people see it like that. So, yes, immigrants are the ones running the small business community in Lawrence, for sure.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s fascinating and a very, very important point. And you said that they’re hungry. They come here with a desire, with a yearning, they have to succeed and they’re inherently entrepreneurial. Just the fact that they moved to another country not knowing if it’s gonna be better or worse is itself an entrepreneurial act.

Karina Calderon: Exactly.

Denzil Mohammed: Really inherently entrepreneurial. And I’m glad that the city of Lawrence is really capitalizing on that and optimizing it to the benefit of the entire community. And you just mentioned that you came here from another country as well. What is your immigration story?

Karina Calderon: So I am Dominican. I was born and raised in Dominican Republic. I came to spend the summer in Hampton Beach because I was in college there. I was going to architect school. And they had this program where college students could come for the summer, spend the summer, work, practice the language and then go back home. So I came twice. I came 2002, 2003. And then in 2003 my mom told me when I was getting ready to go back home, she goes, “Why don’t you stay and try to open doors for us. Things are a little rough here.”

Denzil Mohammed: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative]

Karina Calderon: Mom, are you serious? Like, I don’t have anybody here. I don’t. And she …

Denzil Mohammed: And you’re just a kid.

Karina Calderon: Twenty-two years old.

Denzil Mohammed: Yeah, exactly.

Karina Calderon: But it happened at the right time because, let me tell you, if it happened to me now, I don’t think I would’ve had the same energy and the same drive. So I stayed with some friends that I made along the way, and I … A lot of things have happened, but that’s another story for another day. But I am so glad because those ups and downs that I went through helped me to be where I am today. And this is not even my final destination just yet. There’s still much more to be done. But I am so grateful for the community that welcomed me. I have no family here. It’s just me and my two daughters, but I have a great network of friends, of colleagues. So I’m grateful for what the city has done for me. And I think that it’s only right that I keep doing the same thing for the city.

Denzil Mohammed: Perfectly said. Very, very well said. That’s incredible. And to think that, I mean, people take for granted how hard it is as an adult especially to learn a whole new language, a whole new culture, all the different laws. And you’re embedded in all the licensing and credentialing and permitting and all these different things. What is a credit score? You know, what is that? So many things to learn and you … I’m so pleased that you chose to stay with your mother’s encouragement.

Karina Calderon: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative]

Denzil Mohammed: How does it feel for you, knowing how difficult it would’ve been back in the Dominican Republic, to have your daughters grow up in Lawrence and in the United States?

Karina Calderon: I feel very appreciative and very blessed. If my daughters would be here, they would be rolling their eyes because one thing that I used to tell them since they were very little was … And they would verbatim repeat it as I was saying it, because I said it so long. So, I mean, I said it so many times that I would … I used to tell them, listen … ‘Cause my oldest one, she was born in Dominican Republic, so an immigrant. The little one was born here. But I told her, listen, we came to this country to be the best version of ourselves, to take advantage of those opportunities that they give us and work with them and be the best version of ourselves. Because back home we didn’t have that, the education. We don’t. We were blessed back home, at least my family, that I did have access to an education, but many people didn’t have the same luxury. So to come here and see that anybody, as long as they want it, they can have that education. I know that there are their challenges because not everything is easy. Then you have to have some skin in the game. But I just told them, let’s be that, let’s be the best versions that we can be. And I’m just grateful … I never thought that I would end up here. Like I told you, I came for a summer to have fun with my friends and make some money and bring it back home. And to end up here and make my life here and to live in this community that is home now, it’s wonderful.

Denzil Mohammed: And you’re having an impact.

Karina Calderon: [Laughs]

Denzil Mohammed: You’re having an impact on the city of Lawrence and beyond. And I hope others, municipal workers, are listening in to this to really realize how important these partnerships and these relationships are toward a more inclusive economic situation wherever they are. You have to get everyone’s … Everyone needs to be at the table, whether they’re new or old and the new tend to be that hungry, those hungry people who will take that risk and start a business.

Karina Calderon: Exactly.

Denzil Mohammed: And try it out and hopefully end up being successful. Karina Calderon of the Lawrence Partnership, thank you so much for joining us on JobMakers.

Karina Calderon: Thank you. It was a pleasure.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast on immigrant entrepreneurship and contributions produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for this week’s powerful story of immigrant entrepreneurship. Remember, you can subscribe to JobMakers on Apple podcast, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And please give us some stars. I’m Denzil Mohammed, see you next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 49: Evan Silverio

JobMakers podcast logo: Evan Silverio builds on immigrant mother's business successEvan Silverio built on the success of his immigrant entrepreneur mother by pushing her business to new heights and founding a new enterprise of his own. Taking lessons from his mother and grandfather, Silverio built real estate and insurance agencies that have thrived and employed people despite immense economic hardship. Listen to learn how he’s repaying his community through volunteering and offering tens of thousands of dollars in scholarships.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed. Welcome to JobMakers. 

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Denzil Mohammed: In a report from The Immigrant Learning Center titled, “Adult Children of Immigrant Entrepreneurs,” it was found that children of immigrant business owners tended to work careers that helped people. Social work, health care education, rather than entrepreneurship. Makes sense. They’ve seen how much effort it takes to run a business in a new country while trying to learn the language laws and customs at the same time. In fact, the report found that the parents often dissuade their children from following the path they chose. For Evan Silverio, child of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, president and CEO of Silverio Insurance Agency and founder of Diverse Real Estate, both in Lawrence, Massachusetts, he bit the bullet and with the example set by his mother who founded the agency, achieved success. Eventually getting into real estate during a housing bust wasn’t easy, but just like the perseverance his mother embodied, Evan stuck with it and has since purchased nearly 100 properties across the Commonwealth. Evan describes the example set by his immigrant mother and grandfather and how that shaped not just his approach to business, but also his approach to giving back to the community that nurtured him, kind of like those other children of immigrant entrepreneurs I mentioned, as you learn in this week’s JobMakers. 

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Denzil Mohammed: Evan Silverio, president CEO, Silverio Insurance Agency, and manager of Diverse Real Estate, welcome to the JobMakers podcast. How are you?

Evan Silverio: Thank you. Thank you so much, thank you for having me.

Denzil Mohammed: So tell us a little bit about your businesses and also perhaps tell us a little bit about the things that matter most to you as a professional and an entrepreneur.

Evan Silverio: My mother was, you know, extremely intelligent, hardworking, fearless individual. It was myself and two older sisters that were born here. You know, it’s interesting, she gave me the name Evan because she liked the name, but because she thought it was going to be easier on me in my transition in the United States, right. But funny enough, a lot of people find it confusing and they call me Kevin, so it didn’t go as, as planned. My parents were strict, they were also very aspirational coming from another country. Indirectly, I learned a lot through their own struggles as immigrants; long working hours, failing out at a lot of business, different business ventures, navigating the school systems, helping family with immigration paperwork. I remember a story about my sister, my oldest sister going to school and my mother really had to fight for her, for them to accept her in the school system and not put her in a Spanish-speaking, I guess …

Denzil Mohammed: Like an English language program or something? 

Evan Silverio: Yeah, yeah, like she wanted her to be specific and I remember that being a huge struggle and eventually, you know, she put up such a fight that they allowed her to participate and my sister did fine and she excelled. Yeah. So it was interesting. But for us, it was normal and we’re around a lot of immigrants, so it made it even that much more normal.

Denzil Mohammed: So you spoke a little bit about your mother and I think you alluded to her determination and her perseverance in the situation with your sister at school. Tell us a little bit more about your mother. She is an entrepreneur, a community leader. She even ran from mayor of Lawrence. That is incredibly cool and incredibly, as you say, aspirational. Tell us more about her.

Evan Silverio: Yeah, like I mentioned, you know, when I think about my mother just intelligent, hard working and fearless, but also funny, passionate, you know, bighearted. I think, I think she spent most of her life making sure that everyone else was okay and that’s exactly how she formed her business and why she gave dedicated long hours to the community, her church, her family, right. Her business was basically established because she was helping friends and family fill out paperwork, do translations, immigration consulting, then after that it leads to taxes and eventually to insurance and it was more out of her dedication to her community that she also found a way to monetize it and say, “Okay, well, I need to also run a business.” So, there has to be some fees associated with that. but it wasn’t about the money either because most of our time through the community was volunteer work, right. City counselor, or running for mayor and, and saying, you know, or her time on the boards, more volunteer work than anything.

Denzil Mohammed: I do want to make a point that, you know, she started these successful businesses here and as you say, it indirectly affected and improved the community. But she would not have been able to start her own business back in the Dominican Republic if she were living there, right?

Evan Silverio: The opportunity to help other people who really needed someone like her. A voice, a representative of sorts. And I think, you know, she used all of the skills she had and really shined being here in particular in Lawrence. But I think the type of person my mother was, she would’ve been successful in the Dominican Republic. 

Denzil Mohammed: So let’s turn it over to you now. Tell us about your real estate business that you started in 2009 while still in your twenties. What has that been like and how do you see this business growing in the future?

Evan SilverioYeah, the real estate business is just essentially myself investing in real estate. So prior to jumping on board to the family business, I was a loan officer for a total of nine years. I think, four years before jumping on board and then while I was doing insurance, I was also continuing the loan officer career. And the reason being is I just needed the money, right. When my mother came and asked me to jump into the family business and she couldn’t afford much, right. So I said, “Okay, let me, you know, come on board and I’ll continue doing mortgages as best I can with the same amount of time.” Through mortgages and through being a loan consultant I just recognized real estate a little bit. I could understand it a little bit and I decided, you know what, I think I can throw my hat in the ring and, and try to make some money in real estate. And my first two investments failed. They were terrible failures. And so, yeah, so it was pretty interesting. It was during the real estate boom and bust and I got caught with some real estate in my hand, but for some reason I said to myself, I still believe, you know, that this is a good time to invest. So while everybody else was kind of backpedaling, I got back on the horse, started investing again, and it was hard, you know, you have to sacrifice, you have to make sure you do good by a lot of people. You know, as I mentioned earlier, it was a lot of hard money lending in order to get some investments in. But, you know, the reason that I thought it was interesting was my reasoning kept on changing over time. Initially it was, you know, if I can just get a property to pay for my auto loan, that’d be great. And then it said, well, if I could do that, I can get a property to pay for, you know, wherever I was gonna live and that would be great. And then it just kept on going and snowballing and you know, and a 100 properties later, you know, you change it and say, well, passive income, it has a retirement plan, there’s booming equity. And now it’s funding certain acquisitions for the insurance agency. So it’s kind of working out well.

Denzil MohammedWow. I like how that balances out with the insurance agency too. And as you say, a 100 properties, that is incredible. So you spoke a lot about your and your mother’s community involvement and, you know, the model of her business, you know, helping people with immigration forms and taxes and venturing that into a business, monetizing it. Your involvement today stretches from the Lawrence Redevelopment Authority to a scholarship fund you started with Grammy-winning producer and Lawrence native DJ Buddha. So, tell me what is like the guiding principle behind this kind of work that you do?

Evan Silverio: Honestly, I think it just comes from this responsibility to give back, to contribute. The scholarship fund as you mentioned with DJ Buddha, you know, he was a Lawrentian such as myself. He went to Central Catholic with me and I think post-graduation, once we had some money in our pocket we had a clear understanding that the reasons we were allotted certain opportunities was because of the opportunities that we were given to attend, you know, a higher education than the high school level and we wanted to give other people that same opportunity. We think that really was a pivot, a game changer for us in our younger years and if other people can have that same experience and we can make that same pivot for other people, then, then we were going to put some effort into that. But I think it really comes down to the responsibility to contribute and give back where and when we can. I think now where I have less time on my hands I know that I still have in the back of my head because part of the whole business plan, be it with real estate or be it with the insurance, is to make sure that successful enough that we can continue to contribute to those in the private sector, nonprofit or just community, advocates that align with our belief system. And hopefully we can contribute because they need capital to do what they do. So if we can be a source for them then, then we’ll be happy to be. 

Denzil Mohammed: As you talk about community development, I really think deeply of Lawrence, which of course, you know, had all the mills and it had that sort of boom and then it sort of busted. And it became a place where immigrants moved in because the rents were cheap. I recall your mother saying that it wasn’t until Latinos were elected to the City Council that things really began to change for minorities in terms of access to help and growing their businesses and things like that. In terms of economic development in Lawrence, where do you see Lawrence headed and what changes would you like to see, or what changes would you like to, to help bring about? 

Evan Silverio: Yeah, Lawrence is definitely evolving. And I think that you’re looking at the tail end of some great things, right. Lawrence 15, 20 years ago is a totally different Lawrence. And I think, I think we have a lot of communities asking our local leaders right now, “How did Lawrence do it?” I was just on a call the other day with, I think it was Chicopee asking and picking our brain on, “Hey, you know, we, we saw everything that you were able to do, you know, can you give us some, some pointers,” right. And, and what’s funny is the pointers really come down to that, you really just have to have enough people invested who want it bad enough to roll up their sleeves, to try to get the work done, right? Whatever changes and the better the plan than, than the better, the more the buy-in. But if you don’t have the people it’s gonna be a very difficult thing to move the city. In Lawrence, we have that. We have private, we have public, have nonprofit, all collaborating and working together. This has been the fundamental difference. There is no one person or entity who’s done it all. It’s a combined effort over a long period of time. So I think a lot of people say, oh, wow. Overnight, no, it’s, you know, 30 years in the making. So it definitely takes a village but we need more villagers to take pride and to participate. We can’t afford to wait for someone else to make these changes for us. We need to be the change.

Denzil Mohammed: And it’s safe to say that immigrants, business owners, workers, community members are part of that change. In Lawrence, I was, I remember talking to Theresa Park on this podcast and she was very proud of the work that she was able to accomplish in Lawrence, which was incidentally the place where her Korean family moved when they first came to the us. Finally, you said your, you know, your grandfather moved from the Dominican Republic to the U.S. and eventually sent for your mother. It wasn’t an easy task for either of them. And, you know, your mom walking around with dictionaries at school and I have that vivid memory in my head, but she stuck with it and here you are. Reflect on those risks that they took and compare it perhaps to the risks that you take as an entrepreneur. 

Evan Silverio: ‘Cause I, I think about it off, I think about it often the risk that they take and I think a lot of what I’ve done has been based on thinking about in retrospect, the sacrifices that were made by all of those that came before me, I think I mentioned that earlier. I think about a lot of the risks that I’ve taken as an investor, you know, the hard money lending, the, the large risks that I’ve taken. And I by far cannot compare that to the risks of my grandfather, my mother, my father, who came here. You know, when I think about it, I think it’s because I still live in my comfort zone and my choices be it co college or career, we all closely, you know, relative to where my family is and, and what I thought my options were. But just having those options, just having options in general, I think a lot of people take for granted. You don’t have to be right about your options, but you still have options, right. But their risk and their decisions revolved around something deeper the safety of their families, to put people in better positions, that’s not so much themselves, but their daughters, their sons, their, and the sons and daughters of, of sons and daughters to have more resources. You know, they, they, weren’t looking to be millionaires. They were just looking for a better life and they risked it all to do so. They came to this country with no real money, no real connections and no resources until they got here and they figured it out, right. There was this, this myth that the country that they were going to had this stuff waiting for them. And this was still a better option than just staying put, right? And, you know, I think nobody goes into something and, and takes risks and says, “This is a bad idea, but let me do it anyway.” Everybody thinks whatever risk they’re taking is because there’s some reward and something and I think in retrospect I, myself and the reward and hopefully my kid’s kids as well of all the sacrifices that they’ve made,

Denzil Mohammed: I did not mean to exclude dad. We have to mention dad as well. Lastly, I’m sure that they’re gonna be young brown boys and girls, teenagers, people in their twenties who perhaps consider starting their own business. What advice would you give to young budding entrepreneurs, or what are some of the lessons that you’ve learned that you think you would like to impart? 

Evan Silverio: There’s nothing built, nothing beats out keeping your word, you know, building trust, you know, those things that’s what everything is based off of, right. Relationships with bankers, relationships with networking people, all of that is gonna continue building the more that you can build your trust with them and complete the task that you say you’re gonna complete. If you continue doing that, I think more people will follow you, I think more people will trust you, I think more people will invest in you and you have to be willing to take that risk on yourself and say, you’re good enough and you’re trustworthy enough and, and don’t break, don’t break that for anything or anybody, not even money. And if you keep at it, you will succeed. 

Denzil Mohammed: Not even money. I love how you phrased that. Evan Silverio, President & CEO of Siverio Insurance Agency in Lawrence, Haverhill and Woburn and sole manager of Diverse Real Estate, thank you so much for joining us on the JobMakers podcast. This was a lovely and fascinating interview.

Evan Silverio: Thank you so much, Denzil, for having me and I love the podcast, and I’ll continue to keep listening.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not for profit that gives immigrants a voice. I am so happy that you joined us for this week’s powerful story of immigrant entrepreneurship passed down to the next generation. Remember you can subscribe to JobMakers on Apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And please leave us a review. I’m Denzil Mohammed. See you next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 48: Abul Islam

JobMakers podcast logo: Abul Islam helps rebuild America's infrastructurePakistani American entrepreneur Abul Islam is determined to use cutting edge technology to repair the United States’ struggling infrastructure system. He also believes that a strong immigration system and a homegrown STEM talent pipeline are both vital to making that happen. Listen to learn how he built a $50 million company from the ground up!

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and welcome to JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: So we finally have an infrastructure bill signed into law last November. America’s infrastructure is not in good shape and we need solid infrastructure to grow the economy. How else do we get to work? Ship supplies? And travel from here to there? But who’s doing the rebuilding? For Abul Islam, immigrant from Pakistan and founder, president & CEO of AI Engineers, headquartered in Middletown, Connecticut, he’s one of the people helping to rebuild America. AI Engineers is a consulting firm that builds and rehabilitates bridges, transportation systems, and building systems throughout the U.S. Since 1991, AbuI has created nearly 1,000 jobs and today leads a $50 million company. Abul believes in power of education, particularly in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, to uplift urban centers and create a pipeline of skilled workers. Because while we draw that talent from international students and H-1B workers, it’s something the U.S. is sorely lacking in its own students and future workforce, as you’ll learn in this week’s JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Abul Islam, founder, president, CEO of AI Engineers in Middletown, Connecticut, welcome to the JobMakers podcast. How are you?

Abul Islam: Thank you, Denzil. How are you doing?

Denzil Mohammed: I’m pretty good. So give us the 30-second pitch about your company, AI Engineers. What do you do?

Abul Islam: We do consulting, engineering, construction management for usually government agencies, state, municipalities. We’ve also worked for federal government. Ninety percent of our business is with the state DOTs, government agencies, clients that own transportation networks. And the business has grown from two people, me and my wife, in 30 years to 261 people, six offices, Middletown, Connecticut, as our headquarters. We have grown significantly in the last five years. We started as a minority disadvantaged business. That was a great help. And now we are looking forward to growing this business, actually doubling our revenue in the next three years.

Denzil Mohammed: So why do you consider this line of work important? And briefly, how has it evolved over the years? ‘Cause you’ve been around for, what, 30 years now?

Abul Islam: Yes. This line of work is important for our country, our society, our community, because if you don’t rebuild your infrastructure, which is about at least 50, 60 years old … bridges, highways, public buildings, water, wastewater, sewer systems … if you don’t rebuild them, you will not have growth and economic development. And we in the U.S. were the pioneers of building the first world-class highway, connecting 3000 miles east-west, 2000 miles north-south, the crisscrossing highways. But then somehow after the ’80s, we did not expand anymore, unlike China and other emerging countries who has really invested a lot more since the mid ’80s or early ’90s. And they have more modern infrastructure from high-speed trains to [inaudible] interchanges, highways connecting big cities, transportation, intermodal network and so on and so forth. So our business is absolutely critical in rehabilitating, upgrading and repairing our bridges and highways. So it’s all the more important for us to really rebuild our infrastructure now that we have finally got some money in the infrastructure bill to rebuild our infrastructure so that we can sustain our economic and social development. And that’s how critical infrastructure is and that’s our line of business.

Denzil Mohammed: Thank you for articulating that it’s so key to economic growth and that there was a time when we weren’t growing as fast as other countries. So you were born in Pakistan and a lot of Americans don’t have any idea what life is like in other countries. Can you sort of just take us back to your childhood in Pakistan and paint us a picture? What was it like growing up?

Abul Islam: It was good generally back then when I was growing up in the late ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. I came to the United States January 1983 and life wasn’t that bad. I enjoyed my time in Pakistan when we were growing up, going to the engineering school. I used to hang out at the U.S. Information Center, for that matter German or French, in Karachi, cultural centers and all that, and learned a lot about other countries and cultures by being in Pakistan before I even decided to come for my graduate studies in engineering.

Denzil Mohammed: So education was something that was really important in your family, right?

Abul Islam: Yeah, absolutely. As I said that my grandfather got an English education, that was almost like 110 years ago. And then he got a government job with the Indian government, which was the capital in Kolkata, which is Calcutta back then. And successively, all of the family members went to schools, 12-year schools, colleges in Karachi, New Delhi, wherever. Our family spread all over the subcontinent and they made it a point to send their kids to school. Even if they have economic difficulties or challenges, middle class people, two parents working for a government making ends meet, but they’re paying the tuition fee for sending their kids to English school or the local schools, taking a lot of attention on what they study. We were seven brothers and sisters. I was the second one.

Denzil Mohammed: You arrived in the U.S. in January of 1983.

Abul Islam: That’s right.

Denzil Mohammed: In New York City. What was the experience like when you first moved here?

Abul Islam: I was excited, although I didn’t have a lot of money. I didn’t know how I would meet my expenses for the next one and a half years. I didn’t have the tuition paid. I got an interest-free loan and some grants to pay for my tuition for first, second and third semester, but I just had an allowance of $200 a month for living expenses. You couldn’t just live in New York City for $200. All that was in 1983, the minimum was there like $700 back then for a student, but I had $200. That was why, so I had to do work in the campus, outside the campus and full time student, but I didn’t complain. I worked whatever opportunities came along my way. I worked and without a lot of money I had a good time.  I tried to immerse myself in the cultural milieu of New York City, which I loved. So many people from so many countries, so many intellectual discussion, music. You used to get $2 music tickets at the Juilliard School or others, where you can be there, fraction of the price, in a concert or something. So all these things were not there in Pakistan, the cultural part, the art part, other than engineering, which also expand my vistas and horizon with regard to life, society, and community. So I can make a distinction between where I am from and how this society is different.

Denzil Mohammed: I love how you were already such a curious person and to be able to absorb all that New York City had to offer. And you’re an engineer, but you’re absorbing music and art and history and politics. Really, really fascinating. But you did not intend to be an entrepreneur. You didn’t come here with the intention of starting a business. What brought you into this space of entrepreneurship?

Abul Islam: Need basically. The engineering salary was hardly enough to sustain a family. I just got married in ’89. I had my first born in ’90. I had signed up for a mortgage in March 1990. People were advising, “Hey, there’s a minority business program.” And my big company that I used to work for, I was a licensed agent. Hey, you can start a company. I said, that’s a good idea. So I thought this over, sat on it for months, and six months and eight months. Then after a year, I took the leap of faith and started my own company. And it didn’t go anywhere in the first 18 months, you know, almost ran out of my last saving on the 18th month before I got my first contract for $50,000. That’s when it took off. And from the first $50,000 fee job we are a $50 million company today. And I work like a dog, doing night work, doing day work, and myself the production guy one day, you know, my wife doing the accounting and billing and all that stuff. Making calls to clients, small enterprise and all that. So it took a long time. And that was a great time to really understand what business is. Accountants came along the way, lawyers, and you gotta know. Went to a couple of business training schools, three day classes, two day, whatever. I took a lot of those classes, and that opened my business with regard to the world of business. ‘Cause nobody in the family had anything to do with business. Science, engineering, or maths or doctors, engineer, lawyer, those were the three professions, in fact. So nothing else, no concept of a businessman.

Denzil Mohammed: I mean, that’s what I was about to say. There’s so many programs available now for budding entrepreneurs, mentorship programs, incubators, all sorts of things. And 30 years ago, we didn’t have those things. So it’s quite remarkable that you were able to bootstrap and, without having a safety net, very importantly, you’ve imbued your company with particular values. And I know that you are well aware of how aware young people are today of corporate responsibility. Can you talk about that and why those values are important?

Abul Islam: They want to have the companies to have values, societal values, transparency in internal dealings too. That is very crucial for you building an agile organization, especially in our age where DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] is also so important. You know, it was not 20 years ago. I mean, DEI is, should be real. DEI was always there for these big corporations to Wall Street. They had somebody from our background, ethnicity, color or whatever, put in a nice place, but he or she didn’t have the real power. What the industry is asking for now, that if you have anybody, any ethnic class, gender protected and all that, if you, he, or she’s got the power, it better be real power in the organization. Just don’t put your face on that, say we are in compliance with all minority requirements. That was the product I saw, but not anymore. Many companies, including private Wall Street companies, are serious about giving opportunities to the qualified person across the board, across the DEI spectrum, diversity, equity and inclusion. So this is real, this is good. This is happening in my lifetime, after 30 years in business. It was not there.

Denzil Mohammed: And I do recognize that you’re very intentionally coming up with a new mission narrative for your organization. And this I imagine is a huge part of that.

Abul Islam: Absolutely. So I have it, a book, you can have it in our website too. It’s called AI Engineers. As you can see, it’s called Our Agile Journey and in the second page of the book it says, and this is based on my own experience working with government agencies, that most organizations are rigid machines, triangle or hierarchical silos, and all that. What we want to be is an agile organization where the we, people-centric culture … agile is people-centric, rapid decision-making, collaborative team-oriented environment. And we are rather a nucleus here and all the teams are working. This concept took me, this book is three years old and every employee has this book now. And we question them. We ask them, well, are we in compliance with this book? We must practice agility because we live in a very uncertain and unpredictable world. When you can predict what is gonna happen tomorrow, you can have a process, manual, procedures, which is all good. So much of our world was, you know, last 50 years of industrial, economic, huge development that we made everywhere, government, private and all that, was predictable, that we can predict this, we can predict the outcomes. Therefore, a structured organization tends itself to make sense. When our world is totally changing and become more unpredictable, more destructive, all of the factors, including new technology, you simply can’t use that rigid structure, especially in an organization where people work with their intellect, engineering talent, experience and all that. So the agile practice is a logical conclusion for the successful engineering firm of the future.

Denzil Mohammed: I love that you’re holding yourself accountable.

Abul Islam: Yes, absolutely.

Denzil Mohammed: I wanna get into one particular area that’s really of interest to me and I’m sure to you too. So I’ve counted at least 23 job openings on your company’s web site. We know that there’s a shortage of American students in STEM and for international students, foreign students who come to the U.S. tend to dominate the STEM areas. So we often have to rely on that foreign talent. And, of course, you know that foreign talent brings diversity, which in and of itself has its own richness. But what have you been doing or seeing when it comes to addressing this issue of education broadly, but also students in STEM?

Abul Islam: It’s the need for businesses, just not our business, it’s across the board, any sizes, that there is a huge crisis of skilled workforce. When we found what was useful was the H-1B process. So historically we had used the H-1B process very successfully, going to the campuses with the master’s program, or even a bachelor’s program. They get a year or two for working legally after from their graduate school, have an engineering four year or five, six year degree in masters. And then they can work for us for another three to six, sometimes nine years on the H-1B. That’s a great move for companies like us because we have a hard time attracting and recruiting the best and the brightest. We definitely need this foreign talent to come to the United States, immigrants, especially with the four-year engineering or technical degree program. And they become eligible to work for us for three years with a certain minimum cap of salary that the federal … actually we pay more than that. Right now the market is whatever the … even the minimum salary of an entry level engineer [Inaudible]. The U.S. government says, pay 58. We pay at least 10, 15 percent over that just because of the market dynamics. Otherwise we’ll not have the talent. That is such a good program because not too many people in the 1980s, since the ’80s, have gone to engineering school, ’80s, ’90s. They have gone to finance schools and this and that. So we don’t have the number of engineers, four year degree engineers, in many disciplines like we had in the 1980s or ’70s.We were self-sufficient, no longer self-sufficient. So we need a lot of engineers. And H-1B program is a good program for any business, I think, especially as it has proven we have a history of successfully using the H-1B program who have eventually become, gotten green card has many of them, and became part of the American experience for them as well. They’ve gotten better jobs and families situated better. They own property in five … many of the people that I hired, on the fifth year they bought a house, on the 10th year they had the American life, you know, two, three cars, their kids are going to better schools and they’re paying taxes. So, it’s the win-win situation for all.

Denzil Mohammed: Attracting foreign talent does nothing but good for our country. But I know you said that education was really important in your family growing up. And I know it’s important to you now, and you do some work with school districts and community colleges. Can you describe some of the things that you’ve been doing and what kind of impact they’ve had?

Abul Islam: Connecticut Business and Industrial Association has done a lot of work in alliance with all sizes of businesses, small, large, medium size, to go into our urban schools and kind of guide them, inspire them, help them. So I’ve been a founding member of the Academy of Engineering in Hartford high schools, in 2009. And we had firsthand experience with the teachers and the kids, but the majority of the kids need some kind of remedial program, support, guidance, inspiration because of the socioeconomic condition in many of the urban areas. So that inspired me a lot to, under the National Academy Foundation, Stamford, I started the program. And all of us businesses, from Pratt and Whitney, from AI Engineers, from Eversource, they sat on the board of directors and really went into selected high schools, you know, at the 10th, 11th, at 12th grade, and saying, how could we help? How could we help to align them with the employers, whether they’re manufacturing employers, engineering employers, any employers, and how could the community colleges also help? ‘Cause many of them has socioeconomic issues, also a single parent, not enough guidance within the neighborhood or the family, figures that they can look up to except for the school. So if you inspire them, [inaudible] they go into a group of 30, 40 kids graduating and talk about what we do as engineers or the guy from Pratt & Whitney, or the lady from another company saying that we are doing these interesting things, or would you like to be an engineer? And if you like to be an engineer or a scientist, you have to do this, this, that you have all these. They built all these computer models. Some of them went to Nepal. We funded that. We provided scholarships in the company too. And many of these … actually AI has since 2009 have two candidates that we tracked from that high school that we recruited them. We would just have them three-week internship while they were in the ninth grade, 10th grade, 11th grade. And then they came, went to community college and then we followed them, their progress. And then they went to the four year school and now two of them are working for seven years, and one of the senior engineers of AI, we got them from the academy program. So if the businesses do it in alliance with three nodes of a triangle: community college, high school and business. So if you draw a triangle, and if it works seamlessly information exchanges. I think this will be it, universally, a universal approach, that the role of the community college is very important for the entire industry, the engineering and all that. And the community colleges that are in close proximity or in the urban areas where the school systems are generally not as great as they are in the suburbs. Why don’t the businesses go and kind of give their time and attention because it indirectly helps them with regard to the workforce of the future.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s terrific. And this is private sector in action, right, and paying dividends. So you get the talent that you foster and you nurture. So finally America has given you a home and a successful business and what I would argue is a beautiful legacy. What are your thoughts about the United States as a home for entrepreneurial immigrants like yourself?

Abul Islam: It is the country that has given the maximum opportunity to immigrants historically. I think it’s a great place to start a business, especially for an immigrant, you know, follow the rules and procedures in the books, pay taxes, talk to people, come up with a new product and services, whatever you do, it is a place. There are other countries European countries, Australia, Canada, but nothing has the culture and the historical legacy as America has. If you have the desire to succeed, you have to be ready for it. And this is the country that’ll make it happen for you. So I have, I’m very happy about United States and being a citizen of this country.

Denzil Mohammed: Incredible. Abul Islam, founder, and president and CEO of AI Engineers, thank you for joining us on the JobMakers podcast. This was a really interesting conversation.

Abul Islam: Thank you, Denzil. Thank you for your time.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contributions produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thanks for joining us for today’s powerful story of immigrant entrepreneurship. Remember, you can subscribe to JobMakers on Apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And please give us some stars. I’m Denzil Mohammed. See you next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 47: Roger Magalhaes

JobMakers podcast logo: Roger Magalhaes goes from truck driver to industry leaderBrazilian American entrepreneur Roger Magalhaes was working as a truck driver when he founded his window treatment company. Now he’s so successful that’s he’s founded a consultancy firm that trains his competitors. Tune in to learn how personal experience led him to the controversial opinion that immigrants must Americanize to succeed. You can also watch a video sharing more of his story here.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed. Welcome to JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: If you move to, say, France; do you think you’ll be perceived as French? When you move to the United States, you become an American, part of that country that, for hundreds of years, has attracted people from a staggering array of nations, creating something diverse, entrepreneurial, cost-changing and beautiful. And what’s the main reason that people come here? Opportunity. For Roger Magalhaes, immigrant from Brazil and founder of Shades In Place, a window treatment installation firm and a trading and consulting firm in Franklin, Massachusetts, he didn’t even know just how much opportunity there was in the United States to advance and progress. So when the opportunity to start installing shades as a business occurred, he seized on it. Today, he is one of the most influential leaders in his field, which doesn’t even have a school where you can learn the trade! This business he built from the ground up and never missed an opportunity to learn and improve. Today, he’s teaching his competitors. By the way, Roger Magalhaes is also the 2022 Barry M. Portnoy Immigrant Entrepreneur Awardee for Business Growth, an annual honor bestowed by The Immigrant Learning Center, co-producer of this podcast. Check him out on YouTube. Roger now is an American citizen. He believes immigrants must, quote, “Americanize” in order to fulfill their potential and have the biggest impact. A debatable view for sure, but one rooted in his own experience and success. As you’ll hear more about in this week’s JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Roger Magalhaes, founder of Shades In Place, Trading Up Consulting. Welcome to the JobMakers podcast! How are you?

Roger Magalhaes: Doing good, man! Thanks so much for having me on. I appreciate it.

Denzil Mohammed: Tell us what’s your business.

Roger Magalhaes: My 30-second elevator pitch is that I’m a shady business, basically. So I started out just installing window treatments for retailers and eventually I started selling them as well. 15 years later, I developed my techniques and know-how and now I also teach how to install the best way and how to form new installments because we don’t have it in the industry.

Denzil Mohammed: So you basically almost created a virtual textbook for how to do this shades installation, right?

Roger Magalhaes: Basically, yes. And my friends say now I teach my competition how to be me.

Denzil Mohammed: Oh, that’s hilarious. So, I know you stumbled into this kind of business. Why do you find this interesting or something that you really want to develop?

Roger Magalhaes: What happened was, I bought my house and I rehabbed over the weekends after my job and I really liked the hands-on and construction and breaking things apart and putting them back together. And I thought, “Wow, I’d really like to develop more into this but there’s no job that’s going to go in and out on the same days.” So if I start a company to replace flooring or paint walls or whatever activity you need to do in a house, it’s not going to be done in one day. So, I didn’t want to leave my job as a truck driver to start something. I would’ve come to Mrs. Jones and said, “Mrs. Jones, I started the job today but you’ve gotta be without flooring until Thursday, which is my next day off, so I can come and finish.” It didn’t make sense to do anything like that, something that gets me in and out of a house and I can’t have it done in a day so I’ll have to come back because I didn’t finish on the same day. I can fill my days off between driving trucks and that’s where I started out. But you don’t know what you don’t know, right?

Denzil Mohammed: Right. And now you’re doing even better.

Roger Magalhaes: Yeah.

Denzil Mohammed: Your story with entrepreneurship began all the way back in Brazil, when you were born, right?

Roger Magalhaes: Pretty much, yeah. As I said, I’m a workaholic. Since early days, I like to keep doing things, I don’t like just to be sitting around. And then, let’s call it my first business, at age six. I had two twin cousins that I really loved and they were probably four, five years older than me. They were my role models when I was a little kid. And they liked to fix bicycles. They were always doing something. At one point, they shined shoeboxes. They were going around on the streets and doing it. And I said, “Can you have one of your friends build me a shoe-shine box so I can go around and ask the neighbors here?” And he said, “Yeah, sure. Six years old, what the heck is he going to do with that?” So one of his friends built the shine-shoe box and gave it to me and I would go around to the neighbors and ask them. But obviously, it was different because the husbands were not home. It was just the wives. They would give me just the shoes and say, “Here.” I really like when you knock on a shoebox and it switches legs so you could do it. But I couldn’t do it that way because there was nobody wearing the shoes at that time! But in the end, I made some money and I liked it. It was really my first entrepreneur thing.

Denzil Mohammed: When you moved to the U.S., it was around 2000, right?

Roger Magalhaes: Correct.

Denzil Mohammed: And did you have the intention of thinking that you were going to be able to start a business in the U.S. at the time?

Roger Magalhaes: No. My plan was more or less learning English, that was one of the main reasons. And because we had a strong economy, I said, “Maybe I’ll work a few years here, save up some money and then I’ll go back to Brazil eventually and open a business there.” Because I always wanted to have a business somehow. I’d capitalize and go back and open some sort of business. And then the pandemic came and this might be the opportunity to close it. Because my mind was like, “Who the heck is going to buy shades in the middle of a pandemic?” Shades should be at the bottom of the list in priority. And it ended up being exactly the opposite because everybody was home, nobody was sick. Everybody was just trapped inside the house. We need to spend the energy we have here. We’re not traveling. People were working from home so income was coming and everybody started remodeling homes and changing rooms into offices and the next thing you know, we’re busy as we’ve ever been. At the same time, I was teaching already, conventions and seminars and that got really intensified because nobody went to the real conventions, because everybody was home, “Let’s do a live! Let’s do a seminar! Let’s do a webinar!” And then I start getting way more requests to share knowledge and, “Why do you think this is happening?”, “What can we do for …” And becoming more influential in the industry. And then, in September of 2020, driving to a job in the Berkshires, I was thinking, “I really built this from blood, sweat and tears. I don’t want to just give it up.” And one training app came on and I said, “Wow! I could actually just transition from hands-on work and more physical, into training new people and passing on the knowledge and keeping my connections.’ It was really how the whole thing started with training app. And at the same time, because we were so busy with Shades In Place I said, “I cannot just close it.” I originally thought, “I guess I’m just going to train them and bring people in so I can be the lead on both companies. I can have people working for me, at the same time I can test chronology to all the people as well.” And that’s really where we are right now.

Denzil Mohammed: And so your showroom became like a workroom.

Roger Magalhaes: Yeah. We don’t have a showroom anymore, we’re going to turn the showroom into a school facility so I can develop different types of windows, different applications so I can shoot classes and shoot videos and explain how things should be done and what is the difficulty you’re going to see with each window, what kind of products you can use for certain applications and that became the scoop.

Denzil Mohammed: And so your reputation goes well beyond Massachusetts and you’re requested in several states across the country all the way down to Florida. Take us back to when you first moved here. And coming from Brazil, the economy has started to do better but it must’ve been a real change for you.

Roger Magalhaes: Well, definitely. First, the weather. The language barrier, being away from family. I only have one cousin here but still, it’s not the whole family. Culture, the way people do things and even England is a little more conservative that the rest of the country for the most part. So, all of those things I had to adjust. And obviously, it takes time and it was a big learning curve.

Denzil Mohammed: And you mentioned earlier that you’re training your competition, which I find so interesting. You have found very creative ways to give back and to promote the success of other entrepreneurs. Can you describe some of those initiatives that you have and what impact you had?

Roger Magalhaes: Right. I know a lot of people who won’t share anything because they are so afraid that if they share what they know, they’re going to be displaced, somebody else’s going to take over. And I truly believe it is totally the opposite. The more you share, the more people rely on you because they really see you as a trusted resource. So I’m not the least afraid of losing work to the competition. As a matter of fact, I think it is great because the competition can see how you do. You can improve the whole experience for everyone overall. So in 2014, I started a Facebook group called “Free Speech Window Covering Pros” for that reason. Just to share knowledge, because that’s pretty much how I learned the business. There’s no school for what we do. So you just learn by shadowing someone, by going to training, by going to seminars, making a friend so you can body up and ask questions. And that was really how I learned. It became a really great resource and we have over 1000 members now and it pays off so hugely. And it’s unbelievable.

Denzil Mohammed: Wow, that is incredible. One question for you, as you’re from Brazil, we’ve done research on Brazilians and their self-employment rates and Brazilians have the highest rates of self-employment of entrepreneurship in the greater Boston area. I mean, that’s both incorporated and unincorporated businesses. Why do you think that is?

Roger Magalhaes: What I really think it is, first we’re very creative. We are creative because we didn’t have the resources; because everything is so scarce, we just need to be creative to survive. That’s really survival mode. I’m taking back in Brazil. And Then when we get here and we see the opportunities here and we see that it’s so above here that pretty much, there’s market for everything. And these people start saying, “Well, you know what? I already have a second chance just to be here, let me use my knowledge or my instance and move forward.” And I think that’s what it is! We just see the opportunities that we didn’t see back home. And we just run with them.

Denzil Mohammed: It’s funny that you mention that because someone that you and I know, Jitka Borowick, who has a business called Cleangreen on the Cape, it was the same thing for her, especially coming from a communist country, the Czech Republic. And just seeing how much opportunity was here as did you, you were at those opportunities and it was the same thing with her and you all’ve expanded. Even during the pandemic, she opened a new business, Nové Yoga. You opened your consulting business. You went online, you were all over Zoom, you were training. I’ve seen videos all over the place, instructions and things like that. That’s the message we want to get out on this podcast, really.

Roger Magalhaes: I appreciate it.

Denzil Mohammed: And you come here and grab opportunities and create jobs!

Roger Magalhaes: I’m not special, I don’t have privileges or anything, it’s just hard work. But one thing that I really think is extremely important. Don’t try to run your life here the way you run your life in your country. So you come here, you need to learn the language, you need to get used to the customs, to the culture, the way people live here because you can live here for 50 years but you’re still an immigrant; you’re still a farmer. Even 50 years later, even as an American citizen, for the lack of a better word. A lot of people don’t see that. They want to do their way and that’s what I think people miss the opportunity to grow even bigger because I can tell from everything that I’ve done and all the success I have achieved, the first thing that comes to a lot of a lot of the comments from people say, ‘Roger, we really appreciate that you respect our culture, you respect the way things are, you’ve learned the language; you really do things the way they’re supposed to be done. And that’s why you’re successful. Because you’ve got the respect from your home community, you’ve got respect from the Americans because they saw you respect the country.’

Denzil Mohammed: I feel as if there’s a subtle dig at other immigrants in what you’re saying that perhaps some don’t acclimatize and therefore that holds them back.

Roger Magalhaes: I don’t know exactly what it is or even between Brazilians; some Brazilians are very successful between the community. But they don’t expand wider because they feel like they want to stay within their own community. And I think this is wrong. You really need to cater to everyone and open to more cultures and all of that but you need to be, for lack of a better word, Americanized. Your culture comes second. The American culture’s always going to come first. You are in that game. You are in that playing view. You put your Brazilian zest in it or whatever culture you have and it should not be the primary culture. And that’s what some people miss the point.

Denzil Mohammed: You do the running mare here, not the soundbar, right?

Roger Magalhaes: Exactly! We can play a couple suppers between the whole night but it shouldn’t be the silver night.

Denzil Mohammed: And so finally, you’ve been given tremendous opportunity and you’ve run with it. You’ve been successful and led other people to be successful. How do you feel about the country that took you in and allowed you to thrive in this way, the United States?

Roger Magalhaes: It is very ironic because when I was in Brazil, I never planned to be in the U.S. and then eventually I came and I saw the opportunities and I saw that pretty much whatever you do here, there’s a market for it and people respect you. They may not agree with you but they still respect your point of view and the opportunities are just here. Regardless of what you want to do, there’s always a market for it. And I respect that. There is a reason why the U.S. is the biggest market on the planet. Because the opportunities are just incredible. I cannot be more ten-for-nil. As a matter of fact, I’m an American citizen, so that may say that I really enjoy and appreciate this country.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s really nicely said. Roger Magalhaes, founder of Shades In Place and Trading Up Consulting, thank you for joining us on JobMakers and sharing your story.

Roger Magalhaes: I really appreciate the opportunity.

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Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thanks for joining us on this week’s story about immigrant entrepreneurship and remember, you can subscribe to JobMakers on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. And please, give us some stars. I’m Denzil Mohammed. See you next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 46: Avak Kahvejian

JobMakers podcast logo: Avak Kahvejian on how immigrants drive innovationCanadian American Avak Kahvejian has founded a dozen life science companies and counting through his work as a partner at Flagship Pioneering. In addition to incubating bioscience companies, Kahvejian is very active in supporting Armenian and immigrant communities. Tune in to learn how he sees immigrants as a vital component of the United States’ status as a powerhouse. You can also watch a video sharing more of his story here.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed. Welcome to JobMakers. The kinds of people who choose to migrate are typically a special kind of people, risk taking, ambitious, determined. For those who are forced to migrate, these qualities are really forced upon them as they have no choice but take the risk to make something of themselves. What results you can find in countries like the United States, Canada and Germany, places where people migrate to, robust economies, hubs of innovation, inherently entrepreneurial. For Dr. Avak Kahvejian, an inventor, entrepreneur and CEO, as well as general partner at Flagship Pioneering, a life sciences venture capital company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he’s seen both types of migration and both kinds of risk taking success. For generations his Armenian family was forced to move from what was then Armenia, now Eastern Turkey to Syria to flee genocide, then to Lebanon, then to Montreal, Canada, by the U.K. fleeing civil war. And finally, by choice to Boston, that risk taking persistence and ambition drove him to a place where people from all over the world could come to innovate, ideate and create, the United States. This country has always attracted this kind of person, making it into the powerhouse it is today. And so Avak cautions, if that well were to run dry, the result would be disastrous for all of us, as you learn in this week’s JobMakers. Avak Kahvejian, general partner at Flagship Pioneering, welcome to the JobMakers podcast. How are you?

Avak Kahvejian: Good, thank you for having me. 

Denzil Mohammed: So tell me a little bit about the work that you do. 

Avak Kahvejian: Well, I work at Flagship Pioneering, which is a very unique firm. It’s a company creation firm, it’s an innovation firm, and we focus primarily on the life sciences in terms of making new biotechnology companies that are going to develop new therapies or new solutions for sustainability. Whether that’s in the nutrition space or the agricultural space. I lead a team here at Flagship that is mandated to ideate and invent new platform technologies. And those platform technologies become the basis for a new company and they develop products over time. And I’ve been doing this now for 10 years. 

Denzil Mohammed: So give us a sense of some of the companies that you’ve helped to ideate and bring to market.

Avak KahvejianSo they are quite diverse. Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure and honor of working on some really cool companies, some that your audience may know and some of course, that they will, they’ve never heard of. One of the first projects that I got involved with was Moderna. And as now you all know they ended up creating one of the best and only vaccines for the coronavirus. So that’s one example of a platform technology, meaning a technology that can be used for many, many different things, having the ability in one company to design it, to make it, to apply it and then to think about different ways of using it is really the model. It’s the archetype of what we do. And these are more or less chronological. Rubius a company that had the idea to make red blood cells in a lab, so kind of like in a factory and to make them therapeutic, to make them medicinal. And so how can you grow artificial quote, unquote, blood in a vat but also endow the blood with the therapeutic properties. And you can imagine there’s a range of things you can do with that and they have trials now for combating cancer and those trials are really underway as we speak. And a variety of other companies of that ilk, new gene therapies, new nucleic acid therapies like Moderna and new discovery platforms that are going to generate the next wave of medicinal products. 

Denzil Mohammed: That is absolutely remarkable and might I add that the teams that you’re talking about that form these companies are extremely diverse and you’re an immigrant from Canada and they’re immigrants all around in this space. You’ve also been active in the nonprofit space, the Canadian Entrepreneurs of New England, the St. Stephen’s Armenian Elementary School. And much of this clearly is connected to your family’s history of migration. Can you walk us through your family’s journey, starting with your great grandparents? 

Avak Kahvejian: Yeah, so I don’t have all the dates on hand but during the genocide that the Turks perpetrated against the Armenians in 1915, my family was very well established in the Western Armenia or what is known as Eastern Turkey in a town called Urfa, now I think it’s called Sanliurfa. And they were a prominent family there, owned a lot of property and farmland and during the genocide they had to escape. During the genocide, the mandate was for the Turkish army to either kill or forced migrate Armenians out of those territories. But what happened was it caused a dispersion of Armenians across the world. My family didn’t go very far, they went to Syria and established themselves there. And then from Syria migrated to Beirut, Lebanon. And Beirut as you may know, was a microcosm of many, many different cultures and religions, some very extreme differences in terms of Christianity and Islam, all coexisting together. And my parents were born in Beirut and I was born in Beirut. I had the unfortunate luck, I guess, of being born at the beginning of the civil war there where things started to really fall apart. And that was in 1975, practically carrying me out in a handbasket, we moved to London, England and then as a stopover and then eventually to Montreal, Canada to establish ourselves there. 

Denzil Mohammed: And then you ended up here, luckily not by force, but by choice for the first time in your family’s history. I mean, that’s absolutely remarkable. And these are the stories that, you know, people on the street, American, regular Americans just don’t know that fall behind you as an entrepreneur, you as an immigrant. So I saw a video of you on YouTube, where you said an immigrant and an entrepreneur are very much the same. Can you explain that to our American audience? 

Avak Kahvejian: Well, yeah, I think there are elements of starting a company, having an idea, building that company that are very much akin to moving to a new land and trying to essentially find oneself and establish oneself in that new land. And so as I think those are the, those experiences both have similarities in what they do to your mind and what they do to your emotions. Just think of yourself as you travel even as a tourist to another country and the heightened sense of awareness you have from the moment you step off the plane is very different from that the sense of heightened awareness you have when you’re walking down the street in your own neighborhood. And that’s very much kind of the beginning of the entrepreneurial journey. You’re putting yourself in a situation where you need to figure things out. You need to understand who’s who, what’s what, and you need to figure out what your next steps are to move forward. That’s very, very similar to what an immigrant experiences when they come to a new land. Now, let alone doing it when you are under duress, let alone doing it when you are doing it by force, as you said, and not necessarily by choice, the heightened sense of the heightened sense of awareness and the heightened sense of urgency, you have to survive and thrive. Assimilation involves not simply melting into the broader whole, which is how we often look at it like, “Oh, you have to assimilate into this new society.” Well, it’s not exactly the right definition for the word. If I look up the definition, it says, number one, under assimilation is take in information, ideas or culture and understand it fully. So that’s actually the subject is you taking in the information and understanding it fully. So I think an entrepreneur does exactly that when they first set out to do stuff is figure out the situation that their company is trying to disrupt, the environment that their company’s going to operate in. They need to be consummate learners, assimilators of information and integrators of information, not simply melt into the status quo, but they need to take it in and understand it so that then they can act on it. And I think that’s exactly what an immigrant has to do. They don’t necessarily simply have to lose their identity and melt into it, but they need to take in, they need to take in the information and the culture around them and understand it fully.

Denzil Mohammed: And there’s no safety net. 

Avak Kahvejian: Right. 

Denzil Mohammed: It’s a risk. And you just have no choice but to just forge ahead with it whether you succeed or fail. That’s a very, very interesting way of putting that comparison. So 17 years ago, you were that immigrant moving to the Boston area from Montreal, fresh out of your PhD program at McGilI. Did you feel welcomed in the biotech ecosystem here? And, you know, obviously coming from a country like Canada, which is extremely diverse and depends on immigration, what did you think of the diversity here? Did it, did it help the ecosystem?

Avak KahvejianThe biotech ecosystem here is actually one of the most diverse industries probably that I’ve ever seen and it’s become not only an epicenter in the United States, it’s an epicenter for the world and maybe the epicenter for the world. So you have, if you see it like a country, it’s a country in and of itself that is attracting a lot of immigrants. The biotech community here is, and also has embassies almost, I would call them, where companies, where countries have actually sent emissaries here to learn about the ecosystem and have a permanent presence here.

Denzil Mohammed: The second part of that question, is that diversity important and does that help the ecosystem?

Avak Kahvejian: Definitely. most definitely. Now, obviously there’s some uniformity to it in that we’re kind of a worldwide community or worldwide tribe of scientists. So many of the people coming here come with, again, advanced degrees in the biosciences and have been trained by top academic institutions throughout the world. But at the same time, everyone’s coming with a diverse training, with diverse background and bringing new perspectives to tackling the big challenges that we’re trying to tackle. These are not easy problems to solve, these are not simply building something in a very predetermined way, in a very predictable way. There is a lot of uncertainty to what we do. In every single endeavor in biotech, virtually every single one, there’s a lot of serendipity involved, a lot of problem solving required, a lot of creativity and ingenuity required perpetually and without diverse opinions, diverse backgrounds, interdisciplinary problem solving, we wouldn’t achieve half of what we we achieve. So definitely we need the world applied to these problems, not just a small group of people or a small group of uniform people to tackle them.

Denzil Mohammed: And the proof is literally all around you in Cambridge. Moderna, Pfizer companies that are founded by people from all over the place, including the United States and we have these vaccines, we have these therapeutics, we have, we are advancing our technologies. The data show clearly that immigrants are more likely to study and work in STEM fields. This is just how it is and therefore, you know, there’s a great value of H-1B foreign trained workers in the U.S. who are in STEM industries. If you were to give us a suggestion, like, what do you think should be done in the U.S. to address the shortage of American STEM workers?

Avak Kahvejian: We definitely need to make it easier for scientists to come here and to work here because it can only enrich the intellectual diversity. It can only accelerate the advancement of knowledge and innovation that we are really striving for. And as we saw with the pandemic, innovation, invention and advanced technologies are what’s going to help humanity overcome major challenges and we can’t sit still. So we’ve experienced the difficulty in bringing scientists from other countries, even though they have advanced degrees, even though they’ve even demonstrated an ability and a willingness to come here and contribute. And those barriers have to be, those barriers have to come down for sure. 

Denzil Mohammed: In a recent episode of this podcast, I was talking to a son of Dominican immigrants who started a cybersecurity firm and he said there are 600,000 job openings in this field going forward. I mean, that’s just staggering. So I’m bringing it back to something that we mentioned earlier, which is your nonprofit involvement. You’ve stood on the boards of several, including the Armenian school in Watertown, now you’re chairman of the board of the International Institute of New England. For those of you who don’t know, the International Institute resettles refugees and creates opportunities for immigrants and refugees to succeed through career advancement, pathways to citizenship, etc. Why is this work important to you?

Avak Kahvejian: Well, as an immigrant and an immigrant who’s had it easy, I think, I’ve always wanted to figure out a way to give back to immigrants and as we call them new Americans. How do we help new Americans make a life for themself here, especially some of those who have not been as fortunate as I have been to land here willingly and to land here with an existing safety net or an existing lending pad. And so that’s been really my motivation for doing that. Now, again, I play a really small part at the IINE as chairman of the board, we have really an amazing team of people there who do everything from the minute someone lands here, a refugee lands here in the United States to finding them housing, helping them get a job, helping them learn the language and to situate themselves, filling their pantries so they have food and clothing. That work is a Herculean task and only, is only the beginning of the journey. And so far it’s been quite heartwarming and amazing to see the outpouring of support we’ve gotten from, from individual donors, from corporate sponsors and in particular, some of the pillars of industry here in Boston namely the biotech community, the tech community and the financial services. I think especially the biotech community, they appreciate how diversity matters, how it impacts society and how it impacts their business and they’ve been very generous in long term support for what we do.

Denzil Mohammed: And might I just add refugees come from not the places that the biggest immigrants sending countries come from and they’re all over the place, Burma, sorry, Myanmar, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Congo, Sudan, all these, even Ukraine. And so it’s a much more difficult task when you have to cater to such culturally, linguistically, socially different populations. So you talked about new Americans and the idea of the International Institute, of course, is to welcome and sustain these families. Reflecting on your own story and the work that you’ve been doing, explain to the audience why the idea of welcoming or being a welcoming or inclusive country is important.

Avak Kahvejian: Well if you reflect back on the history of the United States and the history of Canada for that matter, I think what makes North America so special and I think what has one of the things that has contributed to the tremendous amount of success and growth and peace and prosperity that we’ve benefited from here is that notion of welcoming and including and recruiting people from throughout the world to making, to creating these societies, building these economies. And I see it firsthand, I felt it firsthand, I see it firsthand not only in my own experience but in my everyday work as an entrepreneur and I see it from a historical perspective. The waves of immigrants and the injection of new ideas, new cultures, new products these things have come from a lot of it have come from the outside and have, have been given the fertile ground here to flourish. And so I think it’s that amazing alchemy and combination that makes these countries so special. And we don’t want to lose that. I think there is something that we shouldn’t take for granted and that if we do turn off the spigot or constrain it significantly, I think we might not feel it in the near term. People might complain that they don’t have enough workers for particular jobs, etc., but I think in the long term it’ll be even more dramatic, more drastic, the impacts will be multi-generational. And we have to be mindful of that. So I think we should celebrate what we’ve accomplished here over the centuries and over the last few decades, but there’s obviously more work to do and more opportunity and I’m really glad to be part of it.

Denzil Mohammed: And again, the proof is all around us. Look at our economy, we’re the biggest economy in the world because we have this constant injection of entrepreneurship and persistence and ideation. And that goes hand in hand with welcoming people. Avak Kahvejian, general partner at Flagship Pioneering and immigrant from Canada, thank you so much for joining us on JobMakers.

Avak Kahvejian: Thank you. It was a pleasure and an honor

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thanks for joining us for this week’s incredible story of immigrant entrepreneurship. Remember, you can subscribe to JobMakers and Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And please leave us a review. I’m Denzil Mohammed. See you next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 45: Celina Miranda

JobMakers podcast logo: Dr. Celina Miranda on immigrant entrepreneurs and community upliftCelina Miranda is the executive director of the Hyde Square Task Force in Jamaica Plain’s Latin Quarter, so she has seen firsthand how immigrant entrepreneurs contribute to sustaining their neighborhoods and people economically, philanthropically, and socially. Her career spent connecting underserved communities with resources has given her insight into how to support and empower diverse, foreign-born business owners. Listen to learn how she believes the success of immigrant entrepreneurs in the Latin Quarter could be replicated across the United States.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and this is JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: How did Jamaica Plain, a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, go from being one of the most crime-ridden and dangerous to one of the safest and most desired? Because immigrant entrepreneurs and others in the community said enough and did something about it. And this started with the youth. It is one of the many ways immigrant business owners give back to their new homeland. They create jobs, mentor, sponsor and lead. For Dr. Celina Miranda, executive director of the Hyde Square Task Force in Jamaica Plain’s Latin Quarter (today one of the most diverse neighborhoods in Massachusetts), she knows keeping the kids at school educated and firm in their cultural identity and welcoming to others is crucial to maintaining the area’s renewed stature. And she knows how much of their immigrant business owners from countries as diverse as Ethiopia, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala are working to make this happen. This week, we look at how immigrant entrepreneurs contribute in another way, sustaining their neighborhoods and people economically, philanthropically, socially and frankly, humanly. Dr. Miranda hopes the example of Jamaica Plain’s Latin Quarter and the role of its business owners will be replicated in communities across the U.S. to help overcome a heightened divisiveness. As you’ll learn now on JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Dr. Celina Miranda, executive director of the Hyde Square Task Force in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. Welcome to JobMakers. How are you?

Dr. Celina Miranda: Good, how are you? Thank you for having me.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m doing very well. So you are the director of the Hyde Square Task Force in Jamaica Plain, which seeks to build up the community, essentially; from the youth all the way up. And one of your biggest accomplishments in recent history has been to designate the area, the Latin Quarter of Boston. Give us the story of the Latin Quarter.

Dr. Celina Miranda: Sure. So we became known as the Latin Quarter back in 2016 when Boston City council actually voted unanimously to identify this particular segment or area in the neighborhood of Jamaica Plain as Boston’s Latin Quarter. But the impetus really began by our young people wanting to have an area that they’ve come to love over many, many years, be recognized for the Latinx contributions that have been made over decades. And so that’s where it started. And then in 2018, we became recognized as a Massachusetts Cultural District. So we are one of 40 plus cultural districts in the state and recognized as the Latin Quarter. And it really does allow us to uplift the contributions that the Latinx immigrant community has been making to this particular neighborhood and really Boston overall since about the 1960s.

Denzil Mohammed: Wow, since the 1960s. So delve into that a little bit with me, what has been the impact of immigrants in your Quarter of Jamaica Plain?

Dr. Celina Miranda: Sure. So since the 1960s, there have been waves of folks that have arrived here originally from Cuba, the Puerto Rico and, most recently, the Dominican Republic; but we’ve also had groups and pockets of Central American and South American immigrants that have made this particular corner of Boston their home. Over the years, that has changed and definitely, right now we have, predominantly, a Dominican population that lives in this area. And I think over time, over the decades, that Latinx immigrants have been coming here, this has developed into a hub of Latinx culture. And what I mean by that, you can find businesses here that are Latinx owned or run and you can smell the smells of the Dominican Republic. You’ll have them here. Pastries from the Dominican Republic are here. The music, et cetera. So really, it’s a hub for Latin culture and an opportunity to affirm and continue to uplift the contributions that Latinx immigrants have made over many, many, many years.

Denzil Mohammed: I have such good memories of having oxtail at El Oriental de Cuba and empanadas at this place across from the Doggie Daycare Tales. So these immigrant businesses, what impact have they had over the past decades? You mentioned the first wave from Cuba, then Puerto Rico. And just to be clear, Puerto Ricans aren’t immigrants, they’re American citizens.

Dr. Celina Miranda: Yeah.

Denzil Mohammed: And Dominicans, they’ve really shaped the identity of the neighborhood. Talk a little bit about the immigrant businesses in the Latin Quarter.

Dr. Celina Miranda: Yeah. So definitely, like I said, they really have shaped the identity of the neighborhood and have created what we now call the Latin Quarter. I think without their contribution, we wouldn’t have the vitality of the neighborhood that we do. And really, if I can take you back to the 1990s, this corner of Jamaica Plain was actually known as the cocaine capital of New England. So there was a lot of drugs, drug trafficking here and violence in the neighborhood. And really it’s the contributions, I think, of businesses and residents that came together, that began to transform the neighborhood into what it is today. And so, Latinx’s own businesses or run businesses have been here for a very long time. And some of them, very large ones, including El Mundo which was here. They were head-quartered here until very recently. And we also had a Hi Lo grocery store that was here for many, many, many, many years where folks would trek from all over Boston to come here and do their grocery shopping. So they have been a presence here in the neighborhood for such a long time and added to the bustling feel of the neighborhood and the footprint that we have and contributed to it being the district that it is today.

Denzil Mohammed: I think of the entrepreneurial spirit of immigrants. Immigrants are twice as likely to start a business. For many of them, they may not have a choice but to get into their own business because their credentials don’t transfer. And the legacy of entrepreneurship in Jamaica Plain and particularly the Latin Quarter is really fascinating to me. Several years ago, at our Immigrant Entrepreneur Awards, we honored Damaris Pimentel who runs Ultra Beauty Salon in Jamaica Plain store from where I live on South Huntington Ave. And her story of entrepreneurship began with her father, who moved here from the Dominican Republic, and started the ment market, which still exists today. And now she has her own gleaming, beautiful, bright business and is fostering entrepreneurship in the young people who work with her. Talk a little bit about the economic impact up until today, because we’ve really seen how the businesses have flourished over time and become more elegant and more diverse. Doggy Daycare, for instance. What’s been the economic impact over the years?

Dr. Celina Miranda: Yeah. As of 2019, I believe approximately half of the 104 businesses along Center Street in the Latin Quarter are Latinx owned and/or managed. So, definitely, I think they have been a critical component of the financial vitality of this corner of Boston but even in beyond. Because we have, for instance, a barbershop owner just down a couple of buildings from where we are. And this is where his business is. This is where he does his work and mind you, he doesn’t live here and we can talk about why he can’t afford to have a house here. But that might be another podcast. But really the reality is that they continue to contribute to the energy and to the financial stability of this particular area. And like you said, I think we have seen transformation. We have seen changes over the years that a different, much more racially and ethnically diverse population are visiting those businesses. So the Doggy Daycare, it’s not just for your Dominican dog owner, it’s for anyone who has a dog and needs somebody to take care of their dog during the day. So definitely, that is the case. So they’ve been crucial, I think, not only for the wellbeing of those particular families, but also for others who are able to work at these businesses, et cetera.

Denzil Mohammed: They’re creating local jobs!

Dr. Celina Miranda: Correct.

Denzil Mohammed: At all levels for all people. And I think, I go back to Tales, the Doggie Daycare that we’re talking about, and I know that the owner, Jesse Fise, also from Dominican Republic, she hires people who come out of prison in order for them to start a stable life again. So they’re creating opportunities for a wide variety of people. But it does beg one question for a lot of Americans who wonder why immigrants tend to congregate with other immigrants from their home countries. I mean, this is something we’ve seen throughout U.S. history: Chinatowns, Koreatowns and in Lowell, you have a Cambodiatown. But explain to U.S. born people why immigrants move to places where the immigrants from their home countries already are. From the uneducated mind, it might seem to inhibit integration. Research says no.

Dr. Celina Miranda: Yeah. So, obviously one argument is that when immigrants first enter into the country, they will go where others are, because that’s where they can find information on jobs, right? “Where can I get a job?” Housing, in terms of, “Where’s the best place for me to live? Where can I afford to live?”, and other resources. So it’s a source of information that is so key, right? That’s where you can go and find the information. And importantly, you can find the information in a language that you understand, that you recognize, which makes the transition into the country easier. For some, the enclave can be helpful but it will only get you so much not because it’s an ethnic enclave. I think I wanna make sure that that’s clear. It’s not because it’s wrong to be with your group, but it’s more because you have redundancy in networks. I think basic social capital theory tells you that you wanna have diverse networks that can connect you to resources that you otherwise wouldn’t have connections to, right? So and there’s been social programs that have tried to do some around this and making sure that you bring people together that don’t have redundancy in those networks so that they can help one another and say, “Oh, by the way, have you looked into that program over there that’s offering scholarships for kids that are interested in X?” And so therefore you go there but you wouldn’t know if you’re just to the same people who have the same information you do. So from that perspective, I think, definitely, it’s not just for immigrant groups. I think it’s more generally, right? We all benefit from having diverse networks so that we can access new information, new resources.

Denzil Mohammed: Many people in the U.S. don’t know what it’s like to move to another country. The incredible cultural differences, language barriers, laws and regulations, there are so many things that are different. So the bulk of your work at the Hyde Square Task Force is focused on the youth, many of them, of course, immigrants as well. So when it comes to their education and wellbeing, what are you doing to ensure that they thrive? And why was there need for this task force to begin with?

Dr. Celina Miranda: Yeah, so we started 30 years ago. In part was in response to what I said in terms of the 1990s and the state of the neighborhood. Having at that time being called the cocaine capital of New England, and also recognizing that it was a neighborhood that was not being heard by elected officials, that was not being seen in the way that we wanted to be seen. So that’s how we started. We started by a group of neighbors who were dissatisfied and wanted to make a difference. Very early on, however, we recognized that young people needed to be at the center of that transformation. So we have been focused on working with young people to create positive change in our community since the very beginning of our organization. And we continue to be very invested in that. Our strategies have changed over the years and now, we focus on Afro and arts and culture as a vehicle by which we engage young people in the out of school time. However, as a youth development organization, a creative youth development organization, we are invested in making sure that our young young people are successful in graduating high school and also begin planning for their future. And we help them with that transition. So we make sure that they stay on track to graduate high school, begin planning for post-secondary education or training, whatever that may be. And then we also do college coaching because most of the students that we work with are first in their families to go to college. And so they need the added support, the added guidance, so that they’re able to navigate higher-ed institutions as successfully as possible so that they can complete their studies.

Denzil Mohammed: You’re building up social responsibility, you’re bringing up leadership qualities, obviously academics and creativity. What has been the role of immigrant entrepreneurs, specifically, in this work?

Dr. Celina Miranda: Damaris, you named her earlier. She was actually a board member and was on our board for many, many, many years. So in that sense, it’s giving back. She was giving back and serving as a role model for our young people. So that’s one very micro example of how they have contributed. But now, I think, when you step back a bit, they continue to be so critical again, as role models for our young people. But also as a great resource, they continue to help us do the arts and cultural work that we’re doing and that they partner with us all the time as we do our cultural events. I haven’t talked about that aspect of our work is that in addition to working directly with young people, we are also the managing partner of the cultural district of the Latin Quarter. And so through that work, we have a series of annual events that we bring to the neighborhood and business owners are a big part of that. They’re also partners in our thinking, as we continue to think of what the Latin Quarter can be and the resources that the Latin Quarter needs, they are key partners in creating that vision for the Latin Quarter.

Denzil Mohammed: So this is their way of giving back. And they’re giving back in many different ways, not just creating jobs, but sponsoring events, being role models, fostering a more success-minded spirit in young people. I think that’s just absolutely terrific. And the kind of relationships that you’ve been able to foster over the years toward this end is just absolutely extraordinary. Finally, I did a lot of digging into the Latin Quarter because it’s just fascinating. And one word that emerged a lot when talking about the Latin Quarter is “coexistence.” What example can the Latin Quarter’s experience offer other parts of the country, not just immigrant areas, their refugees and immigrants are settling in areas that were previously not settled by immigrants and refugees. What is the Latin Quarter’s experience regarding coexistence?

Dr. Celina Miranda: Yeah, I was reflecting a lot on this concept and thinking about the fact that carving out places or public spaces in particular where people from varying backgrounds can come together in a safe way, I think is essential to strengthening the fabric of any city, but really the fabric of our country. I think divisiveness has been so much that I think where we have been, this constant pitting each other against one another. And I think that doesn’t bode well for anyone. And so I really do think that the opportunity to create spaces where it is safe to come together, it is safe to “coexist,” to use the word. These spaces need to be open and inclusive for all people. So when we think about the Latin Quarter, I hope that your listeners take away that the Latin Quarter is not just for the Dominican immigrant. It is not just for the Cuban immigrant. It really is about a space where we welcome and we want people to come and experience the Afro Latin traditions and culture and get to know it in a way that is respectful, of course, I always think about that. It’s important to give respect to groups. Honestly, here in our neighborhood, the newcomer is your younger folks who are moving to the area, many of them are not from Boston. They’re coming from other parts of the country. And most of them are not Latinx. And so, really thinking about how do you create an opportunity for them to come and learn about the history of the neighborhood and become part of the fabric of the neighborhood in many ways, without taking away its history, without erasing what it has been. And I think that is important. And I think it should be replicated everywhere that we go. Everywhere that we go, I think there should be a Latin Quarter in my opinion, but that’s just me.

Denzil Mohammed: A welcoming space for everyone to be able to participate and learn and thrive. Right?

Dr. Celina Miranda: Yes. And like I said, respectfully of one another.

Denzil Mohammed: Hear, hear! Dr. Miranda, thank you so much for joining us on the JobMakers podcast. We really appreciate your work with the Hyde Square Task Force and what you continue to do for Jamaica Plain and beyond. Thank you.

Dr. Celina Miranda: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for today’s insightful conversation on how immigrant entrepreneurs are uplifting entire communities with their work in philanthropy. If you know any outstanding immigrant entrepreneurs we should talk to, email Denzil, that’s D E N Z I L @jobmakerspodcast.org. I’m Denzil Mohammed. Join us next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 44: Theresa Park

JobMakers podcast logo: Theresa Park on how immigrants revitalize U.S. citiesAs a Korean American immigrant and the deputy director and senior executive vice president at MassDevelopment, Theresa Park knows firsthand how immigrant entrepreneurs enrich their new homelands. Through MassDevelopment, she offers financing and real estate solutions that help foreign-born business owners build organizations that strengthen their communities. Tune in to learn her strategies for celebrating and empowering immigrant entrepreneurs.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed. And this is JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Immigrants have always been economic drivers and revitalizers. Just look at Lowell, Massachusetts or Lawrence, Massachusetts or any of the gateway cities in your state. Immigrants tend to move into areas that are cheap. Namely, places in economic decline. Then they open up shops and businesses, bring in goods and services and gradually revitalize these once downtrodden areas. For Theresa Park, deputy director and senior executive vice president at Mass Development, a group that offers financing and real estate solutions to drive economic growth across Massachusetts, she’s seen this up close and she’s lived it. An immigrant from Korea who moved to Lawrence, she saw firsthand how immigrants built their lives from the ground up and in so doing, economic and cultural vibrancy to their new home cities. And when she went on to work for cities like Lowell and Lawrence, she herself was the one to reach out to immigrant owned businesses, nurture their growth and see their broad impact. Theresa talks us through her experience with immigrant business owners, how she developed their trust, how she celebrates them and the many ways they enrich their new homeland in this week’s Jobmakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Theresa Park, deputy director and senior executive vice president of MassDevelopment, welcome to the JobMakers podcast. How are you?

Theresa Park: I’m very well. And thank you for having me. I’m thrilled to be here today.

Denzil Mohammed: So tell us a little bit about the work you currently do.

Theresa Park: So I’m now with a state agency. The bulk of my background is really in local government working in planning and development, economic development field. Last year I accepted a position with Mass Development. And Mass Development is the state’s financing agency as well as its land bank. And so we get involved in a lot of development-related projects, primarily from the financing side, but we also provide real estate technical assistance as well as offering grants and other programs through the state’s, one-stop process; the application process, for which is currently open. And it’s a really good way to tap into other programs available through the state.

Denzil Mohammed: And how does immigration figure into your work? When we see that one in seven Massachusetts residents is foreign-born, that they’re twice as likely to start a business, that they’ve been, traditionally, engines of economic growth in downtrodden parts of the country. And of course we have Kendall Square, for instance.

Theresa Park: Which is why we have programs that support business growth, we have programs that support gateway cities, we have programs that support developers so that we could increase the housing that is in such great demand in the commonwealth. So we have a pretty good toolkit of programs and services that could be brought to bear. Now, we just want to make sure, whether it is from the level of outreach we do, the engagement that we do, the people who can take advantage of those programs feel like we can be a partner to them. And so to that extent, the communications work that we’re doing, we want to make sure that whether it is a business started by immigrants, whether it is in communities where there may be a lot of immigrants. I live in the city of Lowell, for example. Historically, they have been a gateway for a lot of immigrants, in the beginning, to work in the textile industry. But that flow continues as well. And I think that there are great opportunities in places like Lowell and Lawrence and Lynn and other gateway cities. And we want to make sure that we get the word out and we make sure that we can deliver in a way that is meaningful and that’s also very culturally confident.

Denzil Mohammed: That is excellent. And I know that this is personal to you as well because you have your own immigrant story, is that right?

Theresa Park: And so you’re making a commitment to this new way of life. From my parents’ perspective they worked hard for many, many years, so they can make sure that their kids get a good education and be successful. So I think that’s pretty typical of what other immigrant families experience. Some go on to start businesses and we see them succeed. I think the award dinner that you have every year recognizes the tremendous contributions that they have made, from a job standpoint, and the impact that they’ve had on neighborhoods as far as services.

Denzil Mohammed: That is really well said and I know this is directly from your experiences in cities like Lowell and Lawrence. Talk us through your experiences in these cities. What did you see with the immigrant business community? How did you foster their growth? What was the response like from the rest of the community?

Theresa Park: And we’re trying to make those connection points to say that, “Okay, this is what you had told us, this is what we can provide,” so we would make that connection. We had people on staff, or within the larger department, who could speak different languages. So we try to take advantage of that so that it’s not always just that we could only interact in one language. We wanted to make sure that we could communicate at different levels. And to that extent, we want to make sure that whenever we did everything from marketing, for example, or pulling together collateral that talks about the work that we do, we were multilingual about it. We always made sure that the representation was very broad and encompassing of all the different types of businesses, not just the high tech, but the neighborhood type ‘mom and pop’ type of businesses because they will eventually hire people, right? Even if it was just like one or two jobs. To me, that’s still meaningful, right? Because that one person has a family. And because of that job, now they’re able to do these other things that they may not have been able to do before.

Denzil Mohammed: You brought up the immigrant entrepreneur awards, which my organization, The Immigrant Learning Center, hosts every year, which is this year happening on March 8th. And I have to say that we have a special category called business growth for fast growing businesses that are employing lots of people. And three of those past winners were all Dominican American and all came from Lawrence. So the reputation of certain cities like Lawrence, they’re growing

Theresa Park: People don’t invest in places without the belief that there is opportunity there.

Denzil Mohammed: So how does being an immigrant, even though you arrived as such a young child … you’re not only foreign-born, but you also have a very global perspective having traveled around the world and continuing to do that. Do you think that that has given you a particular perspective in your work of planning and the development of cities?

Theresa Park: I would say the biggest life skill that I feel like I benefit from, because of that immigrant experience as well as the global travel, is problem solving. You could present the same problem in a lot of different places and you’re gonna get different kinds of answers or different types of solutions. And I feel like if you travel and if you have the immigrant experience, it’s almost like you expand the range of your thinking when you’re problem solving. Because you’re not just fixing a widget. You’re also thinking about it in, for me personally, a more complex way. And so solving for problem ‘X’, all of a sudden you have all these different ways of addressing it.

Denzil Mohammed: I remember a joke from Trevor Noah saying, “If you don’t like immigrants, then you’re not allowed to like immigrant food. So you just end up with a potato”.

Theresa Park: An immigrant you do some great things with that potato!

Denzil Mohammed: Of course! So many different things, but we really do, as people living in the United States, take for granted the flavor that we are given and offered every day in terms of food, in terms of holidays, in terms of cultures. Overall though, you’ve seen many different immigrant populations starting businesses in different places. Have you seen them integrate? Learning the language, or their children being successful and things like that?

Theresa Park: Yeah, I think some of that has to do with when they come to this country, right? There’s a level of acculturation that needs to occur. My parents came here when they were, I think, close to 40, maybe? I can’t recall exactly. But then they had to learn the language and gain full employment, and so on. So I think the challenges are very real. I think it could be eased. So like I had mentioned earlier, when I came to this country there weren’t a lot of Koreans. So we had to acculturate very quickly. I think that, at the same time, it could be a lonely experience for people, as well, where you don’t have your community. I think the level of acculturation changes with the generation. I think when the parents first come here, they’re so busy working. Whether that’s being working for somebody or working for themselves. And it’s really relying on the next generation to then more fully immerse, take advantage of the job opportunities that are out there, the educational opportunities that are out there. So I think immersion happens in a couple of different ways. I think if you come to a place where there is a ready community, that could help ease a transition. I think that is really important. Oftentimes you also find these cities and people who can be the connector to different kinds of programs and services, so they could get grounded more readily, which hopefully means that they could have more time to then attend the kids’ parent-teacher meetings or maybe even attend a community meeting. Or it could be helping the next generation of immigrants that may be coming through the door, helping them with the acculturation. But I think how quickly and how easily you can do that depends on how old you are when you come to this country, what kind of community is here to ease a transition. And I think just remembering that people are always just trying to do their best. And just always giving people the benefit of the doubt, because this is a really hateful rhetoric that’s come out. And it’s based on some really unfounded misinformation. And I just hope that people dig a little deeper, people be a little bit more open minded and just remember that we’re all part of the human race, right? And we really have more in common than not.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s beautifully said. And I think at the end of the day, we have to remember that the economic development of immigrants, through their businesses, helped the entire community. It doesn’t just help that one immigrant. It creates jobs, it creates more taxes, it creates a safer neighborhood, increased goods and services. We did some research on immigrant essential workers during the pandemic and where they were left out of the CARES Act. For instance, things that impeded their ability to help all of us recover. We could have recovered faster, we could have recovered in a more efficient way. If you were to close off this podcast interview with a message for the U.S., when it comes to the value of the immigrant entrepreneurship and recognizing that value, what do you think would be?

Theresa Park: I would say that if we were a formula, we’re a plus sign, not a minus sign from an immigrant standpoint. It’s not really a formula, but I would say that when we talk about immigration we’re talking about people who are coming to this country because of what’s been touted about all that’s good about this country. And I think it is really important that we continue to prize what we hold dear in this country’s ability to be the beacon of light for freedom, for democracy and for opportunity for everybody.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s very beautifully said, Theresa. Thank you so much. This was a wonderful interview. And thank you for sharing, as well, your own personal stories with us. Theresa Park, deputy director, and senior executive vice president of Mass Development, thank you for joining us on the JobMakers podcast.

Theresa Park: Thank you for having me, Denzil, so great to be here.

Denzil Mohammed: Jobmakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for today’s insightful conversation on how entrepreneurial immigrants are a rebound for cities in decline. If you know an outstanding immigrant entrepreneur we should talk to, email Denzil. That’s: [email protected]. I’m Denzil Mohammed, join us next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 43: Reinier Moquete

JobMakers podcast logo: Reinier Mouete on the audacity of immigrant entrepreneurshipReinier Moquete’s company CyberWarrior is a highly successful cybersecurity services provider, but Moquete’s greatest success might be in his extensive not-for-profit and philanthropic work supporting diverse young people in STEM fields. Moquete founded the Latino STEM Alliance, advises a committee on strengthening the pipeline to tech from Boston Public Schools and was appointed to the Massachusetts Governor’s STEM Advisory Council. Tune in to learn how Moquete credits his Dominican American grandmother and mother for his entrepreneurial spirit.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and this is JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: What do Apple, McDonalds, Ford Motors, State Farm Insurance, and Home Depot all have in common? They were all founded by the children of immigrants. The children of immigrants have a high propensity to be as entrepreneurial as their parents and the United States has benefited from generations of immigrants like this. For Reinier Moquete, son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic and founder of CyberWarrior, a cybersecurity services provider in Boston, Massachusetts, he is continuing the entrepreneurial tradition started by his grandmother and mother who moved to the U.S. in search of a better life for their families. In fact, he says it is love of family that prompts immigrants to do what it takes to be successful in their new homeland, including starting a business. Reinier has gone further however and has given back to the country that gave his family a chance. He has launched nonprofits and foundations that seek to elevate disadvantaged communities, expose children to science, technology, engineering and math (or STEM), and uplift particularly Latinx people in the U.S., bringing them to the forefront of technology and leadership, as you will learn in this week’s JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Reinier Moquete, Founder and CEO of CyberWarrior, welcome to JobMakers. How are you?

Reinier Moquete: I am good, thank you for having me.

Denzil Mohammed: So, tell us a little bit about your company, give us the 30-second pitch.

Reinier Moquete: CyberWarrior is a very unique company. We train people to be cyber security engineers and we put them to work. And so, we have developed a methodology that includes an online learning platform coupled with an 800-hour boot camp, live online. People are essentially exposed to the cybersecurity industry all the way from the basics of computer science, and we graduate them as well qualified security engineers, and then we help get them a job.

Denzil Mohammed: That is pretty incredible. And as I was talking with you earlier about the statistics around unemployment rates for cybersecurity this means your company is really important, not just now, but going forward in the future, right?

Reinier Moquete: Yeah. I mean, the reality is that cybersecurity has become a national security issue. It is not only about ensuring that people are just entering the industry, but that our water supply, our food supply, our energy supply is protected. You know, today’s conversation is particularly timely with all the [inaudible] happening across the world. And the reality is that when we think about protecting our country, there is going to be a cyber-attack before any missile ever gets launched. And that is just the world we live in. Beyond that, cybersecurity has become a tremendous economic development opportunity. You have a situation where there are 4 million open jobs, globally, 600,000 open jobs in the U.S. alone. It is a very unique opportunity for underserved communities to come into the industry and to grow and prosper. And, you know, it is pretty exciting and it is pretty rewarding when you have someone who maybe works in a kitchen or someone who comes from a totally non-technical background without any college education at all, and they are able to go through our program and walk out with an $80 or $90,000 a year job in only six months. It is a pretty amazing thing.

Denzil Mohammed: That is pretty incredible. And the numbers you shared, 600,000 open jobs in the U.S., that is kind of crazy. I want to get into your journey into entrepreneurship. Did you always want to be your own boss? Does it run in your family? You know, tell us how you ended up there.

Reinier Moquete: I filled the entrepreneurial box when I was a kid. My first entrepreneurial experience was inventing a video game for my friends. They had this little card video game when I was like seven or eight and I used to let kids in the neighborhood play for 25 cents in the Dominican Republic, so that was my first entrepreneurial experience. Nine years old I had another business where I was making bracelets and selling those in school. I used to go to the market and buy leather and cut it up. I guess I have always been an entrepreneur to one degree or another, and I always knew that it was a passion that I wanted to pursue.

Denzil Mohammed: And what qualities and skills do you think you had to draw on the most in order to launch your own business?

Reinier Moquete: Well, I think that the key thing to be an entrepreneur is tenacity and perseverance. Entrepreneurship is hard. There is this misconception that people go into entrepreneurship because they want to have more time or because they are going to want to work less. And it is actually exactly the opposite. Actually, you have to be a little bit crazy for you to want to go into business. Most businesses fail. Most people put their life savings into these businesses, and it takes years before you get that money back. So, you have to really be committed for the long term. For me, it was tenacity and perseverance and a conviction that I would rather play and lose than not play at all. In terms of hard skills, my entire career has been in the tech sector. And so, I brought that into my life as a business owner. But the reality is that most of what I know today I learned after I decided to jump, and I had to figure out how the parachute works after I was already in the air. And, you know, to a large degree, I find myself flat on the ground with my face dusted and bloody and all that, and again, the perseverance comes in because you just have to get back up.

Denzil Mohammed: I have never heard that analogy before about skydiving. But it is, you are taking a risk. You are literally jumping into the unknown in a sense. And I would venture to suggest that perhaps this is something that was in your genes because I like to say that the act of migrating is an entrepreneurial act. You take a risk, you leave everything you know behind. You are not sure if the outcome is going to be successful or not but you do it anyway. And your grandmother took that risk by leaving the Dominican Republic and coming to the U.S., is that right?

Reinier Moquete: Absolutely. And many of my family members as well. My mom, as well, who was a medical student in the Dominican Republic and only needed her theses to finish. Yet she decided that it was here where she was going to be better off with her kids. And I think it is a story of many of the immigrants that you see in the U.S. today. In fact, most of us, either as direct immigrants or kids of immigrants, that we see that desire, that audacity to succeed above all costs and the willingness to pay a very heavy price of leaving family behind in order for you to pursue that desire to do something different and/or to provide for your family back home. Right? It really takes a lot of courage. And I think in many ways, the story of America, the story of entrepreneurs and the story of immigrants are one in the same.

Denzil Mohammed: It is funny that you say that because from the time immigrants started to move here, whether they called themselves immigrants or not, they started businesses. Levi Straus up until Elon Musk today. It is the story of immigration, and it is the story of America. Reflect a little bit on that move of your grandmother and your mother and the other people you knew who moved from the Dominican Republic. What kind of qualities do you think it reflected on their part to take that risk?

Reinier Moquete: I think one of the key things that it requires is the love of family. It is rare that you don’t see an immigrant who doesn’t send money back home. And even those of us that may be first generation of Americans, we might have been born here, we still have that sense of commitment towards other family members who perhaps are not as stable financially. And so, you have that sense of unity, that sense of supporting one another. And I think that that’s the key driver for most immigrants. I think that beyond that, again, it is that burning desire of pursuing a passion. And, you know, you mentioned great entrepreneurs like Elon Musk. It is really that tenacity that says, well, I am not going to be able to achieve whatever it is that I want to achieve within my local community. And so, I am going to go out and I am going to venture, and I am going to pursue whatever it is I want to pursue at all costs. And I think that that’s the thing that has made America so successful. When you have all these people with that same audacity, that same desire to move forward.

Denzil Mohammed: I love the way you frame that in terms of love of family. And the story of many immigrant families can be very chopped up. You know, one parent moves first, they are separated from their kids and for years, they try to establish themselves. They send for one kid, two kids. The rest of the family comes up. It might take 10, 20 years for that to happen. And people often wonder, you know, why would families split up like this? But sometimes that’s the only way. More oftentimes than not. And you used the word audacity, which I find fascinating. I don’t think anyone else has used that word on this podcast to describe … it is audacious of them to think that they can do this and that it might actually work. What is your company, CyberWarrior, what does it ultimately empower individuals to do? What career and business opportunities are available for them after they, for instance, take your boot camp?

Reinier Moquete: We are training cybersecurity engineers. We are taking them into the doorway of an industry that is growing by leaps and bounds. Everything in our world today is dependent upon technology. Even if it’s a glass of water. That glass of water does not reach your lips unless it was touched by technology in some way, shape, or form. Look at the way we are communicating today. Look at the way the world has changed with our pandemic, right? So, cybersecurity is the knitting that keeps all this technology working properly. Otherwise, people would take it apart and use it for nefarious things. So, we put people at the doorway of this industry, and they you’re able to not only pursue careers as engineers, but they are also able to pursue careers as auditors, they are able to pursue careers in sales. The fact that you’re able to sell technology, the fact that you’re able to sell software, the fact that you’re able to sell consulting services, but in such a fast-growing industry. All these things are extremely lucrative. And so, if there is one thing that we are providing, it is opportunity, it is an opportunity people to gain access to economic freedom.

Denzil Mohammed: It’s not a job of the future, it’s the job of now. But all of this goes back to whether or not enough people choose to focus their studies on STEM. You are part of several initiatives in Massachusetts. Some of which you have founded yourself like the Latinos in STEM and the CyberWarrior foundation, as well as TechHire Boston that encourages young people to get into the STEM fields in a very hands-on way. So, tell us about at least one of them, let’s say the CyberWarrior foundation. What is the main message you want to get out to parents and kids?

Reinier Moquete: Well, with CyberWarrior Foundation, what we aim to do is to engage youth early in their lives into the world of cybersecurity. Cybersecurity is a career that you will never be bored. Why? Because you are learning something new every single day. And it also has this mystery to it. It has been romanticized in movies with the hackers and this and that. And the reality is that the things you see on TV are, to a large degree, very real. Those are the risks associated with a security breach. And at the same time, it also provides not only a very fun career path, but one that allows kids to use a lot of the things that they enjoy. Let’s say gaming, we use those concepts in real lives. So, I would say that for parents thinking about opportunities for their children, here is something that would allow them to play and have fun with while also making a good living.

Denzil Mohammed: Let’s put an intersectional lens on this, because you are also a part of the Latino Equity Fund out of the Boston Foundation. And a lot of the work you do with young people is to get families that are in disadvantaged communities or groups that are probably traditionally not occupiers of the STEM field to enter the STEM field. So why is that part of it important to you? And does it have anything to do with the fact that your heritage is based in the U.S. and the D.R.?

Reinier Moquete: Yeah, I mean, as an Afro-Latino I am certainly committed to creating equity and opportunity, and that’s why I decided to participate in the Latino Equity Fund. The Latino Equity Fund is the first and only Latino focused fund in Massachusetts. It was funded and seeded by The Boston Foundation and Hispanics in Philanthropy. It is a very unique partnership of Latino philanthropists and business leaders who essentially came together to say, “Hey, we need to find some solutions and we need to elevate this message,” right? So, the focus has been on raising money and over the last few years $700,000 in grants have been given out to Latino led and Latino serving organizations. Going into the next three years there is a focus on raising $10 million in order to strengthen the economic opportunities that are available to Latinos.

Denzil Mohammed: Have you already seen success with this, even if it is small successes?

Reinier Moquete: Absolutely. We not only have been able to support communities within the COVID pandemic, but even before COVID, we had been making key investments in early childhood education, health equity, workforce development. And so over the last five, six years, where we have been operating, we have been very deliberate in identifying the communities that need the most help, and then engaging subject matter experts from within those communities to ensure that whatever investments we are making are targeted towards those that need it most and where we are going to see the most impact. And so, there is a number of stories that we have seen of families that have been brought out of poverty, as well as, for example, in certain communities here in Massachusetts such as Chelsea, for example, has vaccination rates of 98, 99 percent. And those are the type of things where we look to invest.

Denzil Mohammed: Oh, wow. That is an incredible statistic about Chelsea. Finally, just bring it into the present day, given the legacy of your family. If you had to give America a message about the value of immigrant entrepreneurship to the U.S., you know, you’re training people, you’re not training immigrants, you are training everybody to protect the U.S., to protect all of the U.S. assets. Given how shrouded immigration is in politics and controversy, what would you say to America about the value of immigrant entrepreneurship to us?

Reinier Moquete: Yeah, I mean, I believe it was Nelson Mandela that said, “Everything is impossible until somebody does it” right? [inaudible] And that same desire to do the impossible, to create opportunities for their families to create opportunities for themselves are things that are the bedrock of entrepreneurship are the bedrock of capitalism. We are the people that are creating jobs. We are the ones that are risking it all for the things that we believe in. And that is what has allowed us as a country to prosper and move forward. A country of immigrants. We always have been. And it is that, again, audacity, that desire to move forward that allows us as a country to be successful.

Denzil Mohammed: That is a terrific message that succinctly sums up everything we try to say in this podcast. Reinier Moquete, CEO and founder of CyberWarrior, thank you for joining us on the JobMakers podcast. JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and at the Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thanks for joining us for this week’s incredible story of entrepreneurship, this time from the child of immigrants. Next week, we will be joined by Theresa Park, deputy director and senior executive vice president of Mass Development, on how immigrant entrepreneurs are revitalizing cities like Lowell, Lawrence, Worcester and more. I am Denzil Mohammed. See you next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 42: Dinesh Wadhwani

JobMakers podcast logo: Dinesh Wadhwani clears the air with light technologyDinesh Wadhwani’s life science business has tackled everything from crop yield to energy efficiency, but when COVID-19 hit, they pivoted to saving lives. Wadhwani discusses how their technology is used purify air and track airborne COVID-19. Listen to learn how this Indian-Ghanaian-American entrepreneur paved his own path to entrepreneurship.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed, and this is JobMakers

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Denzil Mohammed: Migration stories aren’t always simple. Families might have moved to different countries in different generations for different reasons. However, it is that entrepreneurial spirit of leaving everything behind, taking a risk and working for better in a new land that not only keeps them going, but drives innovation and resourcefulness. For Dinesh Wadhwani, founder and CEO of ThinkLite LLC in Natick, Massachusetts and immigrant from Ghana, that journey began with his grandfather who was forced to flee India for another British colony. And despite having to work all alone from nothing, he was able to build a business in Ghana and pave the way for the generations to come. When Dinesh moved to the United States in 2008, as a student at Babson College, the mandate from his father was clear: build a life and a business in the U.S. and not return to Ghana. And that’s just what Dinesh did. Even while he was studying entrepreneurship, he became an entrepreneur. In just a few short years, his technology-based life science solutions business expanded across the globe and evolved into a lifesaving enterprise, purifying the air in hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic, as you’ll learn in this week’s JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Dinesh Wadhwani, founding CEO of ThinkLite, welcome to JobMakers. How are you?

Dinesh Wadhwani: I’m very well. Thank you, Denzil. Thank you for having me here today. I truly appreciate it.

Denzil Mohammed: So give us a 30-second pitch about your business. What is ThinkLite all about?

Dinesh Wadhwani: So ThinkLite is a technology company based out of the Boston area here in Massachusetts. We specialize in high-end technologies, specializing in facilities, and [inaudible]. We started off in the energy space, which has grown into a large division and a company that there’s high-end efficiency lining for commercial applications. We have a division that does grow lighting for agriculture and poultry optimization. And most importantly, which has come center stage the last few years, we have an air division that specializes in very tiny particulate monitoring of viral loads in the air, in the health care space. And as you can imagine, that has kind of crossed boundaries to go well beyond health care for the last few years. So that’s what we do as a company.

Denzil Mohammed: So apart from the obvious, which is the pandemic and your most recent foray into the air space, why is your business important in today’s world?

Dinesh Wadhwani: Our ethos really is we call ourselves technologists, we love technology, we believe technology is going to save our world and we love to build things that create value in a very impactful way. That’s really who we are and what we are all about. Our supply chain extends from designing stuff in Boston, to Germany where we do a lot of engineering and to Asia where we do a lot of the semiconductor manufacturing, and we work very closely with Samsung as well in Seoul, South Korea. So, if you think about it, given the talent that we are fortunate to have cultivated over the years and our interest and what we believe in we have always felt that we want to build products and services and bring it to the world in a very innovative but effective way that can add a value for sustainability, for wellbeing and for challenging the wasteful practices of our current planet. And we started there with bringing to market the first of its kind ultra-efficient LEDs. We were 30 to 50 percent more efficient than traditional LEDs and about 90 percent more efficient than your traditional fluorescent lighting. And now that evolved into smart building and smart lighting, because that was kind of where the opportunity became, now that you had efficient lighting, what else can you do? If you made them smart and turn them on and off and dim them, you could further optimize it. And then, that’s kind of pivoted into, how can we use everything we know about lighting and smart buildings to add value beyond its energy savings? And this kind of happened around 2015, where we were studying together, the executive team and I, and we said, “Think about it.” It’s kind of quite an amazing phenomenon that you have lights almost every feet in the building with a fixture and electricity coming through it. It’s got to do more than just save you money. And that’s when we said, how can we apply everything we know about smart building automation, manipulating spectrums of light and creating different waves of light and marrying that with other chemical compositions to add value in a different way. And that’s how we got into agricultural lighting, we got into poultry lighting and then along the same concepts, and around the same time, we got into how we could use light spectrum to do disinfection as well.

Denzil Mohammed: So Dinesh, you’re from Ghana originally, grew up speaking English, and your grandparents were from India. Is that right?

Dinesh Wadhwani: That’s correct. Yes.

Denzil Mohammed: So this is a very fascinating but also very common story of migration. Not only from India, but from other countries. But, take us back and tell us exactly what happened, how and why.

Dinesh Wadhwani: Sure. My granddad was actually one of seven brothers and our original hometown is a state called Sen in the North Western part of India. And during the 1940s and the time of colonization when India was being divided into India and Pakistan, a lot of people in the middle kind of lost their homes. Because you know, what was considered a general area was now being divided politically into different countries. So my granddad and his brothers actually went to hide in British boats to prevent being a prisoner of war or going to fight. And these boats were trading with other ex-British colonies at that time and that’s literally how my granddad ended up in Ghana, Western Africa, which at that time was a British colony as well. And many of his brothers ended up in Hong Kong. So today, fast forward 60, 70 years, we have a lot of family there and some came to the U.S., but it was a common practice of those who didn’t wanna be part of the political situation and wanted to leave would go to the other colonies that was ruling the countries at those times. So my granddad went there and he made a living for himself. He adapted, he was an entrepreneur and raised a family there. And that’s where my dad was born and that’s where my brother, myself and my younger sister were born. And that became home.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s really fascinating. But again, as you said it’s not an uncommon story. And just to be clear, your grandfather’s options were really slim. It was either fighting a war, convert to Islam or escape. Right?

Dinesh Wadhwani: Right, and many would actually seek refuge in India. And many people did that, where they would go, but start from scratch, right? They didn’t have a home state. They lost all their property, they lost all their jobs, they lost all their land and just have to start from scratch.

Denzil Mohammed: And you, obviously, were able to straddle two very different, I would say, kinds of cultures: Western Africa, Indian subcontinent. So how is your experience, of being an immigrant from another country, has that impacted your business style or the kinds of goals you set for yourself?

Dinesh Wadhwani: Yeah, definitely. I think most immigrants who come to the U.S. for better opportunities or for a better life can probably relate to this. There’s so many things over here in the U.S. that many people take for granted and growing up. We were not exposed to many of these facilities or stilled infrastructure, stuff like internet. I remember growing up, there were times where Ghana, during the 90s, had something called load shedding where there was not enough electricity in the grid. So they would publish in the newspaper that for this week from 6:00 PM to 6:00 AM, you’re not gonna have electricity, right? So I remember when my brother and I would come home and we had to finish all our homework before it gets dark. Because when it gets dark there’s nothing much you can do with a candle. Go to bed, right? Little things like this, where we grew up of it being the norm and that’s the life we knew. And when I came to the U.S., you realized how much more advanced the infrastructure is. And you realize how much of an opportunity this is to be able to have fast internet, to be able to have good roads or infrastructure, to move around or to meet people. And to me, there is so much here to be grateful of that we didn’t have growing up. And that changes your perspective. Most immigrants say this, that the United States is the “land of opportunity” because there is a good infrastructure that creates enough opportunity for you to come from nothing, right? I remember when I came here I didn’t know anybody. And it’s less about who you know specifically, which is how it works back home in Ghana too. You could now have a lot of information and have a lot of skills, but it comes down to who you know, for the most part. While that is important over here, of course, there is so many cases we see every single day where someone would come far away from a country knowing no one, but worked really hard, worked honestly, worked to develop certain skills and become successful. And I think it’s just a very well balanced society that we have in the U.S. that creates a platform for doing that. So it makes me always grateful, what we have here. Most countries don’t have that and it changes your attitude. You wake up every morning and you say, “You gotta seize this opportunity”.

Denzil Mohammed: Makes you more humble, more grateful, more appreciative. That’s fascinating too.

Dinesh Wadhwani: It does.

Denzil Mohammed: 12 hours a day you don’t have electricity, isn’t that just crazy to think about now?

Dinesh Wadhwani: Yeah.

Denzil Mohammed: So you came to the U.S. in 2008 as a student on your student visa. You went to Babson. Of course you already spoke English, but adapting to U.S. culture is always a challenge and an experience for everyone.

Dinesh Wadhwani: So my dad would say, even throughout my entire high school and when I was starting where I want to go to school, what I wanna study, he would say, “Hey, listen, you have a good plan B. If things don’t work out, you can always come back to Ghana and we can either you work in the family business, or we are ‘Old Timers’ here and we can find some opportunities for you. But frankly, go to the United States, make a better life for yourself and don’t come back,” right? And that was the message that he gave me and my brother when we came here to study. And when I came and I landed at Logan Airport, I remember it was the day before probably orientation, and I land and I still remember this the day till today is like, “Okay, here’s where I gotta make my life,” right? My goal is to learn, obviously, make new relationships and meet new people. But really, gonna make a living for myself. And the goal is to make the family proud and take advantage of my education and what I’m coming here to do: of what they have sent me here to do and not go back.

Denzil Mohammed: So you founded ThinkLite in 2009. In just a few years you were in 14 different countries. That must have been a rollercoaster.

Dinesh Wadhwani: It was. And I would say that almost every single connection of that came from the Babson community, which is quite incredible. It’s very international, as you probably know, and a lot of friends and I was fortunate enough to be on the scholarship program at Babson. So every semester I had the opportunity to meet with the trustees who also were from all over the world and they would be intrigued with what would be doing. And it was quite a very supportive environment where I remember doing classes where I would tell the professor, “I’ve got to travel over the next three weeks because we have these big projects or big deals that I think I have to be there for.” And the professor would say, “Keep a diary of it and I’ll accept it as your thesis.” Very real and very quickly given the small community it was, many of the professors, the Dean, the president, at that time, were following ThinkLite very closely. And until today I’m so ever grateful to them because of the support that I received. And they would be making introductions all the time. And the exposure we got within the U.S., of course, but even internationally, was we got to seize the opportunity. So the next thing I know, they would say, “This is incredible technology,” and, “You are spending a lot of money for businesses and make more of impact in the U.S. Can you come and do it in the United Kingdom? Can you come and do it in Thailand? Can you come and do it in Singapore?” And I was like, “Absolutely.” And they would literally treat it like a real business and they would say, “Okay, great. You have a team that can come over and train people?” And I would say, “Yes, let’s go”. I would forget many times that I’m still still in college and I have to attend class and I would say, “I’ll come back and catch up.” And I would go. So it was throughout from 2010, all the way up to 2015 there was a lot of expansion internationally where we were building a foundation in those countries where we had large distributors and we were making a lot of impact with our technologies over there; which fostered growth in the U.S. and vice versa too.

Denzil Mohammed: You’re not quite doing exactly what you did at the beginning. So tell us how the pandemic impacted your business.

Dinesh Wadhwani: Sure. So around 2015, we made a conscious decision of how can we leverage our technology, our experience, our relationships and the marketplace to do more than just save energy, right? Like I mentioned before. And I think the single most important change that I personally experienced, and at the company, was we started an initiative to say each time we would close a big project and go do a lighting project for them, “I would like to speak to the head of facilities or the head of our operations myself personally,” and say, “Can you please tell me a little bit more about the other problems you’re facing when you’re challenging in your workplace or your facility?” One of the biggest things that really changed the trajectory of our company was this initiative to ask customers what else we can do for them. And that’s where we learned about a lot more opportunities that we can address. Whether it was, “They have good lighting, but it wasn’t smart enough,” or, “They had good lighting, but they needed to have a unique spectrum of light to increase their yield of a produce,” or when talking to hospitals, which is most relevant in this day and age. We were working with Boston Children’s Hospital back in 2017 and we learned from the facilities’ people that their number one challenge was hospital acquired infection via the air. And this is not something that’s unique to any particular hospital. This is something that exists forever, right? And if you think about it, when people come to the hospital because they’re unwell, they’re sick, they’re coughing, they’re spreading germs and diseases. And simultaneously you have people there who are undergoing surgery, or who have compromised immune systems who are unwell. And these two groups of people are under the same roof, sharing the same air. It’s quite a recipe for disaster and unfortunately there’s no better way, right? I mean, that’s just the nature of how facilities … and what happens all the time, which really cut my heart, was the number one cause of debt in our country was secondhand transmission of germs in these hospitals. And I’m discussing that saying, “We are replacing fixtures every three feet. There’s got to be a better way.” And that’s when the idea of producing a light fixture that can also purify the air at the same time was born. And that evolved into less leverage of technology to now monitor it and make it smart, so we even know how bad the air is to start with and we can always keep it that way. And then it evolved into, let’s make it connected to the HVAC system so it can be even smarter and involved into less stand alone units. Here we have found a software, we built an entire ecosystem of technology, that could monitor the air; tell you if there’s a viral load in the air. Light fixtures that would seamlessly clean the air free of these viral particles. And the whole world was coming to a standstill because of an airborne virus. And it took COVID 19, our global pandemic, for people to realize that you don’t need to be in a hospital to share air with someone to get disease from that. That’s when, for the first time, we learned that what we thought was a niche in the health care world is now something that is applicable everywhere else. And that’s how the pandemic really changed our ThinkLite air division. And next thing we know our marketplace just expanded by infinite-fold, really, of the addressable market.

Denzil Mohammed: Oh, wow. Dinesh, that’s incredible. So finally, Dinesh, as an immigrant to the U.S., your grandparent was taken in by Ghana and you were taken in by the U.S. and this country has allowed you and your family and your business to thrive. How do you feel about the United States of America as your adopted homeland?

Dinesh Wadhwani: There’s a very admirable amount of respect in this country for people who work hard, for people who are trying to make a positive impact. And whoever you share with, in my experience, what you’re trying to do or what our business is about they’ll say, “Hey, talk to this person,” or, “Have you thought of that?” and this celebration of solving problems in this country. I feel this country as a whole really promotes entrepreneurship and promotes originality. It promotes trying to just do good and by doing good: trying to create good value for people. Very few people can say that about the experience going to any other country, really, and being embraced and being part of the community to say, “Hey, we are here creating, creating impact, creating jobs for the people in the country,” it’s really a nice feeling. So I’m always gonna be grateful to this country for that.

Denzil Mohammed: I think one of the things that makes the United States extra special is that it celebrates entrepreneurship and innovation no matter where you come from.

Dinesh Wadhwani: That’s right.

Denzil Mohammed: It’s the idea, it’s the hard work and it’s the value that creates it. And I hope that you and ThinkLite are able to continue creating value and having a positive impact and purifying our air. Please, we need that a lot.

Dinesh Wadhwani: Absolutely.

Denzil Mohammed: We will continue doing our best to educate people on this topic that is so important and affects their bottom line, right?

Dinesh Wadhwani: Yes, that’s right and thank you. And it’s a joy to see the impact that The Immigrant Learning Center does in empowering, whether it’s by your language, by your life skills. It’s always been close to my heart. So I admire that and it’s such an important thing that we need to have for people who come here with a twinkle in the eye and for opportunity and giving them these skills and giving them these tools to help them fulfill their dreams. It’s something that’s close to my heart. So, thank you for that.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s very nice for you to say, Dinesh, thank you so much. Dinesh Wadhwani, founder and CEO of ThinkLite, thank you for joining us on JobMakers.

Dinesh Wadhwani: Thank you, Denzil, a true pleasure.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thanks for joining us for today’s incredible story of immigrant entrepreneurship. Got comments, questions, or know someone we should talk to? Email Denzil that’s [email protected]. I’m Denzil Muhammad. See you next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 41: Anuradha Sajjanhar

JobMakers podcast logo: Anuradha Sajjanhar on immigrants' role in pandemic recoveryImmigration researcher Anuradha Sajjanhar joins Denzil Mohammed for a very special episode of JobMakers! The ILC has published a report on the extraordinary contributions of immigrant essential workers during the COVID-19 crisis, cowritten by these two immigration experts. They discuss the vital role that foreign-born workers have played in sustaining all Americans throughout the pandemic, the lack of resources they received and how they can be better supported in the future!

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and welcome to a special edition of JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: What affects immigrants in the U.S. affects all Americans. Immigration is not a separate issue from any national issue. And the COVID-19 pandemic made this all too clear. As immigrants are overrepresented in industries deemed essential. Industries like healthcare, food and agriculture, the supply chain. Let’s be clear, all immigrants in the U.S. make up just 13.7 percent of the total population, but 17.4 percent of the labor force and 18.3 percent of the essential workforce. In fact, while 65 percent of U.S.-born workers are essential, 69 percent of all immigrants and 74 percent of undocumented workers are essential. For Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar, lead researcher for the report Immigrant Essential Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic, published by The Immigrant Learning Center, co-producer of this podcast, she found that immigrants were largely left out of federal and state support during the pandemic, which negatively affected their safety and the work they were doing to help Americans weather this potent, unprecedented storm. The report, which is available free of charge at www.ilctr.org, shows that immigrants play an outsized role in essential industries that are helping us get through this pandemic, that these essential workers felt left out of the hero narrative we painted all essential workers with, and that grassroots, bottom-up new movements at the local level can fill the void left by federal inaction as you learn in this week’s JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar, how are you today?

Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar: I’m well, thank you, Denzil. How are you?

Denzil Mohammed: I’m pretty awesome right now. I escaped the blizzard, thank goodness. So what was the purpose of this research report? Why do you think it’s important?

Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar: Several reasons. I think mainly there was a lack in the literature so far bringing together both intimate narratives of immigrant essential workers along with the zoomed out big picture of how policy decisions during the pandemic have affected them. So what we tried to do with the report is bring attention to the vital role that immigrants play in the labor market, as well as the need to offer them care and protections. And we do that through a bunch of interviews, both with immigrant essential workers and with policy experts, makers, advocates in the field. And we show how public policies can be improved to benefit immigrant workers, and as a result the whole country.

Denzil Mohammed: As a result the whole country. That’s a really important point. So, I’m really curious. I’m core off of this report, but I was not the lead researcher. That was you.

Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar: Mm-hmm.

Denzil Mohammed: How did you go about doing this research in the midst of a global pandemic?

Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar: Yeah, I think the pandemic really affected the access we had in building trust with immigrant essential workers. I think a lot of people that I spoke to are very accustomed to being interviewed and potentially to being research subjects in exploitative ways where they’re not compensated for their time. Their stories are used, their names are used without their permission. So it was definitely a process to reach out. So, along with the immigrant learning center, you and I, we reached out to a bunch of organizations that work with immigrant communities in Minnesota, California, and Texas. And then through those I was able to get in touch with immigrant essential workers. And between May and August of 2021 I conducted about 20 in-depth interviews with essential workers across industries within those three states and 10 interviews with community organizers, policy experts and employers.

Denzil Mohammed: And just to be clear, you did this over zoom or the phone. You didn’t fly out there, right?

Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar: Yeah. Yeah. Because of the state that the global pandemic was in, still is in kind of, I did most of it through zoom. Honestly, most of it through phone calls because that’s how the people that I spoke to felt most confident and comfortable by expressing themselves.

Denzil Mohammed: Interesting. So of all the findings that came out of this research what stood out most to you?

Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar: I really think it was the irony of what we identify in. What Cohen and Warren, who are researchers who have worked on immigrant essential populations in the country, have identified as a central policy paradox, which is that foreign-born workers are deemed essential at very high rates. Yet they often lack protections, status, and face marginalization by U.S. immigration and COVID policies. So there was this whole cultural effort to thank essential workers, and as part of that immigrant essential workers, but despite the heightened attention paid to them during the pandemic there were no meaningful federal policy interventions to provide protection or benefits to immigrant essential workers and their families, especially undocumented immigrants.

Denzil Mohammed: So one of the things that stood out to me most was the invisibility of so many immigrant workers. And as you point out, in terms of policy, either they were invisible or they were deliberately excluded and marginalized.

Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar: Mm-hmm.

Denzil Mohammed: Which I think the latter is what happened under the Trump administration. 

Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar: Mm-hmm.

Denzil Mohammed: Can you expand on this invisibility of immigrant workers? So, how you felt about it and how they felt about it.

Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think this goes back to the nature of a lot of the jobs that were deemed essential. So first, the full umbrella term of essential workers, which is a lot of the people who grow our food, keep the stores open, are at the front lines of keeping us safe in health care and in a lot of the supply chain management of the products that we consume. These are not necessarily people that we have direct relationships with. It’s not people we often interact with in our everyday lives unless we’re talking about somebody who has a home health aid or has a more long term relationship with a health care provider. But for the most part this tends to be a form of invisible labor. With immigrant essential workers in particular, I think a lot of the interviewees that I spoke to felt that they just weren’t appreciated in the ways that felt tangible to their material lives. Many of them appreciated the symbolic kind of thanking of essential workers overall that people did during the pandemic. But I think mostly they felt invisibilized by their neighbors, by federal policy interventions at large. And as you said, excluded in many ways too.

Denzil Mohammed: They’re the ones in the fields, they’re the ones in the factories, in the meat processing plants.

Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar: Yeah.

Denzil Mohammed: Behind the scenes in the hospitals, stacking the grocery shelves, as you mentioned. So yeah, we didn’t see them. They weren’t the ones on TV, right? They weren’t the ones who were being interviewed and got the press and that kind of thing. Another thing that stood out to me was the fact that we are talking about immigrants, but they are part of the whole society. And so when we think of policies that affect immigrants, it’s really policies that affect everyone. 

Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar: Mm-hmm.

Denzil Mohammed: You mentioned the food supply chain. That affects everyone.

Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar: Mm-hmm.

Denzil Mohammed: So can you speak more to this point about how we are all impacted by what happens to immigrants?

Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar: Mm-Hmm. Yeah, absolutely. If you look at the data that we present in the report, the oversized contributions of immigrant and foreign-born workers to the U.S. workforce is clear. Just to talk a little bit more about the policy level exclusion, rather than legislating more protections for foreign-born workers, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act of 2020 blocked immigrant families with unauthorized family members from receiving any stimulus payments at all. This means that 6.2 million essential workers, who have around four million children who are U.S. citizens, were ineligible for relief payments. We need to understand that and see how the wellbeing and lives of Americans and those who live in America are shaped by underpaid and unprotected immigrant labor and lives.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s such a huge point. If a significant share of the workers who are keeping us going are immigrants, and yet they are barred from receiving aid that everyone else gets, who in the end suffers? It’s the American public, immigrants and US-born people alike. Another point from the report, it comes to mental health. And of course everyone’s mental health suffered during the pandemic, but you make the point in the report that immigrants’ mental health were more acutely or differently affected. And I guess this points to what you’ve been talking about, this policy paradox of not being taken care of by the government, right? That has something to do with it.

Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar: Yeah. A lot of our interviewees spoke about the trauma that they experienced from the uncertainty, layoffs, lack of safety nets, health risks. And all of these things, as you said, were universal to a degree. I would say that the specific fear of deportation during the pandemic was compounded for them by being a part of families or households with multiple at-risk essential workers. So that’s another thing we found, which is that most households with one essential worker had several family members or people that they lived with who were also essential workers. Even in the cases where immigrants are eligible for the benefits that we spoke about, fear often prevented them from receiving the help they needed. So several foreign-born workers that we interviewed said that they avoided accessing healthcare or non-cash benefits from fear of deportation or violating what used to normally be in place called the public charge rule, where it would affect their petition to remain in the United States.

Denzil Mohammed: This is very fascinating. Almost like microaggressions in a sense, indirectly from the government and from society against immigrant populations, even though they are outsized parts of our essential workforce. As laid off in this report, you touched on the subject of licensing and credentialing requirements. Now this is something that a lot of Americans don’t pay attention to, but it affects millions of immigrants to the U.S. We’ve all heard about the Indian doctor who’s now a taxi driver in New York because he couldn’t fulfill his residency and all that, which takes many years.

Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar: Mm-hmm.

Denzil Mohammed: So one example of this is last year in 2021, three states passed bills that reduced barriers to occupational licenses and certificate codes, allowing state regulators to more easily accept foreign credentials and opening pathways for licensure for immigrant and refugee doctors. Can you elaborate on how this can influence and affect our economy and citizens positively?

Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it’s a massive issue and I really came to learn about the significance of it through researching for this report. Chris Ramon, who was formally in the Bipartisan Policy Institute, has written about this a lot. And I think the point really is that changing licensing requirements can allow immigrant workers to use their skills and experiences in professions that allow them to thrive. And so this might be like what you said, the case that you just quoted about doctors being able to practice without doing multiple degrees all over again, that they’ve already done in their home countries. But it can also be as simple as people being able to get driving licenses without having a certain level of documentation because in that way they can work. They can drive to their workplace if necessary, they can do a number of different things. So I think it’s really just about giving people the tools that will allow them to thrive, to support themselves, to support their families. And I think we need to see this beyond just what people consider to be higher-skilled licenses to kind of the full range of restrictions that can be lifted.

Denzil Mohammed: Why would we shoot ourselves in the foot by not allowing people who have skills to use those skills in the U.S. to everyone’s benefit, right? That’s basically what you’re saying.

Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar: Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

Denzil Mohammed: And you mentioned different skill levels. So we are not just talking about the physicians and surgeons. We’re talking about people who have agricultural skills or other kinds of things that would allow them to be a more productive member of society.

Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar: And in that way be able to provide for their own welfare and their family’s welfare too in a way that ultimately, as we’ve been saying throughout this whole thing, affects everybody who lives in this country.

Denzil Mohammed: They’ll be paying more in taxes, they’ll be contributing more, they’ll be buying property and items, and sales tax. All these different things contribute. And it almost goes to the idea of freedom and individual liberty of being able to sort of self-actualize without impediment, right?

Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar: It does. And that’s not to say that other federal policy provisions shouldn’t be made for immigrant labor protection, but this is a definite key aspect of making immigrant workers able to participate in the economy more effectively.

Denzil Mohammed: And you touched on something that is unfortunately highly politicized, which is driver’s licenses. And I don’t really want to go down that rabbit hole, but the idea of unauthorized immigrants being able to have driver’s licenses speaks to public safety. Everyone’s safety and ability to work and contribute freely, right? That’s the point you’re making.

Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar: Absolutely. Yeah.

Denzil Mohammed: Right. So, one of the things you’ve mentioned in the report most strongly is about the benefits, and the funds and relief that many immigrant essential workers, and families and children did not receive. How do you think it best to deliver that aid to immigrant essential workers?

Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar: Mm-Hmm. A lot of people that I interviewed, a lot of the policy experts that I spoke to as well, spoke about how immigrant workers are more likely to take advantage of cash benefits that aren’t related to specific needs because as I spoke about the field piece earlier there’s less fear surrounding that. There’s less need for documentation, and to provide, and to put them at risk and to make them visible in ways that could potentially harm them. Honestly, I think that’s something we need to listen to. I think we need to do more qualitative research on how we can move forward with making benefits and funds available to immigrant communities in ways that would best that would best suit them and their needs

Denzil Mohammed: I even think about the stimulus payments that we received in 2020 and 2021 that went directly to our bank accounts. Not all immigrants have bank accounts. Something as simple as that. And yet they are waking up every morning and heading out to work on the front lines. Just out of the 20 or so interviews you did with immigrant essential workers, and might I add they came from a wide range of countries of origin; Mexico, Nepal, Eritrea. Was there anyone’s story or interview that stood out to you, that resonated with you that you probably would not forget any time soon?

Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar: Yeah, I think it was with an 18-year old girl in California whose entire family consisted of undocumented immigrants. And she spoke a lot about the trauma that her family members experienced and that she herself felt through the entire pandemic. The uncertainty, the fear of deportation, the working conditions, particularly in the agricultural sector, and just the lack of recognition really from federal policies, but also just from people not recognizing the danger that immigrant workers put themselves in on a daily basis.

Denzil Mohammed: I remember some of those quotes about, “What if when my parents get COVID and they can’t go out to work, who’s gonna pay the bills? How are we gonna be able to sustain ourselves? As undocumented immigrants we can’t just go out there and ask for aid.” One of the things that stood out a lot is the fact that a lot of the lack of federal action to assist immigrant central workers in certain parts of the country were taken care of by very local initiatives. Whether it’s a grassroots movement, local city council, advocacy organizations. Could you just speak a little bit as to how some of these most successful initiatives worked?

Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar: Yeah. I think in the report we detail a bunch of them throughout several states, but I think the key takeaway there is that in the absence of a lot of the federal policy provisions for immigrant essential workers, state governments came up with a lot of ways to help local communities. There was just a lot of upwards mobilization from grassroots communities, from nonprofits mobilizing for immigrant workers. And I think if we can take something away from that is that we need to consistently keep funding community health centers, community organizations that really at a very local level will understand how things need to be targeted in their communities. Whether that’s funds or whether that’s just direct help in many different facets.

Denzil Mohammed: Direct help. One of the things you mentioned in the report is just information about COVID. Information about the vaccine, information on where to access tests and help. Accurate information to counter the conspiracy theories, and the viral videos and things like that.

Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar: Mm-Hmm. Even things like food provision and childcare, which are huge things.

Denzil Mohammed: Right? So overall, one of the main purposes of this report was to lay out a map or an example of what should be done next time we’re hit with a public health crisis. And, arguably, we will be hit with another public health crisis at some point.

Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar: Yeah.

Denzil Mohammed: And for me, the main idea was that we need to take care of immigrant essential workers as much as we take care of everyone else in order for us to get through this, any sort of public health crisis, better, faster, more efficiently, more humanely. Anuradha Sajjanhar, thank you so much for joining us with JobMakers. This was a real pleasure to talk to you. And thank you for doing this research.

Dr. Anuradha Sajjanhar: Yes, thank you. It was a pleasure.

Denzil Mohammed: Jobmakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thanks for joining us for today’s fascinating conversation on how immigrants are helping all Americans get through this pandemic in an outsized way. Got comments, questions, or know someone we should talk to? Email [email protected]. And please, leave us a review. I’m Denzil Mohammed. Join us next Thursday at noon for another episode of JobMakers.

Episode 40: Rodrigo Souza

JobMakers podcast logo: Rodrigo Souza cooks up successRodrigo Souza came to the United States from Brazil at just 18 and found work as a server. He discovered a passion for the restaurant industry that led him to open his own steakhouse, through which he has created more than 400 jobs and helped feed his town’s unhoused people. Tune in to discover how this motivated entrepreneur kept his business alive, his community fed and his workers employed throughout the COVID-19 crisis.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed, and this is JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Fun fact, in the Greater Boston area, more than one quarter of immigrants from Brazil, 27 percent, are self-employed, more than any other group. That means they are more likely to be jobmakers. Go to ilctr.org to learn more. For Rodrigo Souza, immigrant from Brazil and owner of Comeketo Brazilian Steakhouse in Leominster, Massachusetts, the resourcefulness and doggedness in Brazilian culture followed him to the United States and enabled his success. He estimates he’s provided around 400 jobs since his restaurant opened in 2009. And he’s so popular, even in a county that’s 75 percent white, that he won the People’s Choice Award in the 2020 Worcester, Mass. Best Chef competition. It wasn’t always easy. And even during the pandemic, when restaurants were really hard hit, Rodrigo found new and inventive ways of generating revenue and keeping people employed. He’s also found ways to give back to the country that took him in, from his three years in the U.S. Army to feeding the town’s homeless, as you’ll learn in this week’s JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Rodrigo Souza from Leominster, Massachusetts, welcome to JobMakers! How are you? 

Rodrigo Souza: Hey man, thank you, thank you. I’m good, thanks for having me! 

Denzil Mohammed: So youre the owner of Comeketo Brazilian Steakhouse in Leominster. Give us the 30-second pitch about your business. 

Rodrigo Souza: Comeketo is a Brazilian steakhouse, and we offer people a very unique experience than other Brazilian steakhouses, which is basically to try everything on the menu. We have a variety of different meats anywhere from pork, chicken, lamb, steak, sausage. We do also grill pineapple on a rotisserie with a variety of different sides and gourmet salads. So coming here, it’s really like going to a tasting.

Denzil Mohammed: So how did you end up in this business? I remember you saying that your mom didn’t even cook, right? 

Rodrigo Souza: Yeah, I did not come from a family that’s big at cooking or anything like that. My mom actually hates cooking [laughs]. I grew up being an only child, and I actually got to learn how to do some stuff when I was young. But I never actually really had on my radar that I would do something like that for a job, for a career. When I came to the U.S., my cousin worked in restaurants. It’s actually a funny story ‘cause I used to go pick him up every night, in the beginning I didn’t have a job and I would fill out an application every time I would go pick him up. And then the general manager said, you cost me more money in applications, I’m just gonna hire you. So they actually made up a position for me, which is like a roller. So I would sit in a corner of the dining room and make rollups all night long, you know, fork, knife and the napkin, those rollups you get when you go to restaurants. I’d do that from like 4:00 until like 10:30, 11:00 at night. My hands are smooth from so much friction with the napkins all day, all night. 

Denzil Mohammed: So you sort of fell into it, and this is not something uncommon. I remember interviewing Shane Smyth from Hugh O’Neill’s Irish Pub, sort of the same thing, he just sort of fell into it. And it was something that was decided to bring their heritage to America in this way. In his case it was Ireland, in your case, it was Brazil. So this takes us back to your roots in Rio de Janeiro. What was life like growing up in Rio? 

Rodrigo Souza: Growing up in Rio, it’s a very, very good experience, man. Actually one of the reasons why I’m here in the U.S. is because I was having a really, really good time in Rio de Janeiro. So my parents kind of deported me [laughs] from Brazil to here. Growing up, being real, a lot of fun, a lot of partying, a lot of friends, a lot of good times. 

Denzil Mohammed: So you said your parents wanted you to get away and discover the world. So 2001, you moved here at the age of 18 to Boston. Why did they want that for you, and what was the experience like, of moving to a place where the language and the culture and the laws and everything were so different? 

Rodrigo Souza: They wanted me to experience something different. They wanted to take me away from my friends, and they put a good offer in front of me in terms of coming here. Everybody has a dream to come to America, right? Even though I did have a good life in Brazil, it wasn’t because I was really seeking for a better life like that. But you know, they wanted me to learn English, they wanted me to learn the culture, they wanted me to create other relationships, create other links, and maybe do something better with my life than I would have in Brazil, better opportunities, et cetera. 

Denzil Mohammed: And so your first job was working in restaurants? 

Rodrigo Souza: My first job was actually work in a supermarket here, Roche Bros. And it’s funny ‘cause this town, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Millis, it’s exit 19 off of 495, I think. And I was the only immigrant, I was the only Black person in the town. Actually when I went to high school, it was kind of like a whole thing, “Oh, this guy is from Brazil,” [laughs]. But that was my first job, doing bags at Roche Bros.

Denzil Mohammed: Wow. Yes, I am actually familiar with Millis, it’s not the most diverse town in Massachusetts. So you opened Comeketo in 2009, and you’ve grown significantly since then. You started out as basically a sandwich shop and now you’re a full-service restaurant. I know it wasn’t easy in the beginning. You actually had to borrow money just to fill your cash register to have change. What was that experience like, starting this as someone who didn’t have a business before? 

Rodrigo Souza: Let me correct you. It wasn’t easy, it’s still not easy [laughs]. It’s never easy. I scraped all the money that I had, which wasn’t a whole lot, to start this business. And then the first day we didn’t have money in the register, so I actually borrowed 50 bucks from somebody and I basically gave that money back at the end of the night. But if you’re talking about being unprepared, we can have a conversation, because I just really saw the first step of the whole set of stairs. I just saw one step, I put my foot in there and kept on going up. By no means I wanna say that we are super big right now, but we definitely in a better position. We’ve grown a lot. We’ve developed a lot. We went from like a seven table sandwich shop, to a 85-seat restaurant, full-blown Brazilian steakhouse, full-service, that’s being able to expose to this community here what Brazilian food is, Brazilian culture, et cetera. 

Denzil Mohammed: What do you think was in you? What qualities do you think you had? You said you sort of had to mature and get seasoned in this in order to be able to be a successful entrepreneur. Do you think you had particular qualities that allowed you to take that risk and start this business? 

Rodrigo Souza: The qualities that I think helped me to get me where I am today is that I’m very persistent. I’m very persistent. I heard this from some other person, it’s not me that created this, but “persistence beats resistance.Persistence beats resistance. Sooner or later, man, you swing that bat so many times, enough times that you’re gonna hit the ball, you’re gonna hit the home run. I actually recently did the Ironman. Three, four months ago, I did an Ironman competition, I actually still have the band. 

Denzil Mohammed: Oh, wow. 

Rodrigo Souza: You’re supposed to take this off after you’re done. I kept it because I want to remind myself of the things that it takes to get to the finish line, not necessarily finish line, but to get to other levels. And I did this because I knew that these would help me in other areas of my life. It’s a constant battle between your mind and your body. And in life, your mind is trying to screw you all the time. Your mind is trying to put you in a safe place all the time. Your mind doesn’t want to hurt you. So you can’t listen to your mind like that all the time. Otherwise you’d never do anything significant with your life, ‘cause your mind wants to protect you. 

Denzil Mohammed: I was gonna ask you what advice you would have for budding entrepreneurs, but I think that’s it right there, mind over matter and just being persistent.  

Rodrigo Souza: Yeah.

Denzil Mohammed: Of course, now we are in a pandemic and restaurants were really badly hurt. You had to come up with new revenue streams. What were they, and do you think they’re sustainable going forward?  

Rodrigo Souza: Thankfully, we actually have pulled through this okay. We had to be very creative. Actually during the pandemic, we turned the restaurant into a little mini supermarket, online. So all the food that we buy, we sold it online, delivering these items to people. This was about 30 percent to 33 percent of our revenue during the pandemic. Another creative thing that we did was we created some virtual brands. We still actually have five virtual restaurants. So we created these brands, we market online, and everything comes out of here. It’s very short menus, five, six, seven items. It’s a good way to capture a bigger market share in the community and use the same ingredients that you’re already using here. You don’t have to buy a whole lot. So that’s a couple things that we did and have done to stay relevant and keep bringing the revenue we should in order to survive and keep people employed. 

Denzil Mohammed: That’s incredibly creative. Would you recommend this kind of branching out in additional revenue streams to other businesses in other industries? 

Rodrigo Souza: Absolutely. From this, I actually created another company called Virtual Kitchen Hall, which we’re actually, not selling this concept out, but for lack of a better term and not having enough time to explain what it really is, just think [of it] as a franchise. We sell these ideas out to other restaurants across the nation, and they execute these menus out of their own kitchen. And what we do is we market those menus in their area. We give them a printer and a tablet, and people order and comes right in their kitchen, we dispatch a driver to go out and get the food. They don’t have to do anything, all they have to do is fulfill the order. And that’s a great way to bring $500, $700, sometimes even more a day in sales. So you already have your infrastructure there, you already have your people, you already have your inventory there. Why not maximize on the space that you have? 

Denzil Mohammed: Wow, that’s great. In 2020, during this pandemic, you said, “People have been supporting us all these years and now it’s our turn to support them. One of the initiatives that came out of the pandemic was “My Local MA.” How do you think this has helped the local economy where you are? 

Rodrigo Souza: I believe it certainly did during the pandemic. We also reached out to a couple families that were in need, we gave out some groceries. We actually had some people reaching out to us to buy people some groceries and whatnot. We currently help out an institution here called Our Father’s Table. Every six weeks or so, there’s a rotation of restaurants that actually give them food, cook them a nice meal. So we definitely try to do our part. 

Denzil Mohammed: As a business owner for well over 10 years now, do you think that it’s important to give back? 

Rodrigo Souza: I think it’s absolutely important to give back. I think that the concept that the Bible has to give 10 percent of your earnings applies anywhere. So it’s definitely important to look at your side and extend a hand to somebody that’s in need and try to help somebody, giving them something, but also teaching them how to do that on their own as well. 

Denzil Mohammed: So according to our own research here at The Immigrant Learning Center, immigrants from Brazil in the Greater Boston area are the most likely to be self-employed of all the other immigrant populations in Greater Boston. Twenty seven percent start their own business, whether it’s incorporated or not incorporated. Why is it that Brazilians like to start their own businesses and create jobs?  

Rodrigo Souza: I think Brazilians find ways to do things better than most people, I guess [laughs]. I think one thing about Brazilian people, man, I think we are very resourceful. That’s another thing about the quality or virtue of being an entrepreneur. I’m very resourceful. For example, I started Comeketo out of nothing, man. Not out of nothing, but what are the chances of somebody starting something, knowing that they don’t have the money to start, they don’t have money to put in the register? You find ways to do things. Like I said about swinging that bat, you know, you swing that bat enough times, you find people that want to help, you find ways to do things. For example, when I moved from my old location to this location, it was a sort of smooth transition. And then when I renovated the place that I’m in, and I turned into a Brazilian steakhouse, we did a fullblown renovation here, and in my projections, we would spend about $50,000. And I did not have that money, I did not have $50,000. And that’s another crazy thing that I did. Some people will call this being inconsequent, but I call that believing in myself. I only had $7,000 in the bank, and I had an idea of how generate the money for the construction while the construction was happening. So I basically talked to everybody that was doing the project with me, and I tried to negotiate something like 30 percent now, 30 percent [when] it’s done, 33-33-34, you know, after I started bringing revenue. So we actually sold a ticket to the grand opening, couple different days as a show. We brought some Brazilian samba dancers, and we turned into a show, like almost a movie theater, you know, like a 5:00 session, a 7:30, and a 9:00. And so I sold a good amount of tickets for that. So as the ticket sales are coming, I’m putting that back in the construction. It was a crazy move. And this construction started at $50,000, cost me like $85,000. This is just to show, I have done a lot of things like that in my life that I didn’t have the means to do it. I didn’t have the resources, it didn’t look like I could do it, but I strongly believed in myself, and I pulled through. 

Denzil Mohammed: So finally, you mentioned earlier that being back in Brazil, everyone wants to live in America and this American dream, and a lot of people who are born here don’t have as optimistic a view of the American dream. Do you think that the American dream is alive and well? 

Rodrigo Souza: I think there’s definitely alive. You gotta look for it, every day. Every day, you gotta knock on doors, right? Every day you gotta knock, knock, “Where’s my dream, is it here? [laughs]. Again, it goes back to being persistent, believe in yourself. I’m definitely thankful that I came to this amazing nation, and it has really taken me in. It’s not gonna come and knock on your door, that’s for sure. It’s not gonna come to you. You gotta go to it. That’s just how it is. 

Denzil Mohammed: That’s a really good point. It’s not just gonna present itself to you. You’re not gonna land in a street paved with gold. 

Rodrigo Souza: Not at all, not at all. 

Denzil Mohammed: You have to actually pound the street in order to find it. 

Rodrigo Souza: And it tastes better when you actually go after it like that, you know? 

Denzil Mohammed: Oh wow, I’ve never heard anyone describe it like that. That’s incredible. Rodrigo Souza, owner of Comeketo Brazilian Steakhouse in Leominster, Massachusetts, thank you for joining us on JobMakers. 

Rodrigo Souza: Hey man, it was my pleasure. Thanks for having me. 

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a notforprofit that gives immigrants a voice. Thanks for joining us for this week’s incredible story. Got comments, questions or know someone we should talk to? Email denzil@jobmakerspodcast.org. Next week, we’ll have a special episode on new research showing the outsized contributions of immigrant essential workers that kept the U.S. going through the pandemic, and the policies that ignored them. See you Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 39: Gaetan Kashala

JobMakers podcast logo: David Keane on how taking risks on immigrants pays offGaetan Kashala co-founded Globex Corporate, a consulting firm connecting the U.S. to Central and Western African businesses and governments, giving him a unique perspective on how collaboration between U.S.-born and foreign-born entrepreneurs can strengthen the economy. He’s also the engagement director for the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, where he works with business owners to support their contributions to the economy. Listen to learn how his father’s legacy has shaped his important work.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed, and this is JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Let’s face it. The world is unequal. Not everyone, everywhere is given the same chances, opportunities and avenues to fulfill their potential, to succeed. This goes for continents, countries and even within our own borders. There are often things that stand in the way for some people. For Gaetan Kashala, immigrant from the Democratic Republic of Congo, co-founder of Globex Corporate, a consulting firm connecting the U.S. to Central and Western Africa and also the engagement director for AIM, the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, he knows this all too well … both in the Congo and in the U.S. For a host of reasons, many of us are oblivious to the barriers that exist for some groups of people. Gaetan has built a career helping immigrant and other minority small business owners in the Commonwealth by giving them that opportunity for a crack at the “American Dream.” And he’s seen the results. Thriving businesses, growing families and community development. He shares their stories and his own, of a legacy built by his father in Cambridge, in this week’s JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Gaetan Kashala of the Associated Industries of Massachusetts! Welcome to JobMakers. How are you?

Gaetan Kashala: I’m doing well. How are you doing?

Denzil Mohammed: Pretty good. I’ve escaped the cold for a little bit, so I’m thankful. So, tell me a little bit about your business. It’s a very interesting business, and I know it’s one of the things that you do, but you started this with your father and you connect the U.S. to Central and Western Africa, right?

Gaetan Kashala: Yeah, absolutely. So the company is called Global Enterprise Services Corporation, and it’s a consulting firm that when we started out initially focused on government relations. We would partner with American government affairs firm and then travel to different countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, mainly Central and Western Africa in order to speak with governments, policymakers there, about us serving as their representative in the United States, whether this is before the executive branch, legislative branch, multi-laterals like the IMF, World Bank and EU. So, step one in our growth strategy was really developing deep relationships with African political leaders. And then once those relationships were in place, given that we were based out of the United States, we would reach out to members of the business community here in order to see if they were interested in exploring commercial, philanthropic opportunities that existed on the African continent. So, really symbiotic relationship, or process, in that you developed a level of trust with the governments and then leverage that to see what type of business development needs, strategic communication needs that entities in the United States, Europe and China had.

Denzil Mohammed: As a way of building up entities and initiatives in parts of Africa through partnerships in the U.S., that’s incredible. In the U.S., and you say as well in Asia and the EU. You are very familiar with Central Africa because you’re from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Tell us a little bit about what life was like, if you can recall, growing up there.

Gaetan Kashala: Sure, sure. So, I was born in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo; about 13 million – 14 million residents live there. I spent the first seven years of my life there before moving to the United States. My father was pursuing a PhD from Harvard University, so that’s what brought us there, that’s what brought us to the United States. But in terms of memories and recollections from my time there, I just remember the vibrancy and the energy of being in the capital and its situation where you would see people hustling all the time, whether that was the street vendors, there was just this entrepreneurial capacity there that in many ways was a means for folks to put food on their table and bring money and resources to their families. I don’t know how familiar you are with the socioeconomic composition of Congo or Kinshasa in general, but it’s a fairly impoverished community. I would say over 70 percent, 80 percent of the people are living below the poverty line from an international perspective, so there’s a real gap between the “haves” and the “have nots” and it was always, even as I think back on it, always really invigorating to see the vibrancy and the hustle that a lot of the people there had, because in many ways they were hustling to stay alive, to keep their family alive.

Denzil Mohammed: Your father came to do his PhD. You yourself studied at Tufts. One of the things the American public really doesn’t know is that the smartest immigrant group is actually African immigrants to the U.S. They have the highest educational attainment as a group. Much of your work now is focused on this idea of engagement, connection, economic prosperity, equity and you’re the engagement director at AIM, the Associated Industries of Massachusetts. I find it interesting that they say in their mission, “We further assert that such economic opportunity must reflect the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion. Everyone must have a voice on the economic future of Massachusetts.” What does that mean?

Gaetan Kashala: I’m really glad you asked that question. So, I currently serve as a co-chair on AIM’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Staff Council. AIM had recognized that it wanted its membership to reflect the diversity that exists in Massachusetts, and they wanted to serve as a convener of discussions between the business community as well as historically marginalized population. Ultimately what we’re looking to do from a DEI perspective is just to really make sure that our membership looks like what we see out in Massachusetts, and then we’re playing a role to support that effort, whether that’s through DEI training programs that we offer to members, whether that’s through highlighting the accomplishments of Black, brown, women-led businesses. We understand that this is a continual learning process and we want to be that convener of productive conversations.

Denzil Mohammed: Tell me a little bit about some of the immigrant-owned businesses that you’ve interacted with; there’s the Southeast-Asian Business Coalition and various other associations like that. Do they stand out at all to you … you talked about the hustle in Kinshasa. Do you see that sometimes in some of these business owners?

Gaetan Kashala: Yeah, absolutely. And it’s really amazing because whether it’s the groups that I’ve interacted with, or I currently live in Dorchester right now in the Savin Hills area, and see business, whether it’s Vietnamese businesses, Haitian businesses … I’ve heard of countless situations where one person comes to the United States, immigrates here, starts up a business, begins sending money back home in order to bring more family members here, the family members come here and then they come in and work for the business, support the business and, importantly, add tremendous value to the communities in which they’ve immigrated to. These are not, and not to overly generalize, but in my experience, these are not people that are here looking for handouts. They are came here with a belief in the American dream, a belief in the American meritocratic society, which is also something I should have brought up earlier relative to Congo because in many ways you have your “haves” and you have your “haves nots,” right? Sometimes the “haves” is that you are a “have” because of where you were born, or what tribe you are in, and if that tribe is empowered then you’re getting jobs. So a lot of the motivation for coming to the United States, it’ll be a lot of the attraction, is just that belief that in America, you can accomplish anything. You put some hard work into it, but there’s opportunity here and that I see on a daily basis, every time I walk to get my coffee, my Vietnamese coffee … it’s really uplifting to see.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s incredible, and you know, Americans don’t realize how much of the world is like what you just talked about, separated by class and tribe and lineage and their last names, the color of their skin, where these are real barriers that have been around for generations and generations. And I like that you’ve met these business owners, you’ve talked to them over the years, you’ve pushed for economic equity in Dorchester in your previous roles going down at the community level and talking and meeting these people, seeing the shared diversity that we have in Massachusetts, for instance. It’s not a situation where there’s one big dominant immigrant group. It’s been evenly split. Haitians, Brazilians, Chinese, Indians … how have you seen immigrant entrepreneurship impact the Massachusetts economy and some of the local economies that you’ve been involved with?

Gaetan Kashala: Yeah, I’ve seen it in a number of ways…

Denzil Mohammed: … you mentioned that you live in Savin Hill and I think of Fields Corner

Gaetan Kashala: … yeah, absolutely! You think of Fields Corner, Upham’s Corner. So when I worked at Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation, I was responsible for building up the economic mobility program, and an interesting thing about Dorchester Bay is it’s a CFI, a Certified Financial Institution, so they essentially had a bank, a mission-driven bank, that was focusing on lending money and disenfranchised communities. So we would get funds from either the Small Business Administration or the Treasury department, and our charge was to provide capital to those that historically had a difficult time accessing those traditional sources of capital. We supported a whole number of entrepreneurs, many of them were immigrants, so I had the opportunity to meet with these folks, hear about what businesses they wanted to put in place and then work with them, whether it’s through providing technical assistance, how to put together business plan, marketing plan, website … these are the type of basic financial statements that you’re gonna meet. It was in that experience that I had that firsthand look into the immigrant entrepreneur story. I recall working with a lady from Kenya, I believe, she had come here from Kenya, had been working in the health care space for a while, started off as a CNA and then went into administration. She was director of a nursing home and decided that, given her experience, which led her to really see the need for health care staffing, she wanted to start a home health care staffing operation. It was working with her hand-in-hand, wrote her business plan, put together the website, and, now in the process of trying to solicit some funding that she’ll need to be able to really kick off her operation. And importantly, especially in nursing home care, the vast majority of the caregivers are immigrants. And, for the story I was talking about specifically, that represents about 90 to 95 percent of their workforce.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s incredible … 90 to 95 percent. I mean, we’ve seen it, we’ve seen who are the ones taking care of the sick, the elderly generally, but even through this pandemic. It’s your Jamaican nurse, or your Filipino nurse. They’re a huge part of our health care system and many other industries. I want to push back on two things briefly. One is, people are going to listen to this podcast, you talk about it was basically a bank that was giving out money to these disenfranchised communities, and they’re gonna call that a handout. Was that a handout?

Gaetan Kashala: No, no, absolutely not. Because for one plain definitional reason, the funds would be transferred in the form of a loan, but very low interest loan relative to what you would see out there in the normal market. So there is nothing being “handed out” at least through our loan process. Another thing I would just have folks be mindful of … some of the challenges, and I would say a lot of these structural challenges, that exist that prevented a lot of these groups from being able to access capital. So I wouldn’t call this a “handout” in any way that you would say, “Okay, my parent paying for my college education” was a handout. This is really about providing opportunity. In my job, my work there was all built around how do you position folks to be able to achieve economic mobility, and our thesis was that you focus on providing them with human capital, who are the individuals that they’re around that they can leverage and network to be able to advance, the social capital, what’s the infrastructure and institutions that are around there, whether it’s from a school perspective, different trainings and things like that. And then finally, it’s the financial capital. Money obviously is the oxygen that allows us to do a lot of different things. We/I kind of look at it from that framework where in order to position folks for economic mobility, you gotta focus on that human, social and financial capital, find ways to introduce that expand that to different businesses, individuals and what have you.

Denzil Mohammed: So you are saying that there are systemic barriers in the U.S., even here where we think that there’s just this level playing field. Another thing I want to challenge you on is in terms of your business, your consulting business. The model is about connection. It’s about bridging the divides between continents and countries, but we’re in an era, I would say, where people want to “close in.” They want to close the borders, they want to look inward. It’s about America first. How have you seen this notion of bridges and connections with all these different parts of the world in the U.S.? Has that been a good thing in your estimate?

Gaetan Kashala: So in one way, I understand what you are saying, but I think we have to be careful about the connection we make between the political rhetoric that we hear and see, and what’s going on business-to-business, business-wise. Take, for example, like climate change. You heard a lot of talk about the Glasgow conference, but then there’s, “Oh, these governments aren’t making commitments, the politicians aren’t making realistic commitments.” But then if you look at the business-to-business level, you see that there’s tremendous work being done. Fundamentally, if you’re able to demonstrate value to someone, whether that’s an individual or an organization, you’re able to provide them with something that they need, that they cannot get elsewhere, or can’t get elsewhere at a price that makes sense. I think that’s ultimately what this is all about, right? It’s about you’re seeing the demand, that’s out there, you’re seeing there’s a need out there, whether that’s for a construction worker, whether that’s for coffee and you’re filling that need. So, if you’re looking at things from an immigrant entrepreneur perspective, it’s just about really going out there, hustling, trying to identify those opportunities and be able to effectively articulate, communicate what value you bring relative to the other options that are on the table or in the market.

Denzil Mohammed: I love the way you talk about markets, the economy, business-to-business and how business moves these policy changes even, you know? And for the betterment of all of us, for the betterment of the population. I want to bring it back to you and your family, and you move here when you were really young, but you do remember the impoverished parts of Kinshasa. You do remember what it was like. How do you feel about the U.S. as your adopted home?

Gaetan Kashala: I really feel grateful to be here, especially knowing what the situation exists in Congo from a poverty perspective, from an infrastructure perspective, whether you’re talking bridges, clean water, electricity. I think coming to the US, it was almost like a clean slate, or a canvas that you can draw your story on. And it was a cleaner canvas than probably existed in Congo, so there’s a lot more opportunity, a lot of different things that, that could be drawn on that canvas. And that’s really something that should be appreciated.

Denzil Mohammed: And I think that you drawing something that’s really exceptional, something that capitalizes on the diversity that we all experience. And I’m glad that your father made that move. Thank you very much for you and your family being here and for advancing the things that you’re advancing through your work, through your business, through AIM. Gaetan Kashala, thank you so much for joining us on JobMakers. It’s a real pleasure talking to you.

Gaetan Kashala: Yeah, likewise! Thank you very much for having me.

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Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice.

Got comments, questions or know someone we should talk to? Email denzil [at] jobmakerspodcast.org. Thank you for joining us for another inspiring conversation. I’m Denzil Mohammed. See you next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

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Episode 38: David Keane

JobMakers podcast logo: David Keane on how taking risks on immigrants pays offAustralian-born immigrant founder David Keane is launching new products and creating thousands of jobs as a leader in the tech industry. He believes that the United States’ willingness to welcome immigrants and take risks sets it apart in the increasingly global economy. Listen to learn how he thinks the next generation of entrepreneurs will migrate, create and innovate!

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed, and this is JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Last week, we spoke with Swedish thinker Johan Norberg about openness. The free movement of people and ideas and the progress that results. In the United States, visas and exchange programs have allowed for the movement of ideas, skills, and knowledge into the country. The result? Well, for one thing, immigrants make up more than a third of America’s Nobel Prize Laureates. For David Keane, immigrant from Australia and founder of Bigtincan, an artificial intelligence powered sales enablement platform for leading companies worldwide that is headquartered in Boston and employs more than 400 people, that movement of people is a risk worth taking. A diversity of thought and background can bring about incredible new ideas, products, and services like his industry leading company, not to mention create thousands of jobs as he’s done over the years. David believes that what makes the U.S. special is its culture both of welcoming immigrants and being willing to try new things, to take risks. He wonders though about how the next generation of entrepreneurs will construct movement and sharing in a world of high globalization and connectedness, as you’ll discover in this week’s JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: David Keane, founder of Bigtincan, welcome to JobMakers.

David Keane: Thank you so much for having me. Great to be here.

Denzil Mohammed: You’re the first Aussie we’ve interviewed, so congratulations on that.

David Keane: Thank you. I’ll try and control this outrageous Australian accent I have so the listeners can make sense of what we’re saying. But no, it’s just wonderful to be here and I’m really excited to talk about our story and share more with you guys.

Denzil Mohammed: So, in a nutshell, describe for the general public your business and what it does.

David Keane: Bigtincan is an enterprise software company. What that means is we make software that is used by enterprise organizations. That’s normally larger companies that are faced with a really significant challenge in their business today. Now the reality of business for many enterprises is that because of this digital revolution we’ve had and the internet and social media, when they think about their customers, they’re faced with the reality that those customers are better prepared and more informed than ever before, before they meet someone on their customer facing team. And whether that’s a salesperson or a customer success person, or a customer support person, that human being, when they actually engage with a customer or a prospect, is finding that very often that customer has done more research and actually sometimes knows more than their own staff member that’s supposed to help them. This is a significant change in how the economy works. I’d like the viewers out there to think about it in their own world. How many times have you gone into a cell phone shop or gone to buy a new retail product or to buy a financial services offering, or even some kind of industrial equipment where you have known more about what you need than the person who’s supposed to be helping you or selling to you. That’s caused a change in our economy. We believe that those human beings who are working on the customer facing side of enterprise organizations need new ways to get better prepared themselves and more informed. So we build the software that enterprise organizations, and we now have 97 of the Fortune 500 deploying our technology, they use that technology to make sure that every one of their human beings that works with their customers is themselves better prepared and more informed to actually deliver a better service and better experience to that buyer. And so, our software is used to really try and make that connection more powerful.

Denzil Mohammed: So even in the 2000’s, you were thinking about this, in a time prior to a lot of the technology and resources that the general public has. Why did you think it was so important to focus on this particular area?

David Keane: Well, my background actually goes back to the 1990’s. Maybe some of our listeners here remember the 1990’s. There was a time when, when you were in a customer facing role, you had all of these support services to actually help you to be better prepared and more informed for your own engagement with customers. As we went through the 2000’s much of that disappeared. And certainly, the GFC caused many of those support roles to go away forever. Now we believed that some of that work could be done by computers, could be done by smart software. And we have the technology now to build smart software that can actually really help folks to work better and smarter. I know it may seem like a long bow to draw, but if you think about today’s world of self-driving cars, how they can help you to perform safer, get from point A to point B more efficiently and effectively, we believe that software can help human beings in a customer facing role to do the same thing.

Denzil Mohammed: But we’re talking Tokyo versus London versus Tasmania. I mean, that’s a lot of different business cultures, right?

David Keane: Oh yeah. Well, what we’ve realized, and I’m sure it’s the same for many of the listeners of this podcast, is it’s a global market. In fact, for many organizations, it is a strategic advantage to be in a global market. And for Bigtincan, we realize that the need someone has in Tokyo or in London or in Tasmania is actually very similar and we can solve those problems with smart data science models and smart software that understand the nuances of those local environments. By the way, we’re in more than 40 languages, not just in multiple locations, in more than 40 languages. And we know that with software, we can start to address those needs. We can make someone in Tokyo who is part of an organization based out of London, feel connected to that company, to have access to the right content, to the right materials, so they can actually really make a difference. But yeah, I think it’s reality for many organizations. There’s a global opportunity. Now we have to also act local while we think global, but, geez, if we can start take advantage of the power of technology, we can make the world more effective.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s fascinating. I mean, you talk about this globalized world. You yourself, you’re from Australia. This podcast is about immigrant entrepreneurs in the U.S. How has that perspective of being an immigrant shaped the vision for your business?

David Keane: Look, I think it’s always interesting when you look at the world and I’ve been very fortunate to have had a chance to visit a bunch of places and meet some incredible people all over the world. You know, one thing for me is that I’m always reminding myself of how similar the world is, even in our differences. And that we have an opportunity to be able to make the world better by embracing those differences, but also helping folks to achieve the similar goals we have in our everyday lives. You know, I think being an immigrant is a huge opportunity and I’m really appreciative of the welcome I’ve had here in the United States and the human beings that have been so helpful in helping Bigtincan and helping myself and my family to feel incredibly welcome here. But I also know that we are very fortunate coming from Australia. And I know that that experience is not the same for everybody. Australia has a particular relationship with America and, you know, I think we’ve been very fortunate to be so welcomed and I’m sure it’s not the same for everybody. So I just really appreciate that. And I think though when you really break it all down, it doesn’t matter where you’re from. It’s “Are you able to bring about, are you able to think in new and interesting ways about how you can make the world better and how you could understand the real-world problems that people have?” And the more you see of the world, I think the better you can be doing. So, yeah, I think as a message to all other immigrants coming into America and wherever it is you choose to go around the world, I think it’s a unique opportunity. And whilst there will be challenges, if you make the most of it, I think the opportunity for growth is really strong.

Denzil Mohammed: You mentioned some really fascinating things there about, you know, the universality of this globalized world, all the things that we have in common. And yet there are very marked differences: language, culture, backgrounds, economic statuses that we also need to recognize.

David Keane: Mhmm. Mhmm.

Denzil Mohammed: And you mentioned the relationship of Australia to the U.S., your move to the U.S. was a very deliberate and thoughtful move. You moved here strategically. How have you seen, as a business owner, diversity? Diversity of thought, diversity of background, vis-à-vis immigration to the U.S. affecting innovation and entrepreneurship? Do you think it’s something that’s needed to innovate?

David Keane: Oh, I think it is, needed is a very interesting word, but I think it is incredibly helpful to have a broad and diverse background as a human being. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, if you have a diverse and broad understanding and you have a broad set of skills, I think that adds tremendously to the innovation opportunity. You know, one of the things that helped, that I saw coming from a small market like Australia, where you couldn’t be as deep in any individual area, you had to be more broad because: small market. So, you didn’t have the same degree of specialization you have in the bigger markets. Traditionally in the U.S., because of the scale of the market, you see many humans who just go deep, deep, deep, in a particular topic, so they can be the super expert at that area. And you combine that with multiple people who sort of pass on the baton as they go between areas of expertise. Smaller markets, less mature markets, you need to have a more diverse set of skills. And I think that is definitely helpful. If you understand a broader range of things, I think you can bring innovation in new ways with that. But I do believe this idea that you can bring your skills and your approach to the world is really what our future is all about. And again, I’m looking forward to seeing what the next generation of entrepreneurs can do, wherever in the world they’re starting out and wherever they see their future. That opportunity to be able to bring their experience and their backgrounds to big markets, I think is what’s going to change our world even more.

Denzil Mohammed: Can you give me an example perhaps of how that diversity of thought brought something to fruition?

David Keane: Oh, in our world, one of the advantages we had actually starting back in Australia (the company started in Australia, and we had our first customers in Australia), we were able to go to those first customers and bring them what you now see in our product. We talked about it before, this combination of skills development, content delivery, and insights into customer engagements. We were doing all of those things when we first started the company. We weren’t just doing one of them deep. We were doing all of them. And if we hadn’t have been doing all of them, we wouldn’t have been able to translate that in the same way to scale that we’re doing now, it just wouldn’t have worked. But we were forced to because the market we were in was not ready to support that degree of specialization. And so that diverse thinking, forced diverse view, was incredibly important to help us to build where we are today. And if we look at some of our human beings in the global Bigtincan team, we’re so fortunate to have people that have also had that diverse background. Cultural, experience, technology, social, those things together can make a difference.

Denzil Mohammed: There’s this theme of almost capitalizing on the globalization that has happened and seeing all of the benefits that can accrue from it. But we are living in a time where nationalism is at the forefront of a lot of people’s minds. They want to close in. And even during the pandemic where we connected over Zoom, which, by the way, founded by an immigrant from China.

David Keane: Indeed!

Denzil Mohammed: How do you respond to the wave of nationalism given that globalization has empowered your business so much?

David Keane: But I still believe that most human beings want opportunity. They want to be able to build futures for their families and they want to be able to create new and exciting ideas. That’s what human beings exist for. And most of that is the same. And our team here has really embraced that and the idea that our humans can move around the world and be part of that experience. We have had human beings that have moved from the United States to Australia, where the company has moved them there, because that was an opportunity for them and their families to have a personal experience that was strong. We’ve moved human beings from Australia to North America. This idea that we can move people around and have them welcomed and part of creating that future, I think is essential for everybody. So look, at the end of the day, I do feel that what souls, and again, some of this is naïve and I know it is, but I can’t help this idea that when you bring people together and you see each other and you realize that people want the same thing, that helps people to be more connected. And a world where people are connected is a better world than a world where people are siloed and separated. But it’s also wonderful to be able to have these dialogues. And I do applaud you for the way you’re doing this and the questions you’re asking because some of these are not easy questions. They’re really not. They’re confronting questions. But I really applaud you for asking them. I think we have to be able to say to the world, some of these things we don’t have the answer for but we’ve got to at least understand that they’re there and then we’ll hopefully make incrementally better decisions as we move forward.

Denzil Mohammed: It’s quite fascinating you talk about it like this. The bringing together of people generates ideas. In the very last podcast interview that I did with Johan Norberg from Sweden, who’s from the Cato Institute, in one of his books he says, “When people are allowed freedom, they don’t create chaos, but progress.” And so, I find that very fascinating, because that’s exactly what you’re talking about here. The bringing together of people and ideas brings things to fruition. It brings new technologies.

David Keane: But it probably brings up bad ideas as well. I think the reality is we have to be honest with that too. Bringing people together can sometimes bring up things that are not optimal, that are not advancing us in the way we want to be advanced. I don’t think it’s always that there is a guaranteed outcome. But that’s a risk worth taking. Because if we, as a society, believe that fundamentally everybody is good, which certainly I do, and I think that’s something that people have a different view on. But if you believe that, and you feel that human beings will overall make more positive decisions than negative ones, then bringing people together through immigration and through travel is important. We will see together. And we don’t know, we are talking here in the end of January of 2022. We’ll see in January 2023 what has happened with the world. Has travel changed? Do we not travel as much as we used to? Is that an impact? And what does that mean to some of the things that we just talked about? Does it mean that those same fresh ideas happen in different ways? Does it mean we encourage more bad ideas? I mean, stressful time to be around on our planet, but a very interesting time. And I just feel that every human must be part of doing what they can to help us to move in that positive direction. And I think technology is going to give us better opportunities. We’re going to have access to more data and more support and more knowledge than any human has ever had in the history of our planet. And I hope we make the best use of that.

Denzil Mohammed: You’ve been affected by immigration policy. I’ve been affected by immigration policy. And given what you’re talking about right now in this interview, how do you see, or where do you see immigration policy in the U.S.? What would be to most benefit for all Americans?

David Keane: Well, this is another interesting question because “for all Americans” is a very, very interesting question that has to be answered I think by politicians. But at the end of the day, all I can share with you is … certainly, before the pandemic, and again, this is a personal experience based in Australia, we used the immigration programs of the Australian government extensively, where we found opportunities to bring folks in that could really make a difference to our business and our customers. It was a major focus. Now, of course, Australia, as many of the listeners here will realize, had a very strict COVID policy, and that was completely stopped. We could do nothing. We could not continue that program. But look, at the end of the day, I think policies that recognize the benefits that diversity can add to the world are important. Programs that support innovation in terms of making it possible to bring skills to bear. We don’t know, and again, it’s a question for a different podcast and a different speaker, but I think at the end of the day, the decisions that the countries make about, how do you combine skilled versus unskilled, these are questions that are really interesting questions for our society. But I do believe that, and again, with a world that is more remote and we’re looking here back in a year … will we have less travel anyway? Will we have less immigration anyway? These are really interesting things that I think, again, people that are involved in these things you are doing, it’s really important what you’re doing because we want everyone to understand this and help to create the best possible future. And so, my views simply is yes, we need policies that support the needs of business. We need policies that make it appropriate. And we need policies as well that encourage, certainly here in the U.S., domestic skill development and the support of human beings who choose STEM type careers to feel they’re supported in those careers. I think that’s something that also we have to address, and these things are complimentary in many ways.

Denzil Mohammed: It’s about the market. It’s about innovation. It’s about ideas. It’s about the economy. It’s not necessarily a political issue, right? It’s a human issue.

David Keane: The only thing driving innovation is people. It’s people. It’s a people business. That’s all it is. And companies like Bigtincan, we have some great technology, and we love our technology. We have a bunch of patents. That’s all great. But the end of the day, that’s nothing. It’s all about the people that work here. And those people need to be able to work together and exchange ideas together in person and remotely, they need to do it across cultural and political boundaries, and they need to be encouraged to realize that they can do it for themselves and their families. And that’s what we need for our future.

Denzil Mohammed: So, you’ve been living in the U.S. for eight years now. Boston has welcomed you. It has helped you thrive. It has helped you succeed. It has helped you spread all over the world. What are your thoughts on the United States as a home for inherently entrepreneurial immigrants like yourself?

David Keane: Oh, well, I can only give you my personal experience which is that we’ve been very welcomed. We’ve given tremendous opportunity. We could never have built the company that Bigtincan is today without the move to the U.S. We’ve all heard the story of “the better mouse trap.” I think a lot of the world, culturally, when they see the better mouse trap, they’re skeptical that it’s really a better mouse trap. And I think there are many cultures that are like that. I think Australia is one of those where, overall, people are less inclined to try the better mouse trap. They’re more inclined to stick with the mouse trap they know. I think what does make the United States unique in my view today is the ability to embrace the better mouse trap. If the mouse trap is better, I’m going to use it. I don’t care about who made it. I don’t care about where it came from. I don’t care about all this stuff. All I care about is, “Does it catch mice better than the old one I was using before?” And I think that is one of the things that is incredible about the United States of America. And I feel it is a core part of the reason why the United States has been able to deliver so much innovation decade after decade, is that cultural attitude to trying something new.

Denzil Mohammed: Willing to try out that better mouse trap. I couldn’t think of a better analogy. David Keane, thank you so much for joining us on JobMakers.

David Keane: Thank you so much for having me, everyone.

Denzil Mohammed: Thanks for joining us for today’s fascinating conversation on how immigration enriches America’s entrepreneurship and innovation. Got comments, questions, or know someone we should talk to? E-mail Denzil, that’s D-E-N-Z-I-L, at JobMakersPodcast.org. And please leave us a review. I’m Denzil Mohammed.

Episode 37: Johan Norberg

JobMakers podcast logo: Johan Norberg on how Diversity Drives ProgressAuthor of Open: The Story of Human Progress and senior fellow at the Cato Institute Johan Norberg joins JobMakers to share history and research demonstrating how diversity strengthens economies and societies. Norberg also discusses how an obsession with types of “borders” and other limitations can limit progress. Tune in to learn the ways in which he sees progress already being constrained.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and this is the first JobMakers podcast episode of 2022.

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Denzil Mohammed: The world seems pretty open, right? The internet, Netflix, telecommunication, travel and we benefit daily from that openness. Let’s have Mexican for lunch! Let’s take a trip! Let’s watch The Great British Bake Off! Ryan Reynolds, for heaven’s sake, he’s Canadian! But we’re also pretty closed in by borders, sovereign nations, state borders, rules and regulations that differ even by neighborhood that restrict what we can do. For Johan Norberg, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, and author of Open: The Story of Human Progress, the proof is all around us. If history is a guide, openness and diversity mean faster progress, innovation and entrepreneurship. After all, if it weren’t for immigration, there’d be no Coors beer, no TJ Maxx, no Carnival cruises, no COVID-19 vaccine. By almost every indicator, the world is better off because it was open to the exchange of ideas and skills that created cures, machinery and technology. However, Norberg says that with today’s obsession with borders, the United States is already losing ground and entrepreneurs and inventors are going elsewhere; as you’ll learn in this week’s JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Johan Norberg, thank you for joining us on the JobMakers podcast. How are you?

Johan Norberg: Thank you. I’m good! Thanks for having me.

Denzil Mohammed: And you’re all the way across the world in Sweden aren’t you?

Johan Norberg: Yes, that’s right. In dark, cold Sweden for the moment.

Denzil Mohammed: It’s getting dark and cold here as well. So, we can share that. We are going to talk about your book, Open: The Story of Human Progress. But I want to take it back a few years ago. In your previous book, Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future, you said, “When people are allowed freedom, they don’t create chaos but progress.” How does that happen in an increasingly diverse world and particularly in the context of the U.S.?

Johan Norberg: Well, first of all, the results are in and we have just had 30 years that (and this is not what we hear on the news and this is not our everyday assumption), but 30 years that were the best 30 years in human history. When we look at objective indicators like the rise of health, wealth, the reduction in ancient scourges like poverty and illiteracy. We lifted 150,000 people out of extreme poverty every day for 30 years. So, apparently, something is being done right. And it is happening because of diversity. When we want to bring something new into the world, if we’re not content with the way things are, then we need innovation. We need new combinations, we need specialization and the ability to exchange with others who’ve learned something else, who’ve come up with something else. They might have stumbled onto a new innovation or specialized in a certain way of production. And that takes diversity. If we’re all the same with similar knowledge, similar skills, we don’t get much new into the world. So, it’s mixture and remixture. That’s what creates this progress.

Denzil Mohammed: And yet, you say this concept of longing for some distant past is really having a bad memory. And from what you’re saying now, it appears as though we are somehow oblivious about the progress that we have made in the recent past. Nearly half of the United States voted twice to get back to some sort of great time or place or idea. Where does that kind of nostalgia, or some might say delusion. where does that really come from?

Johan Norberg: Actually comes from ourselves. It comes from human nature. I also happen to think that all the good music that exists in the world was created in the 1980s and everything since then has been awful. When I talk to audiences around the world, I often ask them, “Think about this. When was the world at its most harmonious? When did we lead good lives? And in harmony with one another?” And most people end up with saying the era in which they grew up. So people who grew up in the fifties think it’s the fifties. People who grew up in the eighties think it’s the eighties. Those who grew up now, believe it or not, they are gonna look back on this day and age as the golden era. And I think that’s basic psychology. I think when you grow up, there’s this sense of the world as an adventure, but at the same time, it feels safe and secure because your parents are there to hopefully pick up your problems and your bills. But then you grow older and you get kids and you have to start worrying about everything that goes wrong and you learn about the world and everything then seems dangerous and scary. Because we still don’t have solutions to most of the problems that we’re obsessed with today. And we forget that every era faced the same difficulties and didn’t have the solutions that we now think of as ‘Oh, that’s simple.’ So I think its psychology is very easy to deceive us that ‘Look, something is wrong today,’ for demagogues to tell you that, ‘Look, isn’t the world a scary place? Let’s go back to something safe that we had,’ and that is dangerous. And that’s why we need history and economics and data, hard data points and statistics to really tell us how the world is really doing.

Denzil Mohammed: I was just about to ask how come we are so oblivious to the progress that we’ve made. And you talk about demagogues who want to take us back to some place that feels safe, right? Expand on this for me. Why are we so oblivious to the progress that we’ve made and the reasons for that progress?

Johan Norberg: Because problems solved are problems forgotten. We don’t think about the problem of smallpox and polio and soon, hopefully we’ll stop thinking about HIV/AIDS. But we are thinking that the world is going to the dogs because of COVID-19 and the pandemic. For simple and understandable reasons, we pay all our attention to the problems at hand because they are the ones that we have to solve. And then obviously, demagogues and politicians, they don’t activate you by saying, ‘Look, things are pretty good, right? So vote for me if you don’t care!’ That doesn’t work. They have to tell you something is worrying. ‘We have disloyal elites and strangers trying to tear everything down, but you need me basically.’ And the media obviously has an interest in scaring us, shocking us because then we have to turn to the news. Nobody pays attention to flights that landed safely. But if there’s a plane crash, obviously that makes the news.

Denzil Mohammed: Talk about this further in the context of immigration.

Johan Norberg: That’s very interesting because we can see exactly the same kind of development there. When you go back and look at waves of migration to different places, the first reaction people have is often ‘There might be a need; socially, economically for the migrant, but it’s also scary new people from another culture we don’t know, are they going to integrate or not?’ And it looks scary. In the United States when you’ve got strangers like Swedes over there in the mid 19th century and Germans, even people who liked migration and immigration like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin said, this is a little bit worrying because they come from non-democratic societies, and will they ever be able to integrate? And then obviously it didn’t take long until the Swedes and Germans were seen as the ideal model of what an immigrant should be like, especially compared to the dangerous Catholics who are coming now, the Italians and the Irish, because they’re dangerous. They’re criminals, and they have another faith, they’re loyal to Rome and the Pope. They will never be integrated. And obviously it didn’t take long before they got integrated and started working, building families. And people said, ‘Oh, they are great! But look at the next wave, the Chinese!’ or something like that. And we repeat the same thing over and over again. The latest wave of migrants are always scary, especially compared to previous ones. Because we’ve already learned of them, we’ve met them and we know that they didn’t tear our society down; they made it stronger.

Denzil Mohammed: You start your newest book, Open: The Story of Human Progress, with the time that then-President Trump scribbled in the margins of a speech he was about to give, ‘trade is bad’. Yet, you go on to argue very vividly that trade is basically indispensable to human life. It’s part of society. It’s part of civilization. Why were those three words so appealing to so many Americans?

Johan Norberg: Yes. That is really the thing we’ve got to think about and try to understand because trade is so incredibly important. It’s the reason why mankind conquered the planet because people, homo sapiens, learned early on how to cooperate with strangers and find mutual gains. And therefore, the moment somebody stumbles onto a way of controlling fire or inventing the wheel, we could all learn from it or how to go into space or read the genome of a new virus and come up with a vaccine. That’s what makes us strong, the ability to exchange and trade. But the reason why so many people believe what Trump says, that trade is bad and dangerous, is that people often think that the economy is zero-sum game. They think that ‘If somebody else is gaining from this transaction with us, then we must be the losers. So it’s always something that leaves us exposed to outsiders’. And that always looks bad. And obviously this is just a myth. The reason why we’ve gotten so strong and rich as we are, is specialization and trade. But it doesn’t feel like it, especially if the others are seeing more rapid growth than we do. Then you begin to think, ‘Oh, it’s the Mexicans and the Chinese, they are the ones gaining. It would be better if we concentrated production back home, and avoided trade.’ But if that were the case with national borders, well, why wouldn’t that be the case with city borders? Why should Manhattan buy from Brooklyn? Shouldn’t we be safer if we kept everything in Manhattan? You can turn your abilities and your hard work into the other things that you need. So basically the more access you have to such a machine, the better off you are. What Trump and many protectionists are saying is that, ‘Look, why do you produce iPhones in China? Wouldn’t it be better if we produce them back home? And in that case, we’d get all the rewards rather than giving some of them to the Chinese.’ And that’s a misunderstanding of how specialization works, because when you leave some of the routine manufacturing to another place, yes, it’s good for them because they get jobs and they get revenue, but it also means you can specialize more of your workforce in more productive areas. So more people who do the design and the programming and the marketing and the distribution. So if you look at a cell phone, an iPhone in your shop, you see how much is going to the Chinese. Well, around a little bit more than 1 percent of the price you pay for your iPhone goes to the Chinese. It’s not like they get all of it. Most of it go to American workers and to Apple and to the tax authorities. And that’s what specialization does. If you had to do all of those things back home in the U.S., well, then you would have to pay much more for that simple manufacturing, which means that many would buy a Huawei phone or something like that from China instead. And it would mean that you’d have to have much more production back home. So it’s a twin loss.

Denzil Mohammed: In your book Open, you say that your argument is that under open institutions, people will solve more problems than they create no matter their personality traits. And it’ll increase the chance that the paths of people with different traits cross and that their thoughts and work can cross-fertilize. You say that this will happen. How do you know that this is certain going forward?

Johan Norberg: Well, I hope I don’t disappoint you if I admit that I’m not certain that this will go forward, because it depends on our choices and it depends on politics. What I’m saying is that if we have open institutions, if we allow our societies to open, to surprises, to people coming up with new things and being free to exchange, this will get great innovations and discoveries and wealth production. It’s not just history and the study of human creativity. It’s mathematics. As they say in programming, ‘With a sufficient number of eyeballs looking at code, every bug is shallow because someone is bound to see the problem and fix it.’ Well, it’s the same thing with the world. The more eyeballs that are directed to our problems whatever they are, the greater the chance they will come up with solutions to it. But at the same time, we live in an era where people are afraid of this kind of openness, where we have plenty of demagogues telling us that no, it’s safe to hide behind walls, behind tariff barriers. And once in a while they do succeed and they might be able to turn inwards. And in that case, we won’t see as much of dynamic societies and innovation, we’ll be weaker for it. So it’s not automatic that this happens. And that’s, by the way, why I write my books. If it was automatic, I could go and do something else instead. But it’s necessary. It has to happen. We have to keep our institutions, our countries, our world open to continue to make progress.

Denzil Mohammed: And I think of the example of Moderna, which came up with one of the first vaccines and Derrick Rossi, immigrant from Canada, Noubar Afeyan and Flagship. It’s all these different people from all these different places who came together to found this company. Pfizer, the same thing, immigrant co-founders. We see it, it’s there in the headlines every day, this kind of innovation that is drawn from, as you say, different eyeballs coming from different places.

Johan Norberg: And even more, the reason why Pfizer could do it was that they cooperated with BioNTech in Germany and they were founded by and are led by two immigrants and descendants of immigrants from Turkey.

Denzil Mohammed: It always astounds me that this nation was built by immigrants, people who fled other places, who had some sort of desire to succeed and to live and to thrive that they couldn’t have done in their homeland. It’s much the same today with immigrants who are coming, that inherent entrepreneurial spirit that often leads to them starting businesses at twice the rate of the U.S. born. But one of the reasons that Americans are turned off by immigration as an issue is the chaos that they see. And you mentioned the media and demagogues earlier on blowing up certain things about immigration. And that includes the southern border, where we have these camp sites of immigrants from South America, Central America, Haiti, different places. Speak a little bit to that idea of the border actually causing that chaos vis a vis your concept of openness.

Johan Norberg: Yes. There is a reason why nativists and anti-immigration groups always try to show us vivid imagery of waves of migrants, not individuals, but it looks like chaos and just large groups, because we dislike chaos and groups approaching it triggers this tribalist mentality and it is scary to us and we want to do anything to just shut it down. So we can often see that. In Europe we’ve seen how far right groups use imagery that they find in the other side of the continent of something that looks like chaos and tells us “This is happening here,” because immediately we react with our reptilian brains. The problem of course, is that this is something that you create with borders. That’s not how people act. If people are going for employment or moving to a place where they find better options, moving into a new apartment, it’s not chaos. It’s not anything like that. If you look at this on an individual level, but when you suddenly impose a border blocking people from doing it, obviously people are bound to end up there and trying to do anything to get in if that’s the only option, if there are no legal simple official means to do that. If you did the same thing in Manhattan, just imposed a border across the whole island, obviously people would concentrate right by that border trying to get over because that’s the only way to meet with others, with friends and relatives and do business and move to a place that might be more giving more option to you in your life. And that would look like chaos as well, but that’s not what Manhattan looks like when it’s open, when you can easily cross from one end to the other.

Denzil Mohammed: Even during the pandemic foreign-born health care workers who could have moved to different states that were experiencing overcrowding of ICUs and things like that, but because of state restrictions or federal restrictions, they could not do that. And I even think of probably the most mobile workforce in the U.S., which is undocumented immigrants. It’s almost like an underground railroad to move to states where they need meatpacking workers or poultry workers or agricultural workers, fracking workers. And the idea of them being able to move to these places, to fill those gaps. We don’t even recognize that. So therefore, ultimately, how do you think individuals could adopt a more open mindset in their day-to-day lives?

Johan Norberg: Rather than looking for the science of how somebody’s different, we can override it and learn that, well, it’s the differences that can teach us something new and gives us new opportunities, but also realizing that if somebody else is a human being, it means that there are other circles of identity, personality traits, tribe that you have in common with them, yeah. They might be foreigners. They might be Norwegians, but he’s also a father. He might also be interested in history. He might be cheering for the same English team in soccer. He might be listening to electronic music. You can always find those different commonalities between yourself and other individuals. If you look hard enough, if you don’t think of people as belonging just to one group. And that, I think, is the beauty of a more open and individualistic world, to realize that we don’t just have one kind of identity. We’re made up of multitudes of allegiance.

Denzil Mohammed: No, no Johan, I think that’s too much work for the average person.

Johan Norberg: Could be.

Denzil Mohammed: Your book Open: The Story of Human Progress is available for sale. Thank you very much, Johan Norberg, for joining us on the JobMakers podcast.

Johan Norberg: Thank you so much, Denzil, this was a pleasure.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thanks for joining us for today’s fascinating conversation on how immigration enriches entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystems. Got comments? Know someone we should talk to? Email Denzil, that’s D-E-N-Z-I-L @ jobmakerspodcast.org. Please leave us a review. I’m Denzil Mohammed. Join us next Thursday at noon for another episode of JobMakers.

Episode 36: Jeff Farrah

JobMakers podcast logo: Jeff Farrah on why we need a start-up visaJeff Farrah, general counsel at the National Venture Capital Association, brings his unique insights into immigrant entrepreneurship, venture capital and startups to this episode of JobMakers. Listen to discover how he believes a “startup visa” could yield tremendous benefits to the United States economy.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed, and this is JobMakers. 

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Denzil Mohammed: As we’ve established in this podcast, immigration and entrepreneurship go hand in hand. Immigrants are twice as likely to start a business. So why, then, don’t we have a visa allowing immigrant entrepreneurs to stay here? For Jeff Farrah, General Counsel at the National Venture Capital Association, a D.C.-based group that advocates for public policy that supports American entrepreneurship, a so-called start-up visa is a no-brainer. For immigrants who went through our universities or worked for American companies, or simply have a viable business plan and want to start a business here, we should be rolling out the red carpet. Instead, we reject them and actively deny ourselves job creation, innovation and economic dynamism. Jeff is advocating for a start-up visa and other immigration reforms that would bring jobs to America. And he notes that it’s not just big policy changes that could move the needle, as you’ll learn in this week’s JobMakers.  

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Denzil MohammedJeff Farrah, thank you for joining us on JobMakers. How are you? 

Jeff Farrah: I’m doing well, Denzil. Thanks so much for having me.  

Denzil MohammedSo why is immigration such an important issue to the National Venture Capital Association? I see it’s one of your 10 issue areas. Where does it rank and why? 

Jeff Farrah: Well, I think back to a conversation I had with a board member of ours several years ago. We were walking in D.C. between meetings at an agency on the way to Capitol Hill, and we were talking about a lot of the issues on NVCA’s list, and he said, so many of the things you all do are so important to us and important to the founders, but when you think about immigration, you’re really talking about the whole company, because without these individuals coming to the United States, oftentimes to launch a high-growth start-up, there’s no company in the first place. So it’s kind of a genesis moment in some ways. And so I think that all you have to do is look at the storied history of immigrant entrepreneurs who have launched so many iconic U.S. companies, and it becomes obvious why it is that we really need to make some serious changes in this country if we’re going to remain the best place in the world to launch a high-growth company. 

Denzil Mohammed: So has it always been a focus of your association, or have there been times where it’s taken precedence over others? 

Jeff FarrahA lot of times with any trade association, we’re a little bit at the whims of what it is that Congress and federal policymakers are doing, and so there are times when immigration is something that is a lot more on the list. I’m reminded, of course, of the time period during the Obama administration where there were efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform, also happened during the Bush administration. During the 2013 bill that I’m referring to, there was a startup visa that was included in that that NVCA had a lot to do with pushing. In terms of time period, it’s certainly been a piece of NVCA’s advocacy work for many decades. And this is something where going back about 15 or 20 years, it was a group of venture capitalists that really recognized first that we didn’t have a tailormade way to be able to have foreignborn entrepreneurs come into the country, that we were very much using these square peg, round hole solutions, and that we needed to have a more elegant way to allow these individuals who want nothing more than to launch new American enterprises to be able to come to our country. Really ever since then, a start-up visa has been something that has been at the forefront, and we’re of course very interested in getting this across the finish line, but we’ve had a number of successes along the way. 

Denzil Mohammed: So this start-up visa, you make it sound as though it’s almost inherently American, this idea of enterprise and starting a business and creating opportunities. So I see several countries have some form of a start-up visa, from Australia and Canada, all the way to Estonia and Lithuania, the Netherlands, Singapore, Denmark, Chile. Where is the U.S. on this issue? 

Jeff Farrah: Unfortunately we’re not far enough alongI think the countries that you’ve mentioned, both in immigration, but in other policy areas too, they’ve seen all the benefits that highgrowth start-ups have created in the United States, and our playbook is obvious in terms of the things that we have done in this country to create that secret sauce, and so other countries are trying to replicate a lot of the policies that we have had historically in this country. But in one way, they’ve innovated and done things that we’ve not been able to do, which is in trying to attract the world’s best entrepreneurs to their shores. Despite the fact that we’ve seen this proliferation of other countries creating start-up visas, we have not in the United States, and it’s not because it’s a terribly controversial ideaIn fact, in my time talking with a lot of lawmakers, you don’t really get any pushback on the substantive issue. If you ask people, “Should we make it easier for individuals who want to create new American companies and give American citizens jobs? Should we allow those people to do so more easily?” you will probably get 535 members of the House and the Senate to nod in approval. The tricky part though, is that immigration policy tends to be caught up in some other very, very controversial issues. We’ve been in a bit of a dynamic here in the last several years where not much else can move on immigration reform unless the entire package moves. And so the politics tend to be very complicated and it does lead to this unfortunate situation where perhaps some of the lowhanging fruit like a start-up visa are not able to get across the finish lineWe’ve certainly tried to come up with perhaps creative ways of addressing that, but ultimately have not been able to get the bill passed. We have been very, very fortunate to have champions on this issue on a bipartisan basis, going back many years. The most recent version of this that viewers should take a look at is called the LIKE Act from Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren. It’s the Let Immigrants Kickstart Employment Act, and this is Ms. Lofgren’s latest version of a bill she had done previously to create a start-up visa, and she both creates a non-immigrant visa and then an immigrant visa that individuals can graduate into. So if you first come on the non-immigrant visa or you come on an O-1A visa, you can graduate into the immigrant visa on a pathway to citizenship. And then over on the Senate side, there is a larger bill called the Startup Act, which does a number of things in start-up policy, and that’s from a group of senatorsMark Warner from Virginia, Jerry Moran from Kansas, Amy Klobuchar, Roy Blunt, really a great group of senators. Within that bill, there is also a start-up visa. So that really shows that there is the capability of this really getting the attention of people from all different political stripes. 

Denzil Mohammed: I understand this idea of it being mired within something that’s so politicized and so contentious, immigration, whereas it’s such an integral part of what America is. And I know of many stories of entrepreneurs or budding entrepreneurs who, because of our immigration system, were not allowed to stay here and start their companies. An educational online resource called Sutori, started by a group of three immigrants, two of them had to go to other countries in order to continue the business, only one was allowed to stay here. And you spoke earlier about it being such a part of America’s secret sauce. So many iconic American brands, Levi’s jeans, Kraft cheese, Coors beer, Budweiser, up until Tesla and Google and eBay, all founded by immigrants. Explain to me how the start-up visa would work, and other initiatives that you’ll support, like the idea of stapling a green card onto a college diploma.  

Jeff Farrah: I think that a great illustration of how the start-up visa works is mentioning perhaps another famous foreignborn entrepreneur. There’s a gentleman named Jyoti Bansal, and Jyoti is from India originally. He came to the United States on an H1B visa and he wanted to be an entrepreneur, but he was working under his H-1B status, that was the authorization that he had to be in the country. And Jyoti has talked publicly about the fact that he needed to wait seven years in order to get his green card. Well, of course, he couldn’t launch his own company while he was working on an H-1B visa, so he needed to have the green card to be able to go and do that. And so you think about somebody like him who is unnecessarily waiting to do what they’re probably put on this earth to do, which is to launch a highgrowth company. Well, Jyoti finally gets the green card. He launches a company called AppDynamics, and AppDynamics on the eve of its IPO ended up selling to Cisco for $3.7 billion. And you think about that situation. Obviously Jyoti has done a tremendous job of creating value. He’s got lots and lots of employees, a leading American technology company, values it at almost $4 billion. And you think to yourself, it’s really a shame that we had to wait that additional seven years for that individual to go off on their entrepreneurial journey. And then the other issue that Jyoti has talked about is that he had friends of his during the same time period that didn’t feel like they could wait all the time that was needed, and so they ended up leaving the country and going and launching new companies in other countries. And that is unbelievably frustrating because the United States could have had those companies. We could have had that additional dynamism in the economy, we could have had that employment, we could have had that innovation, the intellectual property, so on and so forth. One thing that we’ve spent a lot of time talking with policymakers about is there’s this recognition in a lot of circles here that venture has really become globalized in many ways, because as I said before, so many countries have copied our playbook, and this is a perfectly reasonable thing for them to do, to try and create start-up ecosystems in their own countries. If you look out over the last 20 years or so ago, the United States used to get about 86 percent of the global venture capital pie that would go into U.S. start-ups. That number’s been dropping over the course of the last couple decades, and the last couple of years, we got about 51 percent of global venture capital. Now, the total number, of course, continues to go up. We continue to raise more venture capital here in the United States, which is a good thing, but it also shows that other countries are getting their act together, and they are able to welcome these individuals who are unfortunately not welcomed in the United States with something like a start-up visa. And so that’s something we’re really trying to fix here because I think that ultimately the visa categories that we have now at our disposal, they’re not made for the entrepreneurial model. You think about an individual who goes to work at a large tech company on an H-1B visa, that’s a different circumstance as somebody who wants to launch his or her own company. Or you think of somebody on an O-1 visa. Sure, there are lots of entrepreneurs that end up getting O-1 visas, and that’s a great thing, and certainly a way to capture some individuals, but when you’re trying to measure whether or not someone is extraordinary enough to get that O-1 visa, that means they have to have a certain track record of accomplishment to point it to the direction of USCIS, which ultimately is making those decisions. That doesn’t work very well if you’re 23, 24, 25 years old, and this is your first company, or maybe it’s your second company and your first one failed. And so we are losing entrepreneurs who are not able to use the categories that we have now, which is why we need to create a category for these individuals who want to launch these companies so that we don’t lose out on those opportunities going forward. 

Denzil Mohammed: And in their own way, certain states have actually stepped in to try to solve this. In Massachusetts, for instance, there’s something called the Global Entrepreneur in Residence Program, a way to bypass the quotas that would allow highskilled immigrants who’ve gone through our university system to be able to stay here and incubate their businesses. Thomas Ketchell, the person I mentioned, that was his only avenue in order to be able to stay here. How would these start-up visas create this ripple effect of employment in the economy? 

Jeff FarrahThe economic literature on this is very, very clear, which is that the growth in our economy, the dynamism that I referenced before, it comes from young companies as they scale and grow. You look at these companies that are five years old or less, and they’re the key drivers of employment, where you have a lot of larger companies that are roughly hiring and firing in proportion on an annual basis, and that’s probably going to be the way it’s always going to be. But then a lot of the growth comes from these really special highgrowth young companies. And so we need to figure out how it is we get more entrepreneurship, how it is we convince people that they need to leave their perfectly secure jobs at, pick a company, and jump out and do something extraordinary and audacious. One component of doing that is to allow individuals from other countries who are very interested in following that model to come here to ultimately do it. We know that foreign-born entrepreneurs are among the most successful ones anecdotally. We also know that immigrants tend to be more entrepreneurial from a lot of the data that’s been published I think in the Harvard Business Review by Professor Kerr, and so it’s certainly something that seems obvious to us. I think that one frustration that we have encountered with a lot of policymakers is this very wrong assumption that just because the United States has been the best place to launch a highgrowth company in the last 50 years, that that’s necessarily going to be the case in the following 50 years. And that is absolutely not the case. We cannot afford to rest on our laurels because as I said before, other countries are very, very serious about taking this mantle away from us, and we know that entrepreneurs are very influenced by public policy. When there are signals that are sent to the marketplace, that is something that people ultimately do derive lessons from. In the case of immigration, if we’re sending up a giant stop sign at our borders to individuals who want to create new companies, those people are dogged individuals, and they will go and start that company in other countries, and there’s new capital available all over the world to do that. 

Denzil Mohammed: It’s so interesting that you talk about this globalization of venture capital and funding and our loss in the rankings in the world. I mean, from 80 something percent to 51 percent, that’s really astonishing and almost shameful. Describe for me the International Entrepreneur Rule. What is that about? 

Jeff Farrah: So this is something that NVCA has led on for many years. As I alluded to before, when there was comprehensive immigration reform that was going on in Congress, at one point it became obvious that that wasn’t going to come to pass. And so what the Obama administration did was, it asked itself what other tools are out there where we might be able to smooth the path for foreignborn entrepreneurs, to allow these individuals to create new American companies, but to do that without creating a new visa category. What the Obama administration determined is that they could use something called parole authority, and parole is used in a lot of different contexts to allow individuals from other countries to remain in the United States. If you look at the statute that gives the Department of Homeland Security and USCIS this authority, it talks about [how] the individual needs to provide a so-called significant public benefit to the United States. What the Obama administration did, to their credit, was they put that in an economic context and they said, when an individual is starting a new company, they are certainly providing a significant public benefit to the United States by way of employment and innovation and all the things that that we’ve mentioned before. So they launched the International Entrepreneur Rule in the final days to allow the Department of Homeland Security on a case-by-case basis to look at applications of would-be immigrant entrepreneurs and determine whether or not they met a series of requirements. When President Trump was elected, we had a sense that this was going to be tough sledding, just given a lot of the immigration rhetoric that had gone on, and so we ended up approaching the Trump administration very early to try and really make sure they understood that this was a way to create American jobs here in the country, and very much should have aligned with President Trump’s vision for what he was talking about during that campaign. But unfortunately for us, they didn’t see it that way at all. They made a couple of attempts to repeal it. We ended up filing the first federal lawsuit in the history of NVCA against the federal government to block them from doing that. We won in federal court in Washington D.C., and it was really because of that lawsuit that the International Entrepreneur Rule was around. Now, we’re in a situation where applicants are starting to apply for the International Entrepreneur Rule. The final thing I’ll just mention on this is that it was really fantastic that one of the first individuals who ended up getting the International Entrepreneur Rule designation was backed by the then board chair of NVCA. So it was a great culmination that you had this individual who was working in the network security field, had a great idea, but was in a bad spot from an immigration perspective. He ended up applying for IER and getting it, and so that was very rewarding to see that happen because of our work. 

Denzil MohammedBut looking more broadly at the immigration policies of the last administration, it wasn’t simply a crackdown on unauthorized immigration. They significantly cut legal immigration to the U.S., even the high-skilled, best and brightest that they claimed they wanted. Reflect a little bit on what happened over those four years, and how do you see that as having benefited or hurt the United States? 

Jeff Farrah: I think you’ve hit the nail on the head in terms of the way it went about. And I think this is something where a lot of the messaging in public from former President Trump, a lot of the individuals in his administration, would talk about illegal immigration as being their focus, and that if individuals just would only go through the legal process, then that would be perfectly fine. It’s individuals that didn’t go through the legal process that they had a problem with. But of course that wasn’t what was going on in reality, because there was really a two-pronged attack that was going on. It was, as they said, focused on individuals that perhaps were not going through the process, but simultaneously focused on a lot of individuals that had been waiting in line, as folks would say. I think that during the Trump administration, we cannot quantify what types of individuals had a painful experience and gave up their desire to come to the United States, to either work at a high tech company or to go through a process to try and become an entrepreneur. And so that’s something where those individuals probably are in other geographies now working on their companies, and that’s real lost economic value that our country is not going to get back. 

Denzil Mohammed: So I took a look at the White House’s website to see what the BidenHarris administration’s top priorities are, and immigration is one of them. They call it outdated, they call it a long broken system. What is the path forward? 

Jeff FarrahRight now we’re in a situation where clearly the president is focused both on COVID, but also on the Build Back Better agenda, and that’s dominating the headlines, and certainly something that I think Democrats are clearly highly motivated to get this over the finish line during this calendar year, and so I think that’s going to be the focus. It does not look at this time as if immigration policy is going to be able to be in the Build Back Better Act, and that really is because of the budget reconciliation tool that the Democrats are using here, and there are a variety of rules that apply to the types of things that can go into that bill. So in terms of looking forward, this has been an issue that there are a lot of key constituencies, especially within the Democratic Party, that have wanted to make progress in immigration reform for many, many, many years, and it’s been incredibly frustrating, so I suspect that there will be a concerted effort to make progress on this. I think, though, that the issue will become ultimately what the makeup is of the House and the Senate, and that might be something that might frustrate a lot of these efforts going forward. Some people are projecting that Republicans are likely to take the House, perhaps they will take the Senate. That probably doesn’t lead to a positive outcome on immigration reform. 

Denzil Mohammed: Its not even necessarily an immigration issue. It’s business generation, it’s job creation and it’s inherently American. I think that’s where it fits into the narrative for me, as far as I see it. But it’s also a human issue. It’s people who build up dreams and need a place where they can actualize their ideas for the benefit of the host country, right? 

Jeff Farrah: I completely agree. And the thing, too, is that there are these efforts right now going on on a so-called China bill, and it’s gone by a bunch of different names over time. 

Denzil Mohammed: I wish you the best of luck in your advocacy and in your work, and I hope more people join your coalition to be able to get these things done. We need an immigration system that works for all of us, right? 

Jeff Farrah: We do. I appreciate you shining a light on this, and it’s been a pleasure to be part of the conversation. 

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thanks for joining us for today’s insightful conversation on how welcoming entrepreneurial talent benefits all of us. It’s a good way to end our first year. JobMakers will take a break for the holidays and return on January 6th with a fascinating interview with the author of Open: The Story of Human Progress on how borders are actually holding us back. Send your questions to denzil@jobmakerspodcast.org. I’m Denzil Mohammed. See you in 2022 for the next episode of JobMakers. 

Episode 35: Carlos Castro

JobMakers podcast logo: Carlos Castro, from crossing the border to owning a businessEl Salvador-born Carlos Castro crossed the border to the United States to chase his dream and escape the dangers of his country of origin. Once he learned English and obtained his citizenship, he founded a business that now employs more than 200 people. Tune in to learn how he’s given back and become a community leader.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed, and this is JobMakers. 

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Denzil Mohammed: What do you know about migrants who cross the southern border, and where they go in life if their journey is successful? Do you know what they’re fleeing? What skills they may have? What their dreams are? What motivated them to take such a dangerous risk? For Carlos Castro, President and CEO of Todos Supermarket in Woodbridge, Virginia, it was decapitated heads lined up on fences. It was a civil war. It was virtually no economic opportunity in El Salvador. Carlos took a huge risk as a young man to cross the border without authorization. But in that dangerous journey was a determination to support his family and find them safety, as any husband and father would. Carlos, who became a U.S. citizen in 1990, is now a business and community leader in Northern Virginia, employing more than 200 people. He explains some of the things Americans find perplexing, like why do migrants cross the border, why immigrant business owners tend to hire people like them, and what life is really like in the hellish countries where desperate migrants come from, in this week’s JobMakers. 

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Denzil Mohammed: Carlos Castro, welcome to the JobMakers podcast. How are you? 

Carlos Castro: Very good. Thank you for the invitation. 

Denzil Mohammed: So you are founder, president and CEO of Todos Supermarket in Woodbridge, Virginia. Describe your business for us. When did it launch and where is it today? 

Carlos Castro: I was at a party for a friend of mine, and she came to me and she said, “Look, there is a need for a grocery store here. Why don’t you start one? And I go like, “Why me? [laughs]. You know, I don’t know anything about grocery stores. But a year later, I was talking with some friends about starting a businesswe went through many, many ideas, and then I remembered what my friend told me, and we decided to open Todos Supermarket because it was only a tiny Mexican store, like 500 square feet. It was very, very small. And we took 2,500 square feet. It was very, very small. But we didn’t know how to negotiate contract, we just went and signed for whatever they offered me. So then my wife was running it. The idea was that my wife was a maid, a house cleaner, and that she could have her own business and I would have my own business, and that’s how we started in 1990. And after I realized that actually I was not doing very good in construction because I was most of the time on the phone with my wife, trying to resolve issues and figure out why we were not selling. Then I decided to give up my construction business in D.C. and come to the store, help my wife. The problem is that she did not have money to pay me a salary, she barely paid herself a salary. So I became a tax preparer, and by being a tax preparer I realized that people were not taking advantage of home ownership, so I became a realtor and I was working out of the store. It was very difficult years. But we start to ask the customers, “What would you like us to have? every day since day one, and that’s how we actually became to know that even though we speak Spanish, even though we’re Latinos and everybody thinks we are all Mexican, it’s just not that way. Bolivians have their food, Colombians, Peruvians, you name it. So it was a exciting learning and very difficult time, but the beauty of it is that in some countries, the owners of the businesses are considered very smart people that you can go and get advice. People would come to my store and ask for things, and then my wife would tell them, “Come back at six, my husband is gonna be here. And then by the time I got to the store, I had a line of people that had something to ask and it felt really good, and it create that kind of loyalty in our community. That went on for five years. Then we decided to move to 5,000 square feet in five years. And then another five years, we moved to 10,000 and then to 18,000. By the time we were in 2010, we actually got into this one location at Marumsco Plaza in Woodbridge that has a total of 75,000 square feet, with offices and headquarters and everything. Had like 180 employees, we still have 180, some of them have left, and we have hired new people. My attitude has been always that we hire for attitude. You get the right attitude, I can teach you the business. So my general manager, I found her flipping hamburgers at the McDonald’s nearby, and she actually took the offer the same day I put it to her. She’s now my general manager. And her case has repeated over and over. But my father, he was always helping. He was a builder, and he always was observing people. I was a kid always with him, I was his first child, so he was always looking at people and giving the opportunity. So Todos Supermarket have done the same. We give other people opportunity. When we bring new people to the team, nobody gets to worry because we don’t compete, we complement each other. 

Denzil Mohammed: Giving people opportunity is key, especially recently arrived immigrants. They just want a crack and they want a break. And they’re able to develop their skills from flipping hamburgers to becoming general manager of a massive 75,000 square foot store, I mean that’s pretty incredible. And you mentioned your father and growing up, obviously you didn’t grow up in Northern Virginia, you grew up in El Salvador. Most listeners will have no idea what life is like in a place like El Salvador. Paint a picture for us. What was it like growing up? 

Carlos Castro: We were very poor. My father built his house in the capital with salvage materials, pieces of metal. We laugh all the time because I told him that we had the biggest window in the living room. The only problem is that it didn’t have any glass to hold, you know [laughs]. And we used to go and we closed our door and we put like a big piece of pipe to keep it locked. And then of course you lock the door and then the window is open where you can run a truck through it [laughs]. So it was funny. We didn’t have any running water or indoor plumbing. My father kept reminding us what we needed to do to really survive and reminding us that we didn’t have any inheritance to receive, that all we had was an able body and a good head on them, and that we have to do our best. One thing that happened during those days is that, good jobs were reserved for people that were friends of the owners of the company or a boss in the company, and poor people like me didn’t have any chance. I worked with my dad the first few years, and I moved to work at a factory, but to get a 25 cent salary increase in a year, we almost had to go into a strike. It was like that. But I enjoyed what I did and luckily I was able to climb the ladder at a very young age. I was supervising people by the time I was 19, and I was supervising a production plant of a big factory when I was studying industrial engineering on my first year, and I was only like 20 years old. And I was happy.  

Denzil MohammedYou were all set. Why did you need to move?  

Carlos CastroYeah, exactly. Then we had a civil war going on really bad. That was the military against the leftwing activists from Cuba and Nicaragua, and it become a terrible civil war. You found people decapitated with the hair stuck on the fences. It was horrifying. And me being the eldest of my siblings, I had the opportunity that some of my middle school classmates gave me to come to the U.S., of course illegally because we had no chance of getting a visa. So I thought really quick because he asked the question on me, “Why don’t you go to the U.S., work for a couple of years, learn English, and maybe by then the war will be over, and then you can provide for your siblings and your mom and your dad? I had a job there in the unions and the guerrillas were taking over and shutting down the factories. As a matter of fact, the factory where I worked, it was actually one of three that were still open. So I thought, “This is gonna collapse any minute,” and I took that opportunity. I came with a coyotea smuggler, and I got caught across the border, so I got deported. After I spent a month and a half in detention, I got to El Salvador at midnight when they dropped me there, and then I hid for a week and then got more money. I found my motorcycle and I headed back with a cousin, and we went across Mexico and across the border. Luckily we made it and that’s how I’m here. The first year, all I did was save money to buy my ticket back to El Salvador [laughs] because I wasn’t really enjoying. My wife was in El Salvador with my little kid that was one year old when I left, so all I wanted is to get back to El Salvador. But then I got the opportunity of working in construction, and I was really good. I am really good in construction, I love it. I enjoyed since I was a little kid. So that was my ticket to success. I was able to save for my house, and then I moved on to set up my own company with the customers that my boss couldn’t serve, he would give them to me, so he helped me. Actually, he signed our job certification for my wife, and then by my wife getting her visa, my kid and myself could get a visa. So actually she came a year after I was here. I brought her in through the border, she got caught, she was in jail, but we were able to get her out of jail through an organization and into here. And that’s how she came to work for the architect, my boss, and I asked him and he agreed to sign our papers. 

Denzil Mohammed: With things being so terrible, and during a civil war in your country, and as you said, decapitated heads in the streets, it’s something that we here in the U.S. can’t even fathom, it’s something so distant to us. And yet that was your daily reality. Who would not want to escape something like that? I will bring it to the present day where you went from 1,000 square feet to 75,000 square feet with Todos Supermarket in Woodbridge, Virginia. You basically realized that there was a food desert for recent migrants to that area and ended up taking over the giant supermarket, what we in Boston here call Stop & Shop. You’re involved in several initiatives in your community, and one of them is helping a nonprofit called the Hispanic Organization for Leadership and Actionor HOLA, which works to engage and empower the Latino community. Describe your work with HOLAWhy is it important and what benefits have you seen arise from it? 

Carlos Castro: Well, HOLA was created like 20 years ago by a visionary chairman of the board, Sean Connaughton, here in Prince William County. He saw the need because of the growth of the community. He said, “You need to have an organization. Basically our idea is to develop leadership, to get people into the community, to participate, to be part of the mainstream community little by little. So we have focused our effort in being a center of information, and bringing information to the community by creating events where the community show up and the agencies that are in the county show up. And then we talk about everything that is at their disposal in the county or state government. We want to focus in leadership development. We want to make sure that we create resilient communities that are selfdependent, that are not dependent of other organizations or the government, but actually on their own, you know, basically leaders.  

Denzil MohammedSo the result of that has been recentlyarrived or almost recentlyarrived migrants to the area being part of building up the community by taking on these leadership roles. It brings me to a point that is a sticking point for a lot of U.S.-born people. I read a recent article, well from 2017, that mentioned 90 percent of your employees are Hispanic. Respond to questions about why you and other business owners tend to hire people of similar ethnic background. Does that tie into what you were just talking about, building up resiliency, meaningful job opportunities and that kind of thing? 

Carlos Castro: Generally, you want to have people to work for you that you trust, and the people from your country are the first people that you trust, whether it’s a relative or friend or somebody, and it takes a while to build a business. So that’s how we ended up hiring people that speak Spanish. But the other problem that we have as immigrant companies, or what do you call it, international companies or ethnic companies, let’s say regular Americans or people from other groups that are not used to work with Latinos, they don’t see their future in any company. Let me give you an example. Once I hired the daughter of one of my customers as my personal assistant, and she was asked, “Why would you go to work there? Why don’t you go to another American company that you have a better future? And at some point I ran a campaign. I thought in order for me to grow, I need to attract more people, or different groups. So I ran a campaign to hire managers, and I had a good response of people. By the time we set up the first interview, it was kind of sad to see that people park their car, go around, look into the store, walk around the store and then walk back out. At that point, I realized I’m not gonna attract American people to work for me. I mean, we’re a stinky little grocery store, what do I think? And then I decided I’m gonna put my efforts to make sure that my people get the opportunity. 

Denzil Mohammed: That is so interesting. And I don’t think any U.S.-born person would be thinking like that. Would an American want to go to work for the Hispanic grocery store out there in Woodbridge? What do they know about oxtail, for instance? What do they know about halal meat? That is really interesting, so thank you for shedding light on that as an immigrant and minority business owner. That was really great. 

Carlos Castro: Thank you.  

Denzil Mohammed: You mentioned your father earlier, and it’s clear he’s had a very profound impact on your life as not just a business owner, but as a man. What has been the influence of him on your work? I know from previous interactions with you, you mentioned he was very strict, but he also had a set of principles and values, right? 

Carlos Castro: Yes. You know, that’s pretty much it, it’s about principles and values. My father didn’t have the opportunity to go to school. He actually rebelled against my grandparents because he was the son of the maid, so he wasn’t really part of the family, and they wouldn’t give him the opportunity to go to school. So he left the house when he was probably 12, and then he met people along the way, because he was very charismatic, and he made some good friends and people taught him. He was a genius in a way. He learned to be a builder and he never went to 12th grade. Actually he finished 12th grade when he was married to my mom, and he was like 40 some years [old]. And I enjoyed so muchhis boss was probably a young architect or a young engineer, and when they told me, “Whatever I know, I know it because your fatherI went to school, I have a lot of knowledge, but I don’t know how to do these things, and he taught me. And so he was very good at thatparticularly in the structures. He study at night and he kind of look at everything. He was able to go through a set of blueprints and have a list of all the errors that were in those blueprints and give it to the architect, “We need to fix it.” And like I said, he was a perfectionist, so he demanded from us kind of the same thing that he demanded from himself. 

Denzil Mohammed: I’m so happy that you came here to the U.S., as you say, with a coyote, illegally. Detained, deported, came back. You had that persistence and that led to you being able to have the opportunity that you obviously did not have in El Salvador at the time, to be able to put your hard work to use and let it result in something. And it resulted in dishwashing, and janitorial, and then construction, then owning your own construction company, then owning your first small supermarket. And now Todos is a giant, let’s put it that way. What are your views on the United States as a home for immigrants? 

Carlos Castro: It’s a place that I dream about. I didn’t think that the [inaudible] where you get a shovel and you shovel dollars into your pocket, but I thought that it was a place where there is good people that can help you succeed. And that has been my experience. People helped me along the way. I was not asking a lot of the time that people came to my rescue. Very goodhearted people in America, and I think we need to keep that spirit. As new immigrants, we need to help others to achieve their dreams, so that we give others the opportunities that were given to us. For immigrants right now it’s very difficult. As we all know, there is people driving their cars into a crowd, or just shooting somebody or hating you for no reason. I think as immigrants, we have the obligation to make sure that we get enculturated with the rest of the community that live around us. I think it’s still the best place on earth if you want to actually succeed, if you want to make something about yourself. As long as you don’t find anything to come up with excuses. Excuses are not allowed if you want to succeed in the U.S.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship, contributions and research produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Got comments, questions, know someone we should talk to? Email denzil [at] jobmakerspodcast.org. Thanks for joining us for this week’s incredible story of one immigrant’s resilience, success and contribution. Next Thursday at noon, we talk with Jeff Farrah, General Counsel for the National Venture Capital Association, about why immigrants and JobMakers like Carlos have virtually no avenue of migrating or remaining in the U.S., an outdated but fixable immigration system that doesn’t adequately serve America’s needs. I’m Denzil Mohammed, and thank you for listening to JobMakers.

Episode 34: Alex Nowrasteh [part two]

JobMakers podcast logo: Alex Nowrasteh on how immigration is a boon to the U.S.In part two of an interview with Alex Nowrasteh, the director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, he shares research on how immigrants benefit all Americans. He also discusses where anti-immigrant myths come from and how they can be countered. Listen to the episode to find the facts behind the rhetoric.

Denzil MohammedI’m Denzil Mohammed, and this is JobMakers. 

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Denzil Mohammed: In the last episode of JobMakers, we began a very enlightening conversation with the Cato Institute’s Alex Nowrasteh, their director of immigration studies, and a regular immigration commentator on Fox and other news outlets. He’s compiled a great booklet that you can download for free at cato.org or libertarianism.org, called The Most Common Arguments Against Immigration and Why They’re Wrong. Last time, Alex laid out the facts for us on immigrants and immigration in the U.S., countering many of the false narratives we’ve been fed all our lives, and our ancestors fed. Facts like: public safety has increased as immigration to the U.S. has increased; immigrants aren’t a lot for the Democratic Party; as immigration increased, so did American prosperity. This week, Alex hones in on a fact that research has consistently found: that immigrants benefit Americans. And given his many years of speaking on this topic to anti-immigrant audiences, he gives us his insight on where anti-immigrant arguments come from, as you’ll find out in this week’s JobMakers. 

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Denzil MohammedWhere does all this misinformation or disinformation come from? I spoke to Professor James Witte from George Mason University’s Institute for Immigration Research, and he made very clear that there’s something called misinformation and there’s something called disinformation. And you mentioned names like Mark Krikorian and Ann Coulter, who I would argue are possibly spreading disinformation, actively doing that. People are being fed certain messages in their minds, and if they believe certain things as facts, for instance, the crime, where does it come from? You’ve been talking to this audience for a long time. 

Alex Nowrasteh: I think it comes from many different places. I think part of it is, people focus on anecdotes and they don’t focus on data. So they’ll look at the newspaper and see some horrible crime committed by somebody who is an immigrant, and they focus on that, they don’t look at the data behind it. And we do that with everything, by the way. It’s a real problem with human cognition and perception, it’s a big systemic problem. So I think that really pollutes this debate a lot, if people focus on anecdotes and on those cases. I think some of it also comes from the way that our brains are hardwired. Our ancestors grew up in caves, on the savannas of Africa and other places, and they evolved for that kind of environment where resources are fixed. There’s only so many buffalo running around that we can hunt to feed ourselves and our family. So in that kind of environment where resources are fixed, a new person coming in, or a new group, really does lead to a decrease in resources for everybody, really does make your group poor. And so you view outsiders with suspicion, you view new people with suspicion, it’s a dangerous thing. But we live in a modern world. We have free markets, we have trade, we have capitalism, we have what’s called positive sum growth. People are creators, we create things, we’re not just taking animals from the environment to eat or clothe ourselves. We’re making goods and services from raw materials and from the ingenuity of the human brain. And so what’s happened is our minds are just not evolved. Our economy has evolved faster than our minds have kept up. And as a result of that, we have a very primitive mindset where we just see new people, whether they’re from abroad or whether they’re births or whatnot, as taking away from us. And it’s a primitive mindset, it’s an incorrect mindset. And I think part of it is a lot of people who are anti-immigrant don’t actually want to tell you why, or they don’t actually know why. They just don’t like foreigners, and they look for a reason to justify why they don’t like foreigners and they go down this list. So one of the things that I’m worried about is they might say, I don’t like immigrants because they take our jobs and lower our wages, and I respond to that. And then they go on to the next one, well, immigrants are going to take welfare, and I respond to that. And they go, well, they’re going to be criminals and terrorists,” and I go down the list, and I worry that I’m not actually responding to the real reason. They’re just giving me what they think are acceptable reasons. And so we’re doing this whole long song and dance where we’re not really responding to what the other person is saying or really thinking, and that’s just a horrible, difficult way to talk about it. I suspect that a lot of the reason why people don’t like immigrants is they just don’t like foreigners, and it’s really, really hard to say that without sounding like a xenophobe, and people don’t want to sound like xenophobespeople who don’t like immigrants. And so it makes it impossible to have this discussion. So in a way, it’s sort of like political correctness and patriotic correctness, which is the right-wing variety, makes it very difficult to have an honest conversation about immigration. But I will say, I think there’s one thing that people don’t talk about very much that I think matters a lot, and this is chaos. I think most people dislike and hate chaos, and they view our immigration system, they view what happens on the border, they view all this stuff as chaos. And if people see chaos, they become immediately turned off. They hate it and they want to clamp down on whatever that chaotic thing is. You see it with the drug war, you see it with crime, you see it with everything else. So as long as we have a chaotic border, people are going to be really upset about immigration. Even though the border has very little to do with the total immigration debate, it’s a very small feature of it, but it bleeds over on everything else. But the catch22 is, we can’t get control of the border until we let more people in legally, but we can’t let more people in legally until people think that there’s no chaos on the border! 

Denzil MohammedWe know visa overstays, for instance, traditionally account for more unauthorized immigration in the U.S. There’s no focus on that. Legal immigration is a huge deal, people getting their green cards, being naturalized every year, entering our workforce. There’s no focus on that. But focusing on the chaos is what has engendered this kind of disposition among people. And you brought up the idea of anecdotes versus data and research. The border, individual crimes, alleged rape in Virginia high school, things like that, those are the things that people remember. They don’t remember that 13.7 percent of the U.S. population is foreignborn. They still believe in what they hear, that it’s an invasion and an infestation, it’s probably closer to 50 percent, doubting the census numbers because somehow the census may be biased. We’re up against a lot here, Alex, so I don’t envy your work at all. 

Alex Nowrasteh: Oh, it’s a challenge. What’s interesting is the late economist Alberto Alesina did a bunch of surveys in Europe and the United States, and he just asked about some factual questions first. He was like, what percentage of the population is foreignborn,” “what percentage are immigrants, et cetera. And then he asked them what they thought about immigration policy, and one of the things he found is that people who are very opposed to immigration and immigrants just greatly exaggerate the percentage of the population that’s foreignborn. They will exaggerate by a factor of three or four. So they’ll think the immigrant population is 60 percent when it’s really like 14 percent. So people are not just wrong and misperceiving things, they are twisting their view of facts to fit that. I mean, there is no city in America where it’s 60 percent foreignborn, right? The largest is just over 40 percent in Miami. To be wrong by 50 percent upwards from that shows a level of twisting reality to fit your partisan biases to an extent that is worrying. 

Denzil Mohammed: One of the difficulties in doing research on immigration, you pointed out earlier that they don’t ask your immigration status when you go to court, when you’re picked up for something. It’s difficult to show that immigration causes certain things, for instance, economic revitalization of all the metro areas since the sixties, it’s because immigrants moved in. Why is it so difficult as you as a researcher and so many others out there to parse out definitively about immigration? 

Alex Nowrasteh: So part of the problem is there’s a lot of things going on. Immigrants, just to give you an example, they increase the supply side of the economy. More workers, increased supply side, because that means more things can be made. There’s more productive resources in the United States. But is that causing all the increase, or is the demand for these workers, by an inherently growing U.S. economy, causing that? And then the immigrants are just going to the demand and then they’re rising together? So it’s just really hard to parse that. It’s what economists called causal inference, which is trying to tease out what causally happens there. We can definitely find that demand plays a big role. People are coming to the U.S. because wages are high and they’re much more productive here. But after the immigrants get here, they increase productivity, they increase the wages of native-born Americans because immigrants are not just workers, they’re also consumers, they buy things. And by buying things, that’s more customers, and having more customers means that American workers who are supplying these goods and services to new customers become more productive because the prices go up for these goods and services. It’s just this miraculous new thing. What we see across economies around the world is more people means more productivity, more people making things, more people buying things. And the measure of your wealth is how many things and goods and services you have access to. It’s not the number on your bank account, it’s how many things you can get with that number in your bank account. Immigrants increase the supply of stuff dramatically, and that’s something that we just lose sight of. But the evidence is overwhelming. Even George Borjas, who is the most skeptical of immigration, of the benefits in the United States, of any economist around who is published in the [inaudible], even he admits, using the evidence in the way that he does through his sort of analysis, immigrants increase the amount of production in the United States by somewhere around one quarter to one half of a percentage point of GDP. So you’re talking between like $60 and $90 billion a year in additional stuff made by nativeborn Americans just by immigrants being here. Does not include at all the roughly 12 to 15 percent of GDP that immigrants produce in themselves, but they just make Americans more productive by being here. 

Denzil Mohammed: So issues like economics, labor, manufacturing, but then you get into also things like housing values, even crime. We look at the preponderance of evidence and we see that there is some sort of relation, even though we can’t say directly some immigration causes X or Y. And with the crime, immigration goes up, crime goes down. Immigrants move into areas with low rent, over a generation they build up storefronts, they get safer sidewalks, they start bringing in customers to the nail salons, things like that. 

Alex Nowrasteh: If you look to the places where immigrants go, you see this happening. You don’t see immigrants going to places in West Virginia or in Eastern Kentucky or other places that are suffering. And part of the reason they’re not going there is those places are doing poorly, but those places are also doing poorly because immigrants aren’t going there and they can’t make these investments in public safety or start new businesses. They’re going to cities and suburbs around the country that are growing well and making a positive contribution.

Denzil Mohammed: Immigrants go where the jobs are. I mean, that’s why suddenly immigrants are going to the Dakotas, they never went there before. They’re going to Nebraska in meatpacking plants. They’re filling incredible voids, and we saw that a lot during the pandemic in terms of things like agriculture and food supply. Immigrants are almost 50 percent of our agriculture workers. What would we have done? What position would we have been in without that massive, disproportionately large essential workforce? And in terms of agriculture and other areas, many of them are undocumented, right? 

Alex Nowrasteh: Yeah. Many of them are unauthorized immigrants in a lot of these places. The most mobile immigrants in the U.S. economy that is willing to move from one area to another at the drop of a hat are usually unauthorized or unlawful immigrants in the United States. And that is something that’s really underappreciated, having this large mobile workforce is dramatically positive. And one of the interesting things, many of us had to work remotely for a while during the pandemic, a lot of white collar workers had to work remotely. And if it weren’t for the large number of H-1B visa holders, highskilled temporary workers, many of whom worked in IT making that possible for us, it would have been much harder for a lot of midrange and higher income people to work remotely like they were able to. Simagine the world without these hundreds of thousands of H-1B workers already working here in the United States, making IT services more available to American firms. A lot of smaller businesses probably would’ve shut down entirely. A lot of big companies would have had a lot of trouble, if not had to shut down entirely, or they would have had to outsource all these services to other countries around the world. And we didn’t have to do that nearly as much because we have such a large pool of talented workers on the H-1B visa. 

Denzil Mohammed: Because we attract and hopefully retain talent. And might I just add, we are recording this podcast over Zoom, and we have a highskilled immigrant to thank for that. You’re from Southern California. You live in DC now. You sound pretty American to me, but you have your own sort of immigration story, don’t you? 

Alex Nowrasteh: Yeah. I mean, the thing is we all do as Americans. Just about a 100 percent of us have an ancestor in the last several centuries who came here from somewhere else. My paternal grandparents immigrated from Iran in the late 1940s. My father was born here in Wisconsin, so he’s this tall, dark, swarthy guy who looks Iranian, who talks with a slightly Oshkosh accent, it’s kind of hilarious. And he moved to LA to work in the film business. My mother’s family has been here, the first one in their family came in the late 1600s. But then some left, went to Canada, came back, others came from Europe, French Jews from Europe, Germans, basically a whole mess of Western European Jews and Protestants coming over at different times. And then they both grew up in the Midwest and then moved to California to work in the film industry, met out here. And then my brother and I, we’re technically I guess third generation because the stuff that we grew up in, but I don’t speak Farsi, I’ve never been to Iran. I eat the food every once in a while, but frankly I eat Italian food more, and Mexican food more, and Thai food more, and Chinese food more. So I’m really just this American mutt with a really hard to pronounce last name, and basically people view me as ethnically ambiguous, which, you know, I’m fine. I guess I am ethnically ambiguous, that’s being an American. And my labor on this issue is not a labor born of personal experience. I grew up around lots of immigrants in Southern California, that’s the norm to me, it feels great, but I don’t have a personal experience or something troubling that happened to me. It’s partly because I’m sort of a patriotic American and this is something that really makes America different, and because of my background as a social scientist because immigration is so fascinating, and because immigration is something where if we’re able to liberalize it in the United States, allow more legal immigrants to come in, it’s worth tens of trillions of dollars to our economy in the world. 

Denzil Mohammed: That, plus the access to Thai food and Mexican food and Italian food and Chinese food. 

Alex Nowrasteh: Oh, yeah. 

Denzil Mohammed: Which we are so lucky to have in the U.S. because of immigration. We take for granted all these things that we’re afforded that people in other countries aren’t, and we have this buffet, this smorgasbord, of things to choose from every single day, because that’s what immigration gave us. So people can download The Most Common Arguments Against Immigration and Why They’re Wrong. It’s a really beautiful read, it’s very visual, nothing is complexly stated. It’s free to download, you can get it at libertarianism.org and also on the Cato Institute’s website. Any last comments about this particular project? 

Alex Nowrasteh: So this project is the combination of over a decade of my work and research on this, bringing together tens of thousands of different pages of research written by other scholars and doing original research myself. So if you want to see the highlights of what I’ve learned on this topic for a long career, with only spending maybe 20 minutes of reading, this is the thing for you to get. I highly recommend it. So please check it out, download it, and if you have any questions or other follow up, send me an email. You can find my email on Cato’s website at cato.org. 

Denzil Mohammed: And soon I’m going to be talking to one of your colleagues, Johan Norberg, the author of Open: The Story of Human Progressand I think well explore some of these themes further. Alex Nowrasteh, thank you so much for joining us on JobMakers. 

Alex Nowrasteh: Thanks a lot for having me, it was a real pleasure. 

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant contributions, issues and research produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Got comments, questions, know someone we should talk to? Email denzil@jobmakerspodcast.org. Thanks for joining us for this week’s revealing discussion on how immigrants benefit all of us. Next Thursday at noon, we’ll meet one of those immigrantsCarlos Castro. His businesses in Virginia have employed hundreds of people over decades, a far cry from his humble beginnings in El Salvador, where there were no such opportunities, as you’ll learn in the next JobMakers podcast. 

Episode 33: Alex Nowrasteh [part one]

JobMakers podcast logo: Alex Nowrasteh on what we get wrong about immigrantsAs director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, Alex Nowrasteh has spent years studying the positive impact of immigrants on the United States. In the first half of a two part episode, Nowrasteh discusses how myths about immigrants have evolved and persisted throughout American history and into the present. Listen to his JobMakers episode to discover the truth behind many canards about immigration.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and this is JobMakers.

[music playing]

Denzil Mohammed: For time immemorial, we’ve been hearing the same messages. ‘Immigrants take this’ or ‘Immigrants increase that’ or ‘Immigrants have used this’. I say time immemorial because the same things said of immigrants today were said of immigrants a hundred years ago. No matter the group, whether Irish or Italian, Mexican or Haitian, those already living here uttered the same things. For Alex Nowrasteh, the Cato Institute’s director of immigration studies, he’s heard it all before; over and over again. So last summer, he compiled a quick and easy publication. Anyone can download it, it’s called ‘The Most Common Arguments Against Immigration and Why They’re Wrong’. You can get it at Cato’s website or libertarianism.org. In it, Alex lays out in simple terms, researched responses to anti-immigrant fabrications like ‘Today’s immigrants don’t assimilate like immigrants from before’ and ‘Immigrants are a major source of crime’ and ‘Immigrants won’t vote for the Republican party’. This is the first part of our conversation. And some of what you’re about to hear might surprise you. Alex knows that, but getting truth and facts out there is paramount in advancing sensible immigration policies that benefit all Americans, new or old, as you’ll discover in this week’s JobMakers.

[music playing]

Denzil Mohammed: Alex Nowrasteh from the Cato Institute, thank you for joining us on JobMakers. How are you?

Alex Nowrasteh: Great! I’m doing well. Thanks a lot for having me! I’m looking forward to this.

Denzil Mohammed: So you recently released a report on the most common arguments against immigration and why they’re wrong. Why did you feel the need to do this?

Alex Nowrasteh: So I’ve been speaking and writing about immigration for over a decade and I basically get the same questions every time. And I figured these questions are probably the ones that everybody has about immigration. So it would just be very convenient for everybody if I wrote down my quick answers to all of them, with citations and links to other research, to give people out there who are getting these questions but don’t have the benefit of having done years and years of research on each of them like I have. So that’s what basically gave me this impetus, sort of like a cheat sheet for everybody to know what I’m thinking whenever I get these questions.

Denzil Mohammed: One of the biggest misconceptions that I found in your report was the one on voting, that immigrants are automatically going to vote blue. That is not necessarily true. California is a good example of that. California and Texas, the two states with the largest immigrant populations, right?

Alex Nowrasteh: Yeah, that’s right. California and Texas. And interestingly, part of the argument against voting or the idea that immigrants and their kids are going to vote for the democratic party in perpetuity forever is it’s partly focused on immigration, of course. It’s also focused on largely Hispanics. It’s the idea that Hispanics, whether they’re native-born or foreign-born or just this permanent blue voting bloc. And if you look back at history, if you look at what’s going on today with political realignment that’s just simply not true. There’s so much evidence to the contrary that it’s kind of overwhelming, but what we really hear is this crazy narrative about how this is some new voting bloc in Porter by the Democrats, supposedly, to create sort of Democratic Party dominance, which, I don’t know when that’s ever existed since the 1960s. And I can talk about why, I mean, the history of this is kind of fascinating. So I’m from California. And when I was young, in 1994, there was a debate, a statewide proposition that everyone gets to vote on called Proposition 187. And Prop 187 did two things. One was that it denied welfare benefits and other government benefits to all unlawful or illegal immigrants in the state. And then the second thing was it told every single state official that if they suspect that somebody is an unlawful or illegal immigrant, they have to report that person to the INS at the time for deportation. And what happened was, in 1994, this was pushed by the then governor Pete Wilson, who was Republican. He was facing a pretty hard reelection campaign in 1994 in California; the economy wasn’t doing well, the end of the cold war really hurt a lot of defense industries in California. So he was facing an uphill battle. And so he latched on to this Proposition 187 as a way to galvanize voters to support him so that he could win reelection. And what’s fascinating is you take a look at this, in 1990, when peoples and first ran, he basically split the Hispanic vote on the state level with Democrats. Basically he got 47 percent. The  Democrats got 48 percent. 1990, it switches. Pete Wilson got 25 percent, Democrat got 70 percent, but Pete Wilson barely pulled it out because he got so many more votes from black Americans, white Americans and Asian Americans. But then you fast forward to 1998, and you see that Hispanic vote for Republicans keeps going down. It goes down to like 17 percent. And a state like California, where the Hispanic population grows from like 10 percent in 1970 to 40 percent around the year 2005, that’s a devastating shift. And basically what happened was the Republican Party in California in my home state decided, ‘We really needed to win this election in 1984, let’s piss off the largest demographic in the state that’s growing the fastest and be surprised when we lose basically every election after that, except when Arnold Schwarzenegger is running.’

Denzil Mohammed: So you concluded based on this, that how immigrants vote depends on how the party treats them, particularly Hispanic voters.

Alex Nowrasteh: Yeah. Surprisingly, right? No, I’m just joking. I mean, it’s obviously not surprising, human beings don’t want to vote for people who hate them. James Carville, the Democratic strategist has said this, point blank. If voters think that you hate them, they won’t vote for you.

Denzil Mohammed: You talk about assimilation, and that’s, of course, one of the biggest myths when it comes to immigration; that today’s immigrants don’t assimilate as immigrants from the past did. How are they wrong?

Alex Nowrasteh: So assimilation, we basically measure it as whether the immigrant or the immigrant’s kids or grandkids: how similar they are to Americans who’ve been here for much longer period of time on issues like education, income; civic participation, which includes voting, volunteering whether they nationalize, whether they call themselves American and consider themselves to be American. And on these measures from survey questions that go back, in some cases over a hundred years, what we see is that basically, by the third generation, that is, the grandchildren of the immigrants themselves, their grandchildren across the board, on average, are basically identical to Americans who have been here for four or longer generations in terms of all of these measures. Now, some groups take a little bit longer than others. There are a lot of Hispanic immigrant groups, because, when they come here, they have a little bit less education, it takes a little bit of a while to earn that education and pass it on to their kids. That can take three, sometimes four generations. With Asian immigrants it’s basically the first or second generation because they typically come here with higher education level. They already speak English when they arrive and that sort of jumpstarts assimilation. And then what we’ve also seen is a lot of intermarriage. So a lot of Hispanic immigrants or Asian immigrants will marry a non-Hispanic or non-Asian American. The kids will be mixed. Their kids won’t self-identify as that ethnic minority or racial minority. And because of this intermarriage, what happens is that basically pushes along assimilation. It speeds it up by an extra generation. So I like to call it ‘assimilation of the altar’. And that’s something that happened in the past; that’s what happened with Irish, with Italian immigrants, with German immigrants. Like if you notice in this conversation, a lot of what we’re seeing today is what people were noticing, a hundred or 130 years ago with the immigrant groups that were coming then. Is this happening with a whole new group of people in the United States? And it turns out it’s not that different. And in some ways, it’s a little faster. So it took on average, the Irish about five generations to assimilate by our measures. And that’s probably because the Irish, when they came here, they were especially poor, especially devastated, especially poorly educated and coming from a real backwards part of Europe at that time. They’ve caught up, Ireland’s caught up, but back then, it was really backwards by comparison to the United States. They didn’t even use money in large parts of Ireland because there was basically a feudal economy where you would pay your landlord in produce that you made from your farm. And then you get shoved into industrial aged New York. Crazy, right? Crazy transition. But if you think about today, like an immigrant from Mexico or from India or from Nigeria, they don’t have to learn how to read a clock. They don’t have to learn how to use money. They don’t have to learn how to rent an apartment. They know all these things already and they have some exposure to American culture through TV and music and everything else. So, in a sense, there’s a ton of pre-assimilation going on around the world because American culture is so dominant. The English language is just so dominant globally that it really helps jump start that process. So if I were looking backwards at time from the year 3000, I would say the assimilation trends in the United States around the year 2021 are far superior to what they were in the United States in the year 1921. I’m just that much more optimistic about it.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s fascinating. Clearly, this has happened before. This is a natural phenomenon that happens when people move and whether they came from Ireland or from Italy or from Guatemala, it’s probably going to follow the same trajectory. One of the other biggest misconceptions that you addressed is on crime. And it’s interesting to note that as populations have increased in the U.S., that’s in Metro areas, violent crime rates have gone down. Yet, we’ve seen this mushrooming of immigration to the U.S. since the late sixties. Tell me a little bit about that. And how do you counter people who come with other statistics about immigrants and crime that totally contradict yours?

Alex Nowrasteh: Yeah. So what you said is absolutely right; going back to the late 19th century, there have been about half a dozen different government commissions that have studied the issues of immigrant assimilation in the United States. And most of these commissions have been stacked against immigration. The Alibi Congress and basically nativists are put on the boards to study these things. But what’s remarkable is, every time, from the early 20th century, from the Dillingham commission, which recommended quotas to keep out Southern and Eastern Europeans because they were genetically inferior, supposedly. Up until the Barbara Jordan commission in the 1990s, that took a look at immigration, also stacked with a bunch of people who are anti-immigration on that commission. Every single one of them, they say a bunch of negative things about immigration, but they have all admitted that immigrants are much less likely to commit crimes than the native-born Americans and much less likely to be incarcerated. So this is something that goes back over a century; this finding and continues to today. In fact, when you take a look at the census data, because we do have census data on crime, and we take a look at those who are incarcerated in American prisons, the foreign-born population in prison, as a percentage, is below the percentage of nationwide population. And we know that for a fact. That is uncontested. What other people say, though, is ‘I may believe, Alex, that legal immigrants have a much lower crime rate,’ but then they say ‘Illegal immigrants have a much higher crime rate, though.’ And they say that because, well, they broke immigration laws. So they must be more likely to commit crimes rather than just these immigration law violations. And Ann Coulter in her book, Adios America, which, and I say this unironically, is actually a great book because you’ll understand what an anti-immigration person thinks about all this stuff. In very clear detail. I learned more from that book, I think, than any other book on immigration, surprisingly. And what she said is, ‘Illegal immigration is a huge source of crime. And the reason why you know that is because no state counts criminal activity or convictions or arrests by immigration status.’ And she has this funny line in her book where she says, ‘Nielsen American census bureau people know how many pigs are being raised on American farms, but you’re telling me they don’t know how many criminals were arrested or illegal immigrants? Of course they’re hiding it!’ And
she says they’re hiding it to cover up some great things.

Denzil Mohammed: That is very scientific, by the way.

Alex Nowrasteh: Oh yeah. Very scientific criticism. It’s just this nativist paranoia. But what’s fascinating is, she’s right about 49 states. 49 states do not count crime or convictions or arrests by immigration status, but one state dots. And that’s the state of
Texas, which is the best state to measure for this. It’s a border state. It has one of the greatest numbers of immigrants in the country. The second greatest number of immigrants in the country are in Texas. The second largest unlawful or illegal immigrant population is in Texas and a lot of them are Hispanic, which, when people talk about crime and immigration, they’re mainly talking about Hispanic immigrants. They’re not really complaining about Asian immigrants. They’re complaining about Hispanic immigrants. And, even better, Texas has been governed by Republicans for about 27 years nonstop. So there’s no argument you can make about some kind of liberal conspiracy to cover up illegal immigrant crime, right? They’ll want to report it. And what does it show? You take a look at the Texas state data on this. You take a look at criminal convictions committed by people by immigration status. You’ll find that illegal immigrants have a criminal conviction rate about 37 percent below that of native-born Americans and legal immigrants have one that’s 57 percent below native-born Americans. And that’s as a percentage of each subpopulation. So just to give you an example, the native-born American criminal conviction rate, 2019 was 1,190 convictions for every 100,000 native-born Americans. For illegal immigrants, it was 749 convictions for illegal immigrants for every 100,000 and for legal immigrants who was 510 for every 100,000. So it’s just clear as daylight that these numbers line up in an incredible way. And when you take a look at different crimes like homicide, when you take a look at sex crimes, when you take a look at larceny, when you take a look at all these crimes, you go down the list and about the same relationship holds. Legal immigrants and illegal immigrants are much less likely to commit homicides and be convicted of them or arrested for them. Well, larceny it’s the same thing. Sex crimes is the same thing. So this is just across the board. We take a look at this and this is what holds and people spend a lot of time arguing about why this is the case, but we’ve come to the point now where people don’t really dispute that this is the case, that legal immigrants and illegal immigrants have a much lower crime rate. This has been a sea change in opinion the last couple of years, but I finally convinced people, even Mark Krikorian, I even convinced him. He has this great quote in the Dallas Morning News where somebody asked him about my paper. And he said, ‘Oh yeah, there’s a lot of evidence that illegal immigrants have a much lower crime rate than native-born Americans.’ The only response they have is, ‘Well, one is too many.’ And if you want to talk about how to allocate scarce law enforcement resources to diminish crime, knowing which populations, by immigration status, are the most dangerous, is worth knowing. Because we only have so many police officers, so many resources to develop the best. And if you really want to make an impact on crime, you should police more the native born population; which, I’m sorry to say, us native born Americans are super crime prone and super more likely to kill each other, than you should police illegal immigrants or legal immigrants.

Denzil Mohammed: That is such a powerful point. It better resonates because this is what the data has consistently shown. And to remind listeners that, for instance, authorized immigrants; people who are hoping for their green cards, for instance, they walk a very, very tight rope when it comes to committing crimes. They can be instantly deported if they commit certain kinds of crimes. So they have additional evidence to stay on the side of public safety versus U.S. boards who don’t have that kind of risk.

Alex Nowrasteh: Yeah, that’s right. Gary Becker, who’s a late Nobel Prize winning economist. He studied the economics of crime and he said, ’If you want to understand the turrets for crime, you need to multiply the chance of being caught times the punishment. And that will basically be the deterrence.’ And the thing is, for any crime, any immigrant, whether unlawful or legal, who is not a citizen of the United States, the punishment of being caught for committing community crime is much greater because the punishment is they get to serve their prison sentence, and then they get deported. And being deported is not technically a crime under U.S. law, but from the perspective of the immigrant, it is oftentimes a much bigger punishment than being in prison. And as a result of that, the deterrence factor is enormous. And as a result of that, people who decide to become immigrants are just going to be those types of people who just don’t really want to commit crimes because they’re thinking ahead. And the one thing we know about criminals is they don’t really think ahead. And immigrants, one of the things we do know is they’re doing it for the future, for themselves and they really think ahead.

Denzil Mohammed: They do it for the future. They want to establish a better life for themselves and their kids. Putting that in jeopardy, they don’t want to do that. That’s not in the equation. And thinking long-term that’s a fascinating way to position immigrants. And that’s really very true.

Alex Nowrasteh: It’s like an investment. It’s like an investment that they make in themselves and in the United States, as a result. The median immigrant who comes here to the United States from a country around the world can expect a four fold increase in income, adjusting for cost of living. That is tremendous. I’ve never had a job where one job to the next is a fourfold increase. I just can’t imagine. And a fourfold increase for somebody from Latin America or from Africa or from Asia. That’s a lot bigger difference in terms of the standard of living than a four fold increase for me would be. Like you increase my income by a factor of four, I’ll buy another house or something like that. I’ll fly first class. That’s nice, right? But it’s not going to be the difference between me sending my kids to school or not. It’s not the difference between seeing a doctor when I’m sick and not. It’s not the difference between me being able to retire at some point and not. That’s what these people face. So it is tremendous investment in themselves. And as a result, they invest in the United States! And it’s better for all of us.

Denzil Mohammed: Better for all of us. they want better paying jobs, they want to climb the ladder, they want to make more money. They pay more in taxes as a result. Immigrants or refugees give back more than the benefits that they initially received.
JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant contributions, history topics and research produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thanks for joining us for today’s gripping discussion on the facts to combat all those anti-immigrant messages. If you have feedback or know someone we should talk to, email Denzil, that’s D-E-N-Z-I-L (at) jobmakerspodcast.org. We’re going to be off for Thanksgiving but back on December 2nd, when Alex Nowrasteh discusses undocumented immigrants, anti-immigration research and Ann Coulter in the next Jobmakers.

Episode 32: Larry Kim

JobMakers podcast logo: Larry Kim's one-way ticket to the American DreamLarry Kim’s parents fled from Korea to Canada following the Korean War, and he followed in their footsteps by moving to the United States. Kim considers starting multiple highly successful marketing tech companies to be a “means to an end.” His true passion is helping people pursue their own American Dream. Learn how he accomplishes this by employing hundreds of people and mentoring entrepreneurs around the world in this episode of JobMakers!

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and this is JobMakers. 

[music playing]

Denzil Mohammed: A one way ticket. That’s migrating. What you do when you get there is up to you because you’ve left your family and other supports behind. That’s an immigrant. For Larry Kim, founder of WordStream in Boston, which was acquired for $150 million, and of MobileMonkey, a chatbot marketing platform for market and customer support on Facebook messenger, web chat and SMS, that journey began when his parents fled to Canada after the Korean war on a one way ticket. That, in turn, gave him the opportunity to purchase his own one way ticket to the U.S. to fulfill his American dream. Larry is creating hundreds of meaningful jobs for Americans. Something he’s not only proud of but feels is at the core of his values, to give back to the country that gave him the opportunity to actualize bold new ideas. He doesn’t even believe in patents, instead publishing textbooks on software development to foster the freedom for everyone to innovate. Through his technology, he’s helped tens of thousands of companies to grow their businesses. And with nearly 750,000 followers on medium.com, he mentors budding entrepreneurs from around the world as you’ll discover in this week’s JobMakers.  

[music playing]

Denzil Mohammed: Larry Kim, thank you for joining us on JobMakers. How are you? 

Larry Kim: I’m doing great Denzil. How are you? 

Denzil Mohammed: I am excellent and I’m so glad we got to talk to you. You’re such a tremendous business owner and entrepreneur. A social media maverick. I remember back in 2019 when I met you, you were like two spots behind Hillary Clinton on the top writers on medium.com. Remember that? 

Larry Kim: Oh yeah, she hasn’t been blogging for a while, so I’ve actually passed her. 

Denzil Mohammed: [laughing] There you go! So we met in 2019 at the eighth annual Barry M. Portnoy Immigrant Entrepreneur Awards, where you were awarded the winner in the “High-Tech Business” category by The Immigrant Learning Center, and you said, “This is the most meaningful honor of my entire professional career.” What did you mean by that? 

Larry Kim: Oh, sure. So, Denzil, when you’re an entrepreneur, or just any careerist, you’re going to get all sorts of crazy awards. Some of them are pretty superficial, like, “Having Lots of People to Follow on Social Media,” or these kinds of silliness. Or growth awards, like “Inc 5,000 Fastest Growing Companies in America.” Of course, it’s great to get any of these awards, but it’s important to understand that, well, my perspective on this is that the growth or the number of followers or whatever these other awards are based on, that’s a means to an end. That the true goal here is to create something of value and just ultimately create jobs and employment for people in the community so that they can better their lives and contribute back as productive members of society. So, to that end, I kind of view your industry or your entrepreneurship award as being the only award I’ve ever won that reflects my core belief system. And so that’s why I declared that this was the most meaningful award that I’ve ever been considered for and won in my career. It’s an honor and a privilege. 

Denzil Mohammed: When you say your core beliefs, what did that award get at for you? What did it speak to? 

Larry Kim: Why is it that entrepreneurs do what they do? You know? Why is it that so many of them are immigrants? And I think part of that is a life calling to provide. To help people to realize their full potential in life, by providing them a framework to be gaining valuable skills, get paid for it and advance to careers. And that is my calling in life. And just the structure by which I do this is by creating these products and companies and selling products. But that is a means to an end. That is what you see. But not the core motivating factor for me. 

Denzil Mohammed: Creating meaningful work, allowing people to advance in their careers, certainly…  

Larry Kim: More for families. Live the “American Dream.” I’ve employed over a thousand people in the last decade. And we don’t just hire people who already had jobs and they were already flying high. No, we look for these people like one or two years out of college, or in some cases, community college, or no college at all. And we train them how to sell things. We train them how to be a customer support rep. We take people from companies like Best Buy, floor salespeople, really blue-collar work. And I think we’re helping people refine their skills and become even more productive members of society. 

Denzil Mohammed: Well said. Allowing people to live out their American Dream. I want to get into your immigrant story. And it didn’t just start with you, right? It started with your family. 

Larry Kim: Oh, sure. Yes. So about 20 years ago, I immigrated to the United States from the far, far away country of Canada. It was a 45-minute flight from the Toronto airport. It was a one-way ticket, and I flew here following my last exam from college and started at a local startup here. And you know, you might say, “Well, that’s not a … Canada is like the 51st state,” or “This is not really a big journey.” But you’ve got to … if you take a step back, you think of the bigger picture. My parents started this journey back 40-50 years ago. They were just young children during the Korean War in the fifties. And they were refugees, walking hundreds of miles to avoid these conflict zones and carrying everything that they owned in a bag on their back and eating grass and drinking out of rivers to survive. And it was a pretty difficult environment and when they got a little older, they decided to immigrate to Canada. This would have been in the sixties or seventies. And they also booked a one-way ticket here with like 20 dollars in their pocket or something like that. So it’s just a continuation of that desire to want to provide something for your life, for your family, for your community. And you know, this was just sort of the last stop if you will. 

Denzil Mohammed: That’s just absolutely fascinating. So many Americans don’t know about these experiences that are in the backgrounds of immigrants today and refugees today. I’m glad that they made that move. It allowed you to be able to thrive and do better than they ever possibly imagined you would have if for instance, you were growing up in a war-torn country. Your journey as an entrepreneur, did you always know that you wanted to start a business? And, and just correct me if I’m wrong, your degree is in electrical engineering, right? And now you’re in digital marketing. 

Larry Kim: So, absolutely. It was obvious that I wanted to create a business from the very beginning. My early jobs were doing paperwork and building little recycling businesses in junior high and in high school. And you know, it was a situation where I knew I wanted to … oh, and my parents! My mother was an entrepreneur too. She was a piano teacher. So, she basically taught me everything about marketing. How to get clients, how to get students. “Don’t be the lowest cost piano teacher because then you’re going to get all the worst students. You have to charge a little bit more than everyone else.” She would teach me all of these lessons about how to run a business. That’s another thing about entrepreneurship. There’s usually some family influence, from a young age, where someone is teaching you the difference between being an employee versus an employer. But yes, I think I absolutely wanted to be this … you know, having a company or a business. It was just a situation where I didn’t have the skills or the idea of what to do … like finding that niche, finding the need in the marketplace to fill. And so, you just start off in a regular job and you learn skills. So, initially when I moved to Cambridge, it was to work for a marketing software company called Allaire which was later bought up by Macromedia. And because that was marketing software, I learned a lot about digital marketing. And so that’s where I was able to then identify some needs in the marketplace around search advertising and social media advertising in terms of products that you could build, in terms of being an engineer, an entrepreneur. I think that’s totally normal. Engineering of course is an applied science as opposed to a pure scientific endeavor. And so, you always have to take your engineering skills and apply it to some other area. Biotech or fintech or marketing software. 

Denzil Mohammed: So, what was it like in the early stages going out there, asking for money, developing your ideas, finding partners? 

Larry Kim: I mean, it’s kind of comical. I was like this 20-something with a lot of ideas and no contacts, not a lot of experience. And I just did cold emailing. If you go to a venture website it’ll say, “Do you want to partner with …”, there’s actually an alias on inquiries at “venture-company-dot-com.” So, that’s not the most ideal way to go about pitching. Ideally, you’d get some kind of recommendation or warm introduction from a portfolio CEO or something like that. But yeah! Just the cold emailing. And sure enough, surprisingly, we got a few dozen inquiries and that led to meetings. And you know, it didn’t happen overnight. But over a few years of getting rejected and trying again, I was able to both build a business that was fundable and find world-class investors to back the idea. 

Denzil Mohammed: So, describe MobileMonkey to us. What is it, what does it do? Why is it important?

Larry Kim: It’s a text messaging platform. It’s a very important mode of communication if you’re a business doing business-to-consumer marketing. So, if you’re a realtor, you’re selling to customers. These customers aren’t spending all day in Gmail or whatever. They’re just on-the-go on their mobile phones. And typically, they spend a good amount of time texting or using text platforms like WhatsApp or Instagram Direct Messaging or Facebook Messenger. And so, if you’re a business it’s kind of hard to generate inbound inquiries at scale and then to those inquiries automatically. What we do is simplify this by providing this omni-chat platform that lets you manage all of the different messaging channels that you might encounter customers. All of the social channels, SMS texting, website chat, all in a single unified console and makes it super easy to engage with users at scale and provide better customer experiences leading to more sales and more leads, and then just growing your business. 

Denzil Mohammed: I’ve seen in other countries, entire economies run on WhatsApp. It’s really fascinating. On Medium you have over 200,000 followers. On Twitter, you have three quarters of a million followers. That’s a gigantic mouthpiece to speak, not just to Boston or to the United States, but to the world. What’s some of the best advice you have for budding entrepreneurs and probably some of the worst advice, so to speak, to avoid? 

Larry Kim: Well, the worst advice is going to be the opposite of the best advice so I’ll just tell you what my best advice would be, and that is to really understand that initially the enormous leverage comes from the idea. What is the solution that you are trying to provide? Who is the target market? How will we find them? Like that kind of confluence of questions. You can build anything you want, and you can sell it to anyone you want to, and you can come up with any number of ways to take that product to market. But how well those concepts click together is going to provide enormous leverage on how big a business this could be, how fast this business can grow, whether or not it will even get off the ground in the first place. And so, I think what happens is that a lot of entrepreneurs, especially first-time entrepreneurs, they tend to overestimate the novelty of their own ideas. Sure enough, you’ve come up with a great idea, but four other companies are doing the same thing. And then the second thing that they do is they downplay the competitiveness of these other products and up-play the uniqueness of their concept, if that makes sense. While it’s in kind of the “stem cell phase” of a business, where you have a lot of freedom to decide what to bill, who to sell it to and how to sell it, getting to a really great place before scaling is the best advice. 

Denzil Mohammed: So finally, given your amazing social media reach, we know that people who have their own businesses want to be able to build up. Build up their brand, their personal brand, their company’s brand, engage with customers. On social media what are some of the best advice you have for entrepreneurs? 

Larry Kim: So, the advice changes over time, because it’s so dependent on how the algorithm is tuned. It seems to me that it’s pretty obvious that the algorithm is just trying to create food fights in the newsfeed. If the content that you’re producing is like family photos or like, “Hey, buy my product,” it’s not, it’s going to be cloaked. It’s not going to really generate a lot of response or not a lot of people are going to actually see that. It just means that in 2021, you need to be a little bit more controversial unfortunately. If you’re just putting up content out there, that’s very centrist, like a “water is wet” kind of thing, it’s just not going to go anywhere. So, you really need to think about the issues that divide the community and you need to straddle that line. In terms of just a stupid example, say you’re a fitness company and you’ve got people who swear by Keto diet or Atkins diet or something. But there’s a lot of strongly held convictions depending on what diet they ascribed to. Instead of just creating “What is keto?” you would create something like “10 Reasons Why Keto is a Load of Crap!” What that’s going to do is get all the other fad folks up in arms and commenting and sharing and saying, “This is a load of crap!” and hitting the mad face emoji. Which apparently is weighted five times more than the like button. That came out of the documents on Capitol Hill. So that’s really the way to go viral and get everyone … it’s kind of stirring the pot a little bit, and that’s sad. It’s kind of sad, but that’s how I would give the algorithm what it’s looking for. The hot button topics that exist in every industry. Try to provoke a response. 

Denzil Mohammed: Yeah, it’s not a fistfight necessarily that you’re getting into, but something to generate responses by way of putting information out there. The last thing I wanted to bring up was I interviewed Semyon Dukach on this podcast a while ago. He is part of a group called One Way Ventures and you talk about your parents buying a one way ticket. 

Larry Kim: I bought a one-way ticket here. 

Denzil Mohammed: You bought a one way ticket. What is the significance of that one-way ticket? 

Larry Kim: This is not a tourist trip. You know, this is … we’re not planning a one month stay or something like that. We’re going all in. There is no plan B. This has to work. And you know, that’s the mentality of an entrepreneur. It’s also the mentality of an immigrant. If you look at all the companies that are investible, there’s a very high chance that one of the founders is an immigrant because that’s the DNA of the immigrant. It’s essentially the same as an entrepreneur/founder type person. 

Denzil Mohammed: I often say that the act of migrating is itself an entrepreneurial act and you just spelled it out in tremendously personal and beautiful terms. Larry Kim, thank you so much for joining us on JobMakers and for participating in this discussion and I wish you all the best with you and your family and Mobile Monkey.  

Larry Kim: Oh thanks Denzil, it’s great to be here, have a great day. 

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for this week’s fascinating story on how immigrants benefit and create jobs for all Americans. Have a comment? Email Denzil, that’s D-E-N-Z-I-L at jobmakerspodcast.org. Next week we speak with Alex Nowrasteh, Director of Immigration Studies at the Cato Institute about his recent publication, “The Most Common Arguments Against Immigration and Why They’re Wrong.” I’m Denzil Mohammed. Join us next Thursday at noon for another episode of JobMakers.

Episode 31: Gary Christenson

JobMakers podcast logo: Mayor Christenson on how immigrants enrich his cityMayor of Malden Gary Christenson has seen firsthand how immigrants have revitalized his city, starting businesses and creating jobs. Christenson has also seen how Malden came together in the aftermath of hate crimes following the Boston Marathon bombing. Tune in to learn how he wants to strengthen relationships between newcomers and longtime residents, and his perspective on sanctuary city policies.

Denzil Mohammed: I am Denzil Mohammed, and this is JobMakers. 

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Denzil Mohammed: Malden, Massachusetts, the second most diverse city in the Commonwealth after Chelsea, with almost 43 percent of its residents born outside of the United States. It’s also home to The Immigrant Learning Center, the co-producer of this podcast. So a good location for a free English language program! Malden’s always been a gateway city for immigrants and refugees, from Jews fleeing for safety after World War II, to Eastern Europeans and Vietnamese seeking democracy and freedom, to immigrants from China, Morocco, Brazil and Haiti seeking the American dream today. For Mayor Gary Christenson, it is this diversity that gives Malden its strength and assures him of a strong, proud future. He looks to the revitalization of downtown, with its disproportionate number of immigrant-owned businesses, the dizzying array of cuisines on offer and the very entrepreneurial spirit that suffuses its immigrant populations. He talks with us about managing the relationships between long-term residents and new immigrants, the reaction of the city to hate crimes after the Boston Marathon bombing, how much immigrants have given back to their new home and his stance on sanctuary cities in this week’s JobMakers.  

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Denzil Mohammed: Mayor Gary Christenson, welcome to the JobMakers podcast! 

Mayor Gary Christenson: Thank you so much for having me, always an honor. 

Denzil Mohammed: So what is it like running the second most diverse city in the Commonwealth? 

Mayor Gary Christenson: It probably is the greatest aspect of serving as mayor, because I have learned things that I know that I never otherwise would, if not for living in one of the most diverse cities in the state of Massachusetts. For example, I met with a community group a couple of years ago, and when they told me the name of the country, I didn’t even know it existed. I actually had to go to a map to look it up, it was Eritrea. And again, if not for them being here and being part of this diverse city that we live in, I might have never known that. And so to me, that’s one of the greatest benefits of living here in Malden. 

Denzil Mohammed: And you’re a lifelong Malden resident. How have you seen immigration shape this city? And in what ways? As far as I can tell, Malden has always been a gateway city for different refugee and immigrant groups, right? 

Mayor Gary Christenson: Yeah. I guess how hasn’t it shaped our city? From religion, to culture, to my favorite, which is food, it’s had a profound impact on who we are and where we are going. And I can’t tell you the number of people who end up coming here now mention the diversity as one of the attractions on why they come to our city. 

Denzil Mohammed: So you think that this diversity is a strength of ours? 

Mayor Gary Christenson: We tout it every chance we get. And you know, we try not to just talk the talk. We’re now trying to take what has been happening to our city and have it permeate throughout everything we do in Malden. So for example, we now have our first Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer, just a couple of offices down from me. Her name is Bybiose Larochelle, and she now is working very hard to have the government reflect what Malden has become, which is again, one of the most diverse cities in our state. She sits on every hiring committee. She’s involved with helping to promote the vaccine to underserved populations in our city. And we want to make sure that Malden is not just known as the most diverse, but actually practices and preaches on making sure that our community is welcoming and safe for us all. 

Denzil Mohammed: So we know from our own research, and you would know as the person who runs this city, that immigrants are inherently entrepreneurial. Just the idea of packing a suitcase and leaving their family and friends, and their culture, and their food behind is itself an entrepreneurial act. How has that entrepreneurial spirit of immigrants in Malden shaped the local economy? 

Mayor Gary Christenson: Just the other day, we cut the ribbon to the new Maplewood Meat Market over in Maplewood Square. And the owners, one was from Peru and the other one was from Mexico, I believe. And they are not only the owners, but they’re serving the goods that are native to their original countries. And again, that would not be the case, if not for them wanting to set up their business here in our city. So we went down there to not only congratulate them on this risk, because that’s what it is when you’re opening a new business, but thank them as well for sharing what they have experienced and learned growing up with our community. So that’s just one example of many that we work with on a daily basis here in Malden. 

Denzil Mohammed: I remember talking to Shane Smith on this podcast, who runs Hugh O’Neill’s Irish Pub. And, you know, he mentioned when he first opened that downtown Malden wasn’t the vibrant hub that it is now, with pubs and restaurants and cafés and stores. Particularly looking at the downtown area, how have immigrants played a role in revitalizing downtown Malden over the years? 

Mayor Gary Christenson: Well, I would encourage your listeners to come see it, to experience it firsthand. But they have single-handedly brought our city back, and there were times when people weren’t sure about whether that would ever be possible again, but they have done it. Just go up one side and down the other, and you’ll see. Just this afternoon, I’m going to go over to The Gallery at 57 Pleasant Street, which consists of a number of immigrant artists who are going to be celebrating the second anniversary of that store opening. And again, that would not have happened without their willingness to get involved and help us bring back Malden Square from where it once was. 

Denzil Mohammed: And I just can’t help but think of the sheer diversity. You talk about someone from Peru, Mexico, Eritrea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Haiti, just so much rich diversity here. And we take it for granted that, just in America, we have all this great diversity of food, for instance. You know, America’s favorite fast food chain is Taco Bell. We have immigrants to thank for the fact that we can choose on a Friday night, Thai food or Scottish food or Irish food or Chinese food. 

Mayor Gary Christenson: Right, well, I can tell you the difference here. A number of our students who graduate Malden High School and go off into the big world, always come back and tell us that one of the advantages of attending school in our city is that when they get out, they’ve experienced it all, whereas students that they are meeting for the first time, it takes them several years to adjust and adapt to experiencing new cultures, new religions, new foods. But not students that come from our city. So to me, that’s one of the great things about Malden. 

Denzil Mohammed: You mentioned students, and I want to get back to that in a second, but what has Malden done over the years? How has your relationship with immigrant business owners in particular evolved? What have you done right that other cities have not done right when it comes to really fostering that entrepreneurial spirit? 

Mayor Gary Christenson: As I mentioned, our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer now, Bybiose Larochelle, has been working with the different community groups throughout Malden to take us to that next level. Because we’ve known now for some time that we are diverse and we appreciate it and enjoy it, but now it’s time to take it to where it should go, which is to be in a place that everybody can participate in. So I would say that is where we’re going next, which is having people working in the government that reflect our community, having documents and meetings translated so people could participate and eventually run for political office. 

Denzil Mohammed: So you mentioned students a little while ago. Part of your progress in Malden has been the creation of 1,500 jobs for Malden’s teens, exposing them to the job interview process, giving them work experience, arming them with career readiness. Given that 57 percent of Malden High School students don’t count English as their first language, how do you see reaching such a diverse group of students? How have they been able to engage with these opportunities? 

Mayor Gary Christenson: We go to them, we reach out to them, we roll out the red carpet for them. We make it a point to find those students who otherwise would not get involved and take that step. We try to find people that we’ve never met and we have no connection with, because it’s opportunities like the Summer Youth Employment Program that could help determine who that next teacher is, who that next police officer is, who that next entrepreneur is. 

Denzil Mohammed: One of the most beautiful things to see in Malden is when the bell rings and the high school students come streaming out, all the elementary school students. And they’re from every different color, every different stripe, every different background, but they’re all friends, they all get along. They may wear a hijab or something else, but they all get along, and it’s almost like this lesson in immigrant integration and inclusion and belonging. Has it been challenging over the years? You talk about all this community outreach and meeting people where they’re at. Has it been a learning experience for you? 

Mayor Gary Christenson: It certainly hasn’t been a challenge. It’s been something that I have been proud and honored to be a part of. My family said growing up that the whole point of why we’re here is to learn, share and grow. That’s the whole point of it, to make it better for the next group of residents behind us, for them to be living in a place that’s greater than we found it. And so I’ve been able to do that by living here in Malden. I’ve seen, I’ve heard, I’ve learned things. It actually has helped me to rarely need a vacation, because I feel like here in Malden, I’m on vacation all the time.  

Denzil Mohammed: I’m not sure you want to say that before your next campaign. 

Mayor Gary Christenson: [laughs] 

Denzil Mohammed: It’s almost ironic and tragic that you say the lesson was to make it easier for the people who come after you, because so often the groups that have settled here dislike the groups that come after them, we’ve seen that, it’s a cycle in U.S. history. Who does America belong to? I would venture to suggest it belongs to anyone who believes in the American dream, who [inaudible] that freedom and opportunity. What do you think sets Malden apart when it comes to embracing its newest foreign-born residents and ensuring that they thrive? 

Mayor Gary Christenson: I would say it’s just a willingness to work with everyone to make our community the best it can be. We try here to take every call, every email, no matter what your stature is in life. There was a time when it was who you knew and what they knew, but we’ve tried hard over the years to let that not be the case here. So I believe we truly have an open door policy. I’ll give you an example. We had someone reach out to us from Morocco the other day. I don’t even know how she got my text number, but she got my cell number, she texted me. I couldn’t remember who she was or where I met her, but we had her in within 24 hours, sitting in the mayor’s office, trying to help address her issue, which is serious, but we think we might have some solutions for her. The point I’m trying to make is that was something we could have said, you know, schedule it a month out, find out who she is, all that stuff. But we try not to do that here. We had her here in 24 hours. 

Denzil Mohammed: So it hasn’t been an entirely rosy experience here in Malden. I think there have been some tensions with longtime residents and newer residents, and things can get very heated when it comes to national or local tragedies. We did have an incident soon after the Boston Marathon bombing where a Syrian woman was punched by a resident of Malden in front of her toddler, taking her child to daycare. But the city’s response was pretty remarkable, right? 

Mayor Gary Christenson: Well, that’s in the eye of the beholder, but our instant reaction was to swarm her, to be with her, to let her know that that is not something we’re known for or tolerate. And the thing I’ll remember most about that is the number of people who came to her defense and to reassure her that that was an anomaly. And I think as a result, we were able to survive that together. We are a community for all. I mean, just look at the latest census tract that just came out. When you look at the map of Malden, it’s pretty evenly distributed across the five square miles. So as opposed to another city who might have a segment or a population in this corner, and then the rest of the city is another population, here in Malden, you wouldn’t know where you are at any given time in any part of the city. 

Denzil Mohammed: Over the years, how has Malden sort of managed these tensions or this relationship of the longer-term residents versus the newer ones? 

Mayor Gary Christenson: I would say it’s creating an atmosphere where people are welcomed and respected, no matter what generation they’re from. So we observe and celebrate different holidays, we observe and celebrate different religious traditions, we eat different foods. And I think that’s how we’ve tried to do it here in the government. So I guess in other words, lead by example. If you notice on our social media channels, we’re always trying to promote a different culture, a different religion, a different food. And I think when people see the leaders of the city doing that, I think over time people tend to accept it. When they see their elected officials, managers, department heads, police chiefs, fire chiefs, I think that’s how we’ve been able to do it. Because again, we want to demonstrate that no matter where you are or where you’re from, you’re just as part of Malden as anybody else. 

Denzil Mohammed: One thing that you did over the last federal administration, there were a lot of movements across the country where cities were insisting that they be more welcoming and that they take a sort of stand when it came to protecting their immigrant populations. And as we know, about 20 percent of the immigrant population in Massachusetts has no legal status, they’re undocumented. Malden was one of the cities that did not proclaim that it was a sanctuary city. And the reason coming from you and your administration was that it’s already a welcoming and protective place. Can you expand a little bit on why you took that decision not to make Malden a sanctuary city? 

Mayor Gary Christenson: I mean, that was the flavor of the day to become a sanctuary city, but in actuality, what did it really mean besides the potential for protracted legal battles and the potential loss of aid? At that time, we didn’t know whether that would mean that some of the grants that we were relying on to help people who were in need of it the most would be at risk. So that was why at the time we didn’t feel the need to sign on to becoming a sanctuary city, which I think over time then changed to something else. I think for us, and I believe the other branches of government, they felt the same way, that we were long past having to label ourselves as something other than what we have always been, which is a place that everybody can live, work, worship. 

Denzil Mohammed: You and I have seen immigrants contribute to this city as business owners, as workers, through cultural events, building it up and enriching it every day. There is a huge narrative out there about immigrants as takers, refugees as takers. What is your view on that? How have you seen immigrants give back and have they given back over time more than you’ve given them, or the government has given them? 

Mayor Gary Christenson: I haven’t seen takers. I’ve seen people, like you outlined Denzil at the beginning, that just want a chance, an opportunity to live out their dreams. And so I’ve seen that as we’ve gone around to the different businesses, as I’ve talked with students in the different schools that we have here, and even in the houses of worship, when I go through there, that people are just looking for an opportunity to achieve their lifelong dream. 

Denzil Mohammed: That’s a very powerful way to end this. Mayor Christenson, thank you so much for joining us on JobMakers. This was really a fascinating discussion and I hope other municipalities listen to this and be guided accordingly as to how, as you say, you can help people fulfill their dreams and you can see how much they can give back. 

Mayor Gary Christenson: That’s it. That’s what it’s all about. And thank you, Denzil, to The Immigrant Learning Center. I am certain we would not be having this conversation if not for all the work that you have done over the years. So thank you. 

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for today’s fascinating story on the benefits of welcoming immigrants and refugees to the U.S. If you have feedback or know someone we should talk to, email [email protected]. I’m Denzil Mohammed. Join us next Thursday at noon for another episode of JobMakers.

Episode 30: John Dearie

JobMakers podcast logo: John Dearie - Halt immigration? Fall behind.As the founder and president of the Center for American Entrepreneurship, John Dearie knows how immigrant entrepreneurs create jobs, drive innovation and expand the economy. Dearie believes that the United State’s current approach to immigration is needlessly partisan and toxic. Tune in to learn how he thinks a more balanced approach will benefit both U.S.-born and foreign-born people.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and this is JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: The United States was and continues to be built by entrepreneurial immigrants who had the drive and determination to pick up, leave everything they know behind and to build a new life in a new homeland. So it is no surprise that they are twice as likely to take another risk: start a business. For John Dearie, founder and president of the Center for American Entrepreneurship, a Washington DC-based research policy and advocacy organization, immigration is core to his mission to build a policy environment that promotes entrepreneurship because he knows this fact all too well. He’s also seen across the country frustration among business owners at an immigration system that works against this country’s interest. Why? Because it doesn’t seek to actively attract or retain talent from the rest of the world. John sees the decline in U.S. entrepreneurship and believes that more immigration, not less, would power the nation’s economy and innovation, which have made us the global leader. Instead, he’s seeing an unnecessarily partisan and toxic approach to immigration that he says harms us all and is inherently un-American. As you’ll discover in this week’s JobMakers. John Dearie from the Center for American Entrepreneurship. How are you?

John Dearie: I’m great! Thanks so much for reaching out and inviting me to participate.

Denzil Mohammed: So tell me a little bit about the center and the kind of work that you’ve been doing. Why did you found this in the first place?

John Dearie: So, I spent the vast majority of my career in banking and financial policy. I started my career at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. I was there for a decade and then spent 17 years at an organization called the Financial Services Forum, which was a financial and economic policy group. I was the policy director there from 2001 to 2017. So I was there before, during and after the financial crisis. But as we came out of the financial crisis, even as the economy started to grow again, the Great Recession ended in the spring of 2009. So, by the spring of 2011, the recovery had been underway for two years. But the economy was growing very, very slowly and unemployment was still north of nine percent. And there was a tremendous amount of frustration that you could feel in Washington. They had really thrown the kitchen sink at the problem policy-wise, but we just were not getting the kind of traction in terms of economic growth and job creation that everybody had been hoping for. And you could sort of feel a collective shrug in Washington by policy makers. Like, we don’t know what else to do. And so I went to the CEOs and said, ‘We need to do something new and innovative to come up with some new ideas to share with policy makers; how do we accelerate economic growth and job creation?’, followed my nose through the research and eventually found my way to some research that was new at the time, but was mounting and being repeated. And there was a lot of excitement about this showing the following three things: one, that new businesses (not existing small businesses but new businesses, startups) are disproportionately responsible for the innovations that drive economic growth and job creation in the economy, so they’re incredibly important from the standpoint of economic growth. Also incredibly important from the standpoint of job creation, the two things that I was after. And, this was the really fascinating part, that new business formation, which is to say entrepreneurship in the United States, had been in decline for four decades. And I, and another colleague at the forum decided to do something quite simple and profound. We decided to hit the road, travel the country and conduct round tables with entrepreneurs all over the United States to get to the bottom of what was in entrepreneur’s way. And that’s essentially what we asked them: What’s in your way? It was by way of around table in Boston that I think I met you and I met our mutual friend Bettina Hein, who’s now on the board of CAE. And they told us. We collected extraordinary insights and data by way of that experience. We conducted round tables in 12 states around the country. Nobody in Washington knew this. I knew that because I was from Washington and I’d never heard it before. Entrepreneurship was utterly not on the radar screen in Washington as recently as 2017. And I decided that we need an organization in order to change that. We need a group on the ground doing the day-to-day blocking and tackling of engagement and education and working with policy makers on that pro-entrepreneurship agenda. And so I decided to leave the forum and become an entrepreneur myself. My colleague Katie and l like to refer to ourselves as policypreneurs. And we started the Center for American Entrepreneurship in July of 2017. Entrepreneurship is a very American idea. It’s not a Democrat or Republican idea. And the role of immigrants in American entrepreneurship, the importance of immigrants and the history of immigrants as great American entrepreneurs is a major part of what we focus on.

Denzil Mohammed: You talk about this being a very American thing. And we know this from our history. Levi’s and Budweiser, and of course [inaudible], and up until the present, Google and LinkedIn and eBay. Where exactly does immigration fit into your policy agenda? I know for instance, that during the Great Recession that you mentioned, the financial crisis, very markedly, entrepreneurship among the U.S. born dropped by almost 50 percent, and yet, it increased among the foreign-born. What does that say to you, or how does that fit into your policy agenda?

John Dearie: Well, it fits into our policy agenda in two ways, both from the standpoint of entrepreneurs themselves because immigrants are entrepreneurial by nature. And when you say that, people squint up their faces, like, ‘How do you mean?’ But when you think about it, to be an immigrant; to pick up your life, leave a culture that you’re familiar with; your country, your family, your friends; often at tremendous personal and financial risk, and go to another country, a new culture, often a new language; that is a profoundly entrepreneurial act. And so, it shouldn’t surprise us that once folks like that get here, they continue to be profoundly entrepreneurial. And in fact, the research has borne this out that immigrants are twice as likely to start a business as native-born Americans. And so, notwithstanding the fact that they represent about 14 percent of the American population, they represent about somewhere between 25 and 30 percent of the ownership of small businesses. And when you look at high-tech startups; scalable, high-tech, high-impact businesses started in Silicon valley, as many as half of those businesses are started by immigrants. So immigrants themselves are highly entrepreneurial. The other reason why it’s so important to us is entrepreneurs of all kinds need skilled talent. And one thing that we heard at the round tables that we conducted around the United States is that there is a real talent gap or skills gap. And this is particularly relevant. You’ve heard this and read about it in the context of STEM, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, American colleges and universities simply are not producing enough folks with those backgrounds, and so there is a skilled labor gap in this country for startups and other businesses. And therefore, there is great interest and great demand in foreign-born talent. And the very first piece of research that we published after we launched was a research paper project by our research director at the time, Ian Hathaway, who’s one of the great young scholars of entrepreneurship in the country, and found that 43 percent of Fortune 500 companies and 57 percent of the top 35 companies were founded by either a first or second generation immigrant. So, the history of entrepreneurship in the United States is an astonishing history of the contribution of immigrants to the United States in the U.S. economy. And the 21st century, economy is the knowledge economy, it’s the information economy and it is going to be the competition for the 21st century is going to be won or lost based on human capital. And so, it’s one of the realities, the unfortunate aspects of this issue that the political issue of immigration and the way that too large of a portion of our population and too many of our politicians think about and talk about this issue as if immigration is some sort of a threat to the United States when in fact, as Ronald Reagan and lots of other politicians in the past have recognized, immigration is one of the great sources of strength and vigor and vitality and dynamism of the American experiment. And we need to get back to that.

Denzil Mohammed: You mentioned Ronald Reagan, who said, ‘It’s at our peril if we ignore the fact of vigor and vitality that immigrants continue.’ And it’s not a new phenomenon. Let’s make that very, very clear. Immigrants have always brought that entrepreneurial spirit with them whether as entrepreneurs or whether as workers. And their children end up doing exponentially better, very often, than their parents did. And that’s the whole point of coming to the United States. What has been the policy response from politicians as you’ve done your work in the past four years?

John Dearie: Too many people in the United States these days think about the U.S. economy as sort of a closed sandbox. And so if somebody is coming in from the outside, then within that construct or understanding of the economy, they are necessarily displacing somebody who was already here. And that’s, of course, not true. And the reason it’s not true is that the economy is not a sandbox. It’s a dynamic organism. It’s living and breathing. And when you change the inputs into the economy, specifically with regard to talent or labor, there is an economic reaction to that. And there is lots and lots. In fact, the vast preponderance of research on both the right and the left into this phenomenon of immigration make very, very clear that the contribution of immigrants to the United States is pro job creation for Americans. Immigrants do not displace Americans. They create new businesses that create new jobs, new opportunity, new wealth for Americans. For whatever reason, that is difficult for people to accept. It’s just too easy to think about the economy in that sandbox way, most folks are not economists and they’re not particularly sophisticated in terms of their understanding of the economy. And so it’s a very easy topic to demagogue politically, and unfortunately, too many politicians do that. Of course, it makes it easier when there are legitimate crises having to do with immigration, like what’s going on in recent months at the Southern border, that is a legitimate problem. And the result is that our immigration system in this country is broken, our immigration policies in this country are crazy. And when we do round tables around the United States, as we continue to do, with entrepreneurs to stay in touch with the issues and the priorities that matter to them, the issue that gets them the angriest and where they really, literally pound the table is immigration. They can’t find the people that they need, they can’t get folks that they know that are in foreign countries who are business partners with them who are starting companies with them or talent that they’re aware of that they need desperately. They can’t get these people into the country in a secure and predictable way. And for the life of them, they can’t understand it because there is no understanding. It’s completely contrary to the interest of the United States.

Denzil Mohammed: Jeez, you unpacked a lot there! I spoke to a group of journalism students from Emerson, and the idea of immigration being the southern border is paramount in the majority of Americans’ thinking. They think of immigration and that’s all they can come up with. And it’s so much more complex than that. So you mentioned that the response to your policy work has not been great. Briefly, what are some specific policy areas that you’ve been working on? Startup visas, for instance.

John Dearie: We have a number of immigration reform items that we advocate for. One is a startup visa, which I’ll come back to in a moment. The other one is graduation green cards, as far as we’re concerned for all the reasons that you’re talking about, if immigrants who come here and are educated at American colleges and universities want to stay here after graduation, why on earth would we require them to leave? That’s our current policy, is that they’re allowed in on a student visa. And then after they complete their degree, we basically deport them. In the very narrow interest of the United States, if folks want to stay here of their own volition, we’re not forcing them to stay, but if they want to stay here, why on earth would you not let them? So we’re in favor of graduation green cards and other aspects of immigration reform. But back to the startup visa, the United States is one of the few industrial democracies around the world that does not have a visa category specifically intended to attract and retain foreign-born entrepreneurs, specifically entrepreneurs who want to come to the United States to start their businesses and create jobs for Americans and contribute to the American economy. Our economic competitors around the world, and practically all of them are in Europe and Latin America, China, obviously, have overhauled their immigration policies in recent years, specifically to roll out the red carpet for foreign-born entrepreneurs, including our entrepreneurs. They want them to come there. Often very generous; free office space, access to capital at very low rates, access to mentoring and coaching. It’s all kinds of benefits; very, very attracting. Come here and start your business here. Meanwhile, the United States does not have such a visa category. And we think that’s insane and we’ve been working very, very hard on creating this special visa category. Since we launched in 2017, it’s been our top immigration priority. The good news is that working with other groups who are similarly minded and entrepreneurship focused like the National Venture Capital Association, the Angel Capital Association, Engine and other groups around the country. We worked very closely with Congressman Zoe Lofgren from California who backed about six weeks ago, introduced a bill that would create a startup visa. So, the good news is that there is a bill in Congress now to create a start-up visa. The bad news is that notwithstanding the incredibly hard work by us, NVCA, Engine, Angel Capital Association and others, we couldn’t get a single Republican in the house to co-sponsor the piece of legislation going back to what we were just talking about in terms of the unfortunate political dynamics around the topic of immigration. It is unfortunately where the GOP base is at the moment, after four years of a president who, in my opinion, talked about the issue of immigration in the wrong way, that it has become politically toxic for Republican members of Congress to support policies that would make it easier for immigrants to come to the United States, even immigrants who were coming here specifically in the context of entrepreneurs to start new businesses.

Denzil Mohammed: That is absolutely fascinating that so many other countries are, as you say, rolling out the red carpet for people who want to start businesses. And you mentioned Bettina Hein who was on your board, what a story that is. She founded an incredible business in Boston, right here, called Pixability. She explored every possible avenue, including the O-1 visa which is for exceptionally talented people, including Nobel laureates. She was able to secure that, but that visa obviously ran out. She’s now back in Europe because she was not able to remediate. There was no avenue for her to remain here, despite the fact that her children were born here, she raised a family here, she started a business employing hundreds of people over several years. That’s absolutely fascinating. Now, just get back to this idea, obviously we’re shooting ourselves in the foot, but how American is this concept of immigrant entrepreneurship? Can you explore that a little bit?

John Dearie: Sure. Well, first of all, just let me say very quickly to emphasize what you just said about we’re shooting ourselves in the foot and how our insane immigration policies, particularly over the last four years have been a great boon to Canada. There were more technology jobs created in Toronto in 2018 as the latest data than were created in Silicon valley, New York City and Washington DC combined. And the reason for that is that when the president of the United States talks about immigration and talks about immigrants in the language that their former president talked about, it sends the message to the rest of the world, ‘Don’t come.’ And so they don’t. And yes, Bettina Hein is a marvelous example of this issue. I’d love to tell this story very quick. The roundtable at which I met Bettina, but there were two other people at that roundtable. And this example was so vivid, I included it in my book that I subsequently wrote. These two guys who were roommates at MIT as undergrads, started a business. When we met them that they had graduated from MIT, they had just gotten their second round of funding. They had expanded their company from just the two of them to 15 other people. And so they were growing. And these two best friends from college, straight guys, were considering getting married in order to keep the foreign-born founder in the country because his visa had run out and he was about to be deported. I will never forget that story. That that’s the desperation of these people. These two straight guys were thinking of getting married, just to keep the foreign-born founder in the country. I mean, it’s a funny story, but it’s of course horrifying. And I just tell that because it was the most vivid example to me of just how crazy our immigration policies are. But back to the history of immigration in the United States, it’s been easier or harder over the course of our history for immigrants to come here. But, of course, there’s been a very important and very special part of our history here in the United States is the history of immigration. The great analogy of the United States being the melting pot of many people from all over the world with all their different ideas, their various talents, their languages, the food, the music, that the American experience is the melting pot of all of these experiences from all over the world. And what comes out of that melting process is the secret sauce of America. That’s what Ronald Reagan, I think, was referring to. And in his great speech, the last speech he gave before he walked out of the White House was the importance of immigration to the United States, not just the American experience and how we think about ourselves, but economically how important it was and politically, and he said, ’If we ever lose sight of that, if we ever lose sight of how important this is to who we are, it is, as you said before, at our peril! What could be more American than taking in a baseball game on a great afternoon, having a couple of Budweisers, a couple of hot dogs and singing God Bless America at the seventh inning stretch. What could be more American? It’s hard to think of something more American than that, right? Baseball is a British game that came to the United States by way of Canada, the beers and the hotdogs are German. And the song God Bless America was written by a Russian-born Jew named Irving Berlin. But the result, when you put them all together, these contributions from immigrants all over the world, you create something uniquely American. That’s America!

Denzil Mohammed: John Dearie from the Center for American Entrepreneurship, thank you so much for joining us on JobMakers. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this and best of luck as you advocate for Washington.

John Dearie: Thank you very much. I really appreciate the opportunity. It’s great to see you. I’m sorry it’s been so long.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and The Immigrant Learning Center, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for this week’s fascinating story of the benefits of welcoming, talented, and driven immigrants to the United States. If you have feedback or know someone who we should talk to, email Denzil, that’s D-E-N-Z-I-L at jobmakerspodcast.org. I’m Denzil Mohammed. Join us next Thursday at noon for another episode of JobMakers.

Episode 29: Bernat Olle

JobMakers podcast logo: Bernat Olle gets a visa to improve the worldBernat Olle, an immigrant from Catalonia, Spain, founded a bioscience company to create medicines that can alter the human microbiome. He discusses how immigration enables international cooperation and innovation that benefits everyone. Listen to learn what Olle says connects him to immigrants who come here with nothing but a suitcase and a dream. We also have a full-length video interview here.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed, and this is JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Is it any surprise that the epicenters of innovation like Kendall Square, Silicon Valley also have incredible diversity? That the cities with the highest rates of PhDs like Brookline, Massachusetts, or Palo Alto, California, are multi-ethnic and multicultural. The United States attracts the world’s best and brightest to give us Google, Tesla, the Moderna vaccine, but the thing that links the Nobel Prize winning immigrants with those picking all vegetables and washing dishes is opportunity. For Dr. Bernat Olle, co-founder and CEO of Vedanta Biosciences, seeking opportunity, brought him all the way from Catalonia, Spain to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he continued his chemical engineering studies at MIT. Navigating the complex immigration system while seeking purpose in his career, he eventually found his calling and was lucky enough to remain in the U.S. to see it through, designing a new class of medicines to modulate the human microbiome. When foreign talent is welcomed into vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystems, like those in the U.S., when they’re able to collaborate with Americans and some people with people from around the world, they can come up with incredible ideas to benefit humanity and everyone wins. Bernat also feels a sense of kinship with immigrants far removed from labs and boardrooms. He knows that, just like those with nothing but a suitcase and a dream, the same thing brought them here, seeking opportunity, as we’ll discover in this week’s episode of JobMakers. 

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Denzil MohammedBernat Olle, welcome to JobMakers. 

Bernat Olle: Good to see you, Denzil.

Denzil Mohammed: I remember you describing this concept of the microbiome and relating it to antibiotics in this fascinating story of your honeymoon. And you have this radical way of thinking of “no, let, let the body figure it out.” Take us back to that time and why is this kind of field of science important today?

Bernat Olle: All species of animals live colonized with microbes on the skin, on the intestinal tract and the mouth and the vaginal tract. All those are chock full of microbes and that’s the way it’s been from the very beginning before we evolved as a species, this world was a bacterial soup. So every species has evolved surrounded by bacteria. And so it’s not surprising that this bacteria play very important roles in health and specifically the bacteria that live in humans are referred to with the term human microbiome. And so that’s basically the collection of bacteria that you carry around for life with you since the moment you were born and specifically in the intestine that community is most dense. That’s where you have the most bacteria, trillions of bacteria, almost as many or more microbial cells in your body than homo sapiens’ cells. And they play very important roles. They help protect from infection, they help calibrate the set point of the immune system, which is important in our immunity and allergy potential in cancer. And there’s a number of things that we do in our modern life that perturb that community. The diet that we eat has a big effect on the microbes that we have inside, because what we eat is what they eat. So the Western diet is generally not great for microbes. That’s why there, that’s maybe the reason why there’s a number of chronic diseases that are advancing more rapidly in the west and in the developing world. The use of antibiotics is another big perturbation. From the time we’re born until our teen years the average person gets tens of courses of antibiotics and cumulatively, some of them can have an important effect in damaging the communities of microbes in the intestine. And so one of the things that we’re trying to do as a company is be to undo some of the collateral damage that antibiotics leave behind. Their use is sometimes warranted, sometimes unwarranted, back to the honeymoon story, but they’re here to stay and they’re very necessary in hospital settings, but also they create a series of issues, you know, use of antibiotics to prevent certain problems, and then other problems emerge. You become more susceptible to picking up infections from the hospital environment when your gut has no natural competitors against those pathogens. So one of the things we’re trying to do is ensure antibiotics have been used for the purpose they need to be used for and undo some of the damage by helping reconfigure or rebalance the community of bacteria that’s in the intestine that had been damaged by the antibiotic and in doing so, we hope as a starting point that we can prevent re-infections that are very problematic, for example, in hospital settings.

Denzil Mohammed: When you were first starting out as an immigrant with an accent in the Boston area, how were you received? And as a European person knowing what the entrepreneurial environment was like back then, let’s say in the late nineties when you started school, how do you think a foreigner would have been received there?

Bernat Olle: So I think my integration in the U.S. was very smooth and today I am an American citizen, my child is American and Catalan and I identify as one of us. And I really have to think hard to think of instances where I have been treated as an immigrant in a negative way. The first year I came, I remember when I was a poor graduate student, I would go to buy my fruit at Haymarket if it had been there on weekend mornings. So it’s very cheap, but it’s also terrible quality, like half of the fruit is really literally rotten. And so I remember the first times I would go there, I would try to pick the fruit rather than have the one that they hand you, because when they handed it to you, like half of it you have to throw it away, but the store owners hate it when people try to pick the fruit. And so I remember, you know, in one of my first visits somebody really got pissed off that I was trying to pick the fruit and say like, “Just go back to where you came from.” But that’s like the only time that has ever happened to me and if this was reversed, if it was like a person trying to like come to Spain, especially if you look any different than the locals, I feel like that the racism there runs in different ways. The U.S. has issues of course, with race and there’s a lot of work to do. But I think some of the other countries, like in old-school Europe that have traditionally seen less immigration and they’ve been more insular are much less prepared to welcome and assimilate people from other origins and get to a point where they’re one of them. I’m having a hard time imagining how the experiment in the opposite direction could have been smooth. And so I guess my parting point on this is that for all the issues that we have with immigration in the U.S. and with racism, the U.S. has done a much better job at assimilating and benefiting from contributions of immigrants as just about any other country in the world.

Denzil Mohammed: And thank you for acknowledging that. I think that’s a really important point to make, and that’s what makes this country special. I want to take it back a few years. You had the experience, as did I, of feeling that intense pressure where your visa is about to run out and you’re not sure what’s going to happen, what you’re going to do is a lot of uncertainty. Tell us about that time for you.

Bernat Olle: I’ve been doing my PhD at MIT and I was hoping to find a job in the U.S. to stay here after the PhD and I was on a J-1 visa and that expired, you know, a short period of time after I graduated. And I did a pretty bad, an atrocious job search and that like, I was just doing the work and I figured, yeah, like when I’m done, people are going to want to hire me, because look, I went to these great schools. And the world doesn’t really work like that, right? Like you have to, you have to really do the homework. And, basically what I found is that when I interviewed, you know, I didn’t put a lot of care or thought into what I should do. I just interviewed with firms that were reputable. Why? Because other people did it too. Like some of the well-known strategy consulting firms. It’s a terrible way to go about picking a career incidentally. And so I was rejected by just about every one of them. And it was only when I had a few weeks left on my visa and I really had to think through, “Okay, well what do I really want to do?” that finally put some thought into like, the career that I wanted and ended up going in the direction that I went. But yeah, my first job offer, which was in a venture creation firm in town that starts biotech companies, came really, really close to the bell. And I guess it could have gone a different way and that bad planning could have resulted in me going back home. And then as you know, like finding a job from abroad becomes a much more complicated process. But because I did get a job here, then I jumped on the train of the H-1B green card citizenship, which is a train that at most times in the United States has worked very well. And during the last administration, there were some serious steps back as you know, but for me, this was actually a very smooth process.

Denzil Mohammed: And it was around that time that you were able to secure a work in the U.S. that this idea of purpose was playing a role in the kinds of jobs you were looking for and the kind of trajectory you wanted to have. I vividly recall another MIT grad on this podcast and immigrant entrepreneur saying that everyone from MIT graduates and, you know, wants to do good in the world and then they go on to work at the biggest consulting firms. You were in a privileged position as an MIT graduate with a PhD. How did that idea of purpose and giving back shape where you are today and where do you plan on going with that?

Bernat Olle: My career path was very much born out of rejection. I try to follow the career path that others in business school and in graduate school followed which is the classic, you know, try to go to a very well-known firm, like a strategy consulting firm or a bank where you’re paid very well, and it looks beautiful on a resume. And it’s basically the game of compensation, titles, prestige. And I probably very much would have played that game if I hadn’t been rejected. The blessing was that by having been rejected from those firms and actually having to really think, “Okay, what do I really want to do?” And the reality is that I had never dreamed about working for clients, evaluating mergers and acquisitions or market shares of consumer products. Like, that’s not what I was passionate about. I liked science.

Denzil Mohammed: That sounds like so much fun. Come on.

Bernat Olle: Yes! I like science, I like biotechnology. In my free time, I would read papers, that’s what I would do. And so basically my first job was going to do something that I already liked to do for free, which was read about cool science, talk with inventors about cool science and try to figure out, you know, can you imagine translating that to people? Is there a role for a biotech company to try to do that? And that’s what I did for my first decade professionally, until one of these projects that I started became obsessive and offered me that I didn’t want to do anything else. And then I decided that I just focus on that full-time and that was my current company.

Denzil Mohammed: Hearing you talk about your experience. I find it fascinating, and I see that an immigrant has a certain special quality, but at the same time, you were a young person, you were just going with the flow, doing what everyone else was doing. And as you said, you didn’t have this master plan. And so you end up with, you know, a few weeks before your visa is about to end, and then suddenly you have to go beyond what your classmates were doing and think more strategically and position yourself in such a way that you would be able to stay in the U.S. and continue this investment that you had made to come all the way across the world, spend money in and get an education at MIT and continue living that dream. Today, you’re a strong advocate for immigration reform, particularly making it easier for immigrants like you, who are inherently entrepreneurial to start businesses here in the U.S. that create jobs for Americans. Tell us more about your feelings as to the immigration system being able to work for people like you and other high skilled immigrants.

Bernat Olle: Yeah. I think that the immigration system and the immigration culture in the U.S. has been a gift for both the U.S. and for immigrants during most times. And this country sort of has cycles and, you know, depending on their government, we’ve moved forward or we’ve moved backwards. But the arc has been in the direction of immigration adding a lot to the country. I think that the U.S. is really in a privileged position where, because of its culture of having been more welcoming to people that come here seeking opportunity. It has and because of being an open liberal place in the world where such immigrant entrepreneurs can find a welcoming environment to actually pursue their objectives, which is something that other superpowers don’t have, like this combination of a welcoming culture. But because of that, a lot of folks have come here and made very substantial contributions to the economy. And also benefited by developing their careers in a way that they could not have developed their careers back where they came from. So, you know, I think this is really a unique gift of this land that many other countries in the world would like to have and I think this is very important to preserve, because if in the future that sees and the talent entrepreneurial talent in in tech, in biotech and other areas decided that it’s better for them to develop their careers and pursue opportunities in China or somewhere else, the U.S. would stop being the very competitive economy and society that it is.

Denzil Mohammed: And I’d like to direct our listeners to the fact that the Nobel Prizes are being announced, and guess who’s winning them in the U.S.? Foreign-born people who came here to study and innovate has been a huge trend. Thirty percent of all Nobel Laureates have been people born in other countries. Specifically the past four years we saw a dramatic decrease in the number of visas that were issued, the number of international students who were coming here to study. And then we have this pandemic and the first two vaccines came from companies that had immigrant co-founders. Not just that, immigrants are concentrated in industries that got us through the pandemic, like cleaning, like health care. Can you talk a little bit about the impact of immigration in the U.S. during this pandemic? From what you’ve seen?

Bernat Olle: Yeah. I mean, I can talk about biotechnology because that’s the field that’s near and dear to me. And you said, you’re right, the impact on how the world got out of COVID was sensational, right? You have the founder of BioNTech, the founders of Moderna, the CEO of Pfizer and the list goes on because there’s many people that have been involved in these amazing vaccine projects that are immigrants that have been welcome, in some cases, millions of businesses in the U.S. And, the combination has been so crucial, right? Because it’s not a coincidence that so much of the innovation with vaccines has happened in the U.S. It happened here because this is a country that values its pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry as a national security asset in ways that other countries in the world don’t. Other countries in the world are content with free riding with some of the innovation that takes place in the U.S. and not spending on those industries. In the U.S. the approach has been different. And then at the same time you have these brilliant immigrants coming in, attracted by this environment and supercharging it by creating these companies that in the moment of need come through, right? And I think that, you know, Pfizer, Moderna, BioNTech, these groups coming through with a vaccine that we got in our arms in less than a year, which was a completely new technology that had not been used before with precedent. It’s just phenomenal that that was possible. But, you know, it’s not surprising to anybody in the industry that there were so many immigrants involved because, you know, you look at any company like our company, there’s a significant portion of folks that were born elsewhere. And the reality is that, you know, talent, intelligence, skills are fairly widely distributed all over the world. And, you know, the ability to attract it to Cambridge and concentrate it here so that companies can benefit from, is what’s made the biotech industry so powerful and so influential in Massachusetts.

Denzil Mohammed: You’re in the business of saving lives. You’re a job creator. You’re a scientist, you’re in the heart of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Yet, I know that when you were awarded the Barry Portnoy Immigrant Entrepreneur Award for Life Science in 2019, you found a link to your own immigrant story to those foreign-born students from Africa and Eastern Europe that your mother taught many years ago. What is that link?

Bernat Olle: Yes, so, my mother who’s now retired used to be a teacher and for a good part of her career, she taught immigrants that were coming most often from the north of Africa, but other times from Eastern Europe and another times also from Central America. Either because of war or unrest in their areas, or just because of proximity, allowing opportunity in the case of Northern African immigrants. This would often be, you know, a lot of immigration from Northern Africa. It usually came because we grow a lot of fruit in the country and there was a need for labor to help pick it up. But now those communities have established and they stayed there and they brought their families and they needed to learn the language. They needed to learn how to apply for a driver’s license or how to fill a form for social security. And if you don’t speak the language and you don’t know some of the basic things it’s hard to do that first step of integrating, right? So my mom helped many of those immigrants with this first step of doing some of the basic things, like learning the language, learning how to learn, how to do some of the basic things that you’re gonna have to do to become a functioning citizen in this place. But, you know, there’s a common element in all forms of immigration, which is this search for opportunity, right? Looking for something better than maybe you don’t imagine being able to do where you are. And so in that sense, the mindset is, it’s the same mindset across all immigrants, right? You’re willing to leave certain things behind that you liked because you want to take the risk of something that could be better.

Denzil Mohammed: And you’re leaving behind family and a culture that you grew up in and food that you loved in order to seek that opportunity. It’s not an easy thing to do. Bernat Olles, thank you so much for joining us on JobMakers. I really appreciated talking to you today and I wish you all the success in the world.

Bernat Olle: Thanks, Denzil.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and The Immigrant Learning Center, a not for profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you so much for joining us for today’s inspiring story of another enterprising immigrant entrepreneur. If you have feedback or know someone, we should talk to, email Denzil. That’s D-E-N-Z-I-L at jobmakerspodcast.org I’m Denzil Mohammed. Join us next Thursday at noon for another episode of JobMakers.

Episode 28: Abdul Saboor Sakhizada [part two]

JobMakers podcast logo: Saboor Sakhizada, Afghan Translator - Traitor or Patriot?Afghan translator turned American immigrant joins JobMakers for a second episode to discuss his current campaign to evacuate fellow Afghan interpreters and their families, including his own younger brother. Sakhizada shares how interpreters face challenges both in Afghanistan and in the U.S. Listen to learn what he says U.S.-born people can do to help.

Part two of two.

Denzil Mohammed: I am Denzil Mohammed, and this is Jobmakers. 

[music playing]

Denzil Mohammed: Last week we met Abdul Saboor Sakhizada, a former translator, instructor and a manager for the U.S. Army in Afghanistan, now living with his family in upstate New York. He spoke about life as a child of war, and what it was like in the front lines alongside U.S. troops, including Fox News contributor, Pete Hegseth. This week, Abdul reveals that he is actively trying to evacuate fellow Afghan interpreters and their families, including his own baby brother. He gives us his thoughts on the U.S. withdrawal, paints a picture of who those Afghan refugees are and entreats Americans not to buy into the false rhetoric and to get to know these new Americans in this final of a two-part special of Jobmakers.  

[music playing]

Denzil Mohammed: You mentioned being seen as a traitor and betraying your country, and come to the present day you also feel a sense of betrayal, but not from those people in Afghanistan, but from America and coalition forces. Let’s talk a little bit more now about the work that you’re currently doing. So, I imagine several years ago you left Afghanistan and came to the U.S., right?  

Abdul Saboor Sakhizada: Yes, that’s right. Yeah, so it’s a duality, right? Because I think you’re right. When I was there, I not only interpreted like a gazillion times of this doctrine, and preach this doctrine and live this doctrine of “shoulder to shoulder,” making promises to the Afghan security forces, to the host nation communities, to the villagers, to the teachers that “we’re going to be here, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it right.” If you promise not to support the bad guys, we’re going to be here. I know for a fact that I’ve attended countless number of meetings where coalition forces or U.S. forces had made those promises that, “you trust us, we’re going to help you, we’re going to save you, we’re going to protect you.” And then watching in 2021 in the fashion in which United States left Afghanistan, and here I am sitting after 20 years. I mean, I served that mission for seven years, but after 20 years of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, it almost feels like all of that was a bad dream and very novelistic that just does not have anything in reality. If I would’ve read the story of Afghanistan from 2001 until 2021 in a novel, I would have probably said, “this is a made up story.” But seeing it unfold in front of my eyes, seeing all of this, seeing all that effort, all that money, it’s hard, man. It’s hard to process it. I still can’t believe this has happened.  

Denzil Mohammed: So when you hear President Biden say something like “our involvement in Afghanistan was never about nation building.” How do you respond to that? 

Abdul Saboor Sakhizada: As I said on my Pete Hegseth interview, I’m not into criticizing politicians or their politicians, but I can tell you for a fact the United States was there to nation build. It’s sad. What bothers me is that we have found a way to celebrate our defeat, to somehow paint a picture, this tragic picture, somehow still to celebrate “we did it good, it’s ok.” I guess we’re either numb, or we don’t understand what this all means. I mean, I remember reading a book and that book kind of talked about what winning looks like. And one of the things that this book talks about is that in military warfare, there’s two, and this part of it is confusing even for the citizens of United States and international community and audience concerned citizens, it’s confusing. Did we actually win in Afghanistan, or did we lose? So there’s two different aspects to this, right? Because if you actually look at the number of people that got killed, who lost the most? U.S. lost about 2,000-3,000 soldiers, somewhere around there roughly. And then there were in comparison, the insurgents. The Taliban may have lost hundreds of thousands of their fighters. So from that point on, the U.S. could say … and I’m not even counting the civilians that lost their lives, the teachers, hospital workers, doctors, engineers, and all of it. So that’s even a side story, another wound that we don’t want to open. But the point is that from a personnel standpoint, United States and international community may have not lost as many lives as the Taliban or the insurgencies did at that time. So from that point of view, one can make an argument saying, “Oh, U.S. actually won because when you enter a battle of warfare, they lost more fighters than we did, so we won.” But the second most important thing about warfare in Afghanistan, and particularly in the case of Afghanistan, is whose flag is up at the end of the battle? Which army has their flag up? And clearly we know that United States and Afghanistan flag is not up right now, and the insurgency’s flag is up. So this debate as to whether or not we lost, we won in Afghanistan, what this all looks like, our mission was not to nation build … well, you’re hearing it from me. I’ve attended hundreds of meetings where we talked about building infrastructure, building a state, state-building. USAID implemented hundreds of projects fighting corruption, building infrastructure there, addressing the recruitment process of how to hire women and minorities and all of this. There are hundreds of projects on governance in Afghanistan, building a governance system. If those are all not nation building, I don’t know what is. So the point is, I don’t buy that story because I know for a fact that we were there to nation build.  We did go there to nation build.  We poured billions of dollars into that nation to nation build. 

Denzil Mohammed: I want you to bring it into the present day. We know what’s happening in Afghanistan, we’ve all seen the images and the footage from the airport, people climbing onto planes, even as they’re moving, some falling to their deaths. What is your role right now? What are you doing? 

Abdul Saboor Sakhizada: When we saw that Kabul was collapsing, I immediately got on the phone. I started calling all my military buddies, including Pete Hegseth, and anyone that I could possibly find. I said, “I need help. I need to save my brother. I need to save my family.”  And so I ended up talking to some friends, and those friends found their friends, and eventually we found the ways to save my brother and get him through those gates at airport despite the chaos, despite the disorder that was there. So we certainly made the impossible possible, but it was all done through the efforts of a lot of folks that may hear this voice and my heartfelt gratitude goes to all of them for doing this. And so eventually when we found out a way to save lives, we basically took that methodology that we had and we started saving other interpreters, other families. We had a system and others made referrals to us and we started doing the same thing with them, and because we had the right point of contact from that point on, up until when the blast went off, until the suicide bomber blew himself up at the Abbey Gate in Kabul at the Karzai airport. And so that was when our mission of evacuation kind of went through this break, this halt. Right now we’re putting up a team that are going to do some of those evacuations because we know there are a lot of interpreters, we know there’s a lot of folks that helped U.S. mission in Afghanistan. I have visited Fort Pickett, Fort Lee to get close to some of the Afghan refugees that are here in the state-side and to offer some support. We’re actively putting classes together for them to go deliver some of the services, whether that’s culture, whether it’s U.S. expectations and laws, and even giving them the broader picture of what to expect when they get out of those military bases and they start living in American society, just like all of us. So we’re doing things in different levels to help as much as we can through the group that we have through the nonprofit efforts that we have put together.  

Denzil Mohammed: So finding creative ways of getting evacuees out of Afghanistan and into some kind of safety. So we are expecting refugees and people on special immigrant visas to be resettled in the U.S., that has already started happening, coming from Afghanistan. Help our audience understand. Who are these people? What are they like? What are their backgrounds? And I do remember reading there was some 50,000 Afghan interpreters over the course of the war. 

Abdul Saboor Sakhizada: These are people like me, now you’ve gotten to know a little bit about my story. These are engineers, these are doctors, these are people with unique skills that we don’t get to see as often in United States, they are bilinguals in most cases, some of them know more than two or three languages. They’re also folks that have been deprived of education in their lives, like there are women, for example, girls. So you get a whole mixture of different categories of population that come in to the United States. And I come from a background of serving immigrants, serving refugees in the United States because professionally that’s what I did for about six years of my life here. So for those that are not as equipped to be ready to join or to contribute immediately to the American economy, then what you do is you connect them to the right resources to make sure that they’re getting equipped or can establish them on the path to self-sufficiency. But eventually they will all be just like all of us, and their children will be just like our children here or the children of American-born citizens. 

Denzil Mohammed: I’m sorry, I thought people moved to the U.S. in desperate circumstances just to live off welfare. Are you saying that’s not how it is? 

Abdul Saboor Sakhizada: Quite honestly, I think they’re quite the contrary. There’s a benefit welfare program that offers benefit, and these people are eligible by law to benefit from those programs. But no, like I said, these guys are not free-riders. They are engineers and they have skills to offer. With my program, I specifically initiated a work program how to transfer their certificates. So we have nurses for example, and they were nurses in their home country but they did not meet New York nursing standards, or whatever that was. So they had to go take some tests, to pass their test and exams, to be certified again as a registered nurse. But for that, it takes time. And until that takes place, they have to learn a little bit of language, they have to be ready to understand the medical terminologies or medical language, and they have to also work as maybe janitors or perhaps a cleaner somewhere to make a living. And some of those folks that have a large family or so may also benefit from welfare from other things, but that will be temporarily, because once they get back the job that they had studied for, the goals that they have for their life, it will just be like the rest of Americans. But I have to say, and I think this question alludes to this larger, larger picture, because we don’t get to talk about it as much, is the melting pot, the American melting pot. The crucible of everyone coming in and immediately overnight changing and losing their identities, losing their values and the things that they have, and automatically accepting American values. Keep in mind that they were. I mean, look at me!  I grew up in a war zone. I grew up under a very highly conservative society. And for us to come in and be exposed to a whole set of new values and information, it takes time for folks to go through this “melting process.” And I think we’re not realistic enough. And for those that question it, had they lived on the shoes of those families that are going through this transition every single day? I would almost guarantee you that they would have quite a different experience of what that would be like. 

Denzil Mohammed: That’s a really important point to make. That adjustment does take time, and so many of them didn’t have the luxury of MTV and these other things, movies and Hollywood, to acclimatize them beforehand, growing up in such an insular, very religious society. But, the one thing that these people want is freedom. They want opportunities.

Abdul Saboor Sakhizada: When I first came into the United States, the sky was the limit. Opportunities left and right. And for someone like me and full of energy, trying to do as much as I can to scale up the social economic ladder, or perhaps being engaged, like the same energy with the same thing I did in Afghanistan, you know the sky was the limit. I wanted to seek every opportunity I possibly could for my family or for professionally or academically. And I managed to go through three different degrees in four and a half years. I did my associate’s, I did my bachelor’s, I did my master’s all in four and a half years of my five years of time in the United States. Part of that was that I saw opportunities out there and I wanted to utilize them, and because I know for a fact that a lot of these families that come into the United States as community members, if we support them and help them thrive, the community in general thrives. The community in general uplifts themselves, and they have better community members to contribute back to the community. But I can also guarantee you on the contrary, that if some of these families struggle and they cannot adjust their life, because we know how hard adjustment is, and if they struggle, I could almost guarantee you that then the entire community will struggle.

Denzil Mohammed: It’s important for America to remember not to re-traumatize these families who have been through already so much. This is a moment where we can really show how compassionate we can be, how welcoming we can be, how our value system is, which is that we welcome the stranger who wants to work hard, who’s fleeing something terrible. And we need to also remind people that people who were forced to flee generally don’t want to flee. They would rather stay in their home country and build it up, right? 

Abdul Saboor Sakhizada: And for their children, and the school that their children go to. It just blows my mind. So I think it comes back to that one word in my mind: engage. Engage and you will learn because that’s where it all starts. But if you keep isolating yourselves and keep seeing your neighbors as this “other,” not as “we,” then that is the source of all evils in my mind. That creates a gap between you and the neighbor. But when you think about “we,” then you’re putting yourself in the same circle. You’re putting yourself in the same umbrella of, “we’re a part of this community, and we’ve got to help each other out.” 

Denzil Mohammed: I dare anyone listening to this podcast. Before you make an opinion public about Afghan refugees in your community, go say “hi” to one. Find out who they are for yourselves, and you will be incredibly enlightened, and you may be able to then share a different opinion on refugees being resettled in the U.S. Abdul Saboor Sakhizada, thank you so much for joining us and giving us all of your experiences and your perspectives, and really on the work that you’re doing right now to get people out of Afghanistan to safety, wherever that may end up being, whether it’s the U.S. or other places.  We really, really wish you the best of luck. 

Abdul Saboor Sakhizada: Well, I appreciate you having me on the program. Thank you so much. And thanks for what you do, because it’s important for people to know the facts, the realities, and also the inside stories of some of these families. 

Denzil Mohammed: Jobmakers is a weekly podcast about the contributions of immigrants and refugees produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center of Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for this final of this two-part special of Jobmakers. We return to regular Jobmakers next week with Spanish-born life science entrepreneur, Bernat Olle, founder of Vedanta Biosciences, who is revolutionizing the world of the microbiome. I am Denzil Mohammed. Join us next Thursday afternoon for another Jobmakers.

Episode 27: Abdul Saboor Sakhizada [part one]

JobMakers podcast logo: Saboor Sahkizada: Afghan translator, child of warBefore coming to the U.S., Abdul Saboor Sakhizada worked for the U.S. Army in Afghanistan as an instructor, manager and translator, winning an award for his service in the process. Now he’s struggling to ensure that people  like him have the opportunity to reach safety in the United States and contribute to their new home. Tune in to hear his remarkable story and his insights into how the current wave of Afghan refugees will fare in the United States.

Part one of two.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed. And this is a special episode of JobMakers.

[music playing]

Denzil Mohammed: Afghan refugees who’ve helped U.S. and coalition forces have begun their resettlement here. The U.S. has long given refuge to those forced to flee. That’s how the United States of America began, and in so doing it has enriched itself through the fighting spirit of those determined to survive, but for how long will America’s embrace last? The public’s support for resettling Afghans here hold. And furthermore, what does the American public really know about these refugees from Afghanistan? For Abdul Saboor Sakhizada, who worked as an instructor, manager and translator for the U.S. army in Kabul, it is not just crucial but necessary that the U.S. take in those who have helped our brave soldiers. In this two-part special of JobMakers we get to know Afghanistan and its people, examine the fallout of the government collapse and live how Abdul is actively working in the most difficult and chaotic of circumstances to get as many evacuated as possible. This week, we heard about the fascinating but tragic life in Afghanistan from Abdul, a self-described child of war. And we discover what those 50,000 interpreters had to endure every day, fueled by patriotism and targeted as traitors in this special episode of JobMakers.

[music playing]

Denzil Mohammed: Abdul Saboor Sakhizada. Thank you for joining us on JobMakers. It’s such an honor to have you on. How are you?

Abdul Saboor Sakhizada: I’m doing okay. Thanks for having me on the program.

Denzil Mohammed: So obviously we’re going to talk about Afghanistan, but first of all, paint us a picture. What was life like in Afghanistan growing up?

Abdul Saboor Sakhizada: So, oftentimes I refer to myself as the child of war. I was born in the 1990s in Afghanistan. And for anyone who knows that history of that part of the world, it’s nothing but destruction, violence and injustice taking place. And obviously right around 1990s you had the civil war and you had the dictatorship of Taliban. So I grew up right around that time. I was born around that time. I went to school right around that time and then up until 2001. So, yes, I guess I could officially say that I was a child who didn’t get to play with toys. We got to play with sitting at home and counting the bullets that were crossing over our heads, and rockets, and the airplanes, the jets that fly around. So it was, looking back, I guess we’re blessed in a way, or I am blessed in a way that to survive that sort of destruction that took place in that part of the region, but consider myself from that regards to having survived it lucky. But I wish that life for no one because it’s a state of hopelessness and it’s quite, quite challenging.

Denzil Mohammed: You reflect on your childhood and you’re amazed that you survived. Wow. That’s absolutely fascinating and really tragic. You know, you talk about counting bullets and jets. What exactly was happening around you?

Abdul Saboor Sakhizada: I mean the country was divided or the city, and at least the capital where I lived or where my parents lived, the city was divided into different sections and the civil war and these different groups, mostly divided by their own ethnicity, of different ethnics fighting for power created a whole chaos of the search for power. They struggle to see who was going to be the most dominant force in the society. And then what you had in the middle of all these fighters or these groups, you had people like us who were living in and getting hit from every corner. Sometimes you had to make this risky journey from one side of the city to another side by going through one group of people, pretending to be someone else while transitioning to another group of people, then to pretending to be someone else. So it was quite challenging. Obviously a famine, the economic instability, the difficulties of you making sure that you have enough food on the table or at home for the families was very, very difficult. Like every morning we would go buy a pound of sugar or something because that’s all we could afford. We didn’t have a savings stock of food that we could rely on at home. And so it was crazy. There were countless numbers of days that we slept without food because we didn’t have it. We had to be strategic about how we want to eat in different times of the day because we knew we couldn’t make it. We didn’t have a three-time meal. It was like I said, I started by saying I wished that for nobody. Quite challenging. And as a child being very active you always want food, you always want bread. And then you go to your parents for giving you bread. And there isn’t any, so it’s hard. It’s a hard life to live under. But that’s beyond, that’s past now. Again, quite lucky to have survived that and I know millions of people did not make it.

Denzil Mohammed: You talk about such insecurity and instability. What was education for you? Traditionally we think of education as the way out of poverty, the way out of difficult circumstances. Where did education lead you?

Abdul Saboor Sakhizada: Yeah I mean it’s an interesting question because reflecting back, because you could not forecast what the future would look like. A lot of folks would go. Nowadays we talk about, “Oh, I want to go to school because I want to be doctor. I want to be an engineer. I want to be this particular astronaut” or whatever. But when I went to school those ideas of what do I want to become, or what path do I want to take from early on in my education, it was not even a question mark in our heads. Honestly, a lot of days we went to school it was just to get away from home and have something to do other than just sitting at home and not being able to do anything. And the schools we went into. I mean, I remember our classrooms didn’t have windows. Our classroom didn’t have a roof. And sometimes the school was so boring because we didn’t have enough teachers and stuff. And because there was no roof, there was no windows, we were praying, there were days we would pray for the rain to come because when it rained the school was dismissed, everyone would go home. And so it was so funny. We didn’t have no chairs, no tables. And we would all sit on a floor. I remember to this day when I was in, like, fifth or sixth grade during the Taliban regime we used to wear turbans. We were forced to wear turbans and it was very difficult for me and my peers in my classroom. My classmates to manage the turban, because if it fell off you had to organize it back in your head and you have to learn the basics of how to put a turban back together. But there were other subjects. All of the subjects that we studied were all different fields of an intrafaith. An intrafaith, not interfaith, but intrafaith of diving deep into different books and different avenues of understanding the religious. It was almost like a religious school, except that it was considered to be a public school. The teachers were all sort of mullahs, those religious scholars or religious teachers who would come in and teach subjects. Our math teacher was a mullah.

Denzil Mohammed: At some point you started fighting in that country, didn’t you? Did you join the military?

Abdul Saboor Sakhizada: So, fast forward when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001, I was still in school. I was still studying. My oldest brother was old enough to support U.S. operation or U.S. mission in Afghanistan. And so he joined with the special forces and he became an interpreter. And he offered support. And from an economic standpoint we needed that extra help at home. My parents needed it. And so he was another person to bring bread on the table. And so it made sense. And there was not much else to do. So my brother initially started this path of us joining and fighting the resistance or the insurgencies, and the better hopes. Because early on the U.S. mission was, after the interim government was formed, the ideas of constitutional democracy, girls going back into school and all of it. So this hope, this new new idea just emerged into our heads. And that was hope. You could be anything, you could do anything. And you could become an engineer. Or these new concepts began emerging. We had new ideas, TVs began coming back to life. And I did not know what TVs were like at that time or before during the Taliban. And music and all of these things. So fast-forward when I graduated high school, following my two oldest brothers, I followed the same path in my own capacity. I began serving and helping U.S. soldiers and coalition soldiers, coalition international community, to kind of fight back and establish just a new shining city that’s about to rise. You can see it above the horizon. Or these ideas that are coming up into existence. So you could kind of imagine what that feeling would be like, that you’re not like a soldier grabbing weapon to fight because the last thing you want as a child, as a young teenager, the last thing you want to be is that you want to be close to guns and weapons because you grew up right around it. So you had enough of that. And so my goal was to support the U.S. mission and yet simultaneously helping my own communities thrive. Establish a government. Build a system where everyone was my own sisters and everyone could go to school. And so that kind of opened up the path for my sense of patriotism of helping build that nation. So that’s where I not necessarily putting a soldier’s quote unquote soldier uniform on, but perhaps in my own capacity, in my own way build the communities, help the communities.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s absolutely astonishing that suddenly you had hope. And all these things that we take for granted; music, televisions, just cultures, knowing about all these different things. That you lived in such an integral world for your whole childhood.

Abdul Saboor Sakhizada: Yeah I mean it’s crazy because sometimes I go to high schools and I present and I talk to senior high school students that are about to go to college. And I talk about these ideas that don’t take these things for granted; you got windows, you’ve got air conditioning in your school! Oh my God! These are unfamiliar concepts to a lot of people in different parts of the region. And I think that societies like the United States right now had to do what it had to do to get to where they are now. But the fact that you could appreciate what you have is a whole different dimension of realities that you have to deal with as you’re growing up. Because you know that you could be in a different part of the world at a struggle in life without all these things that you don’t have. Electricity, for example, computers. Imagine writing hundreds and hundreds of pages of notes without having a computer or the cell phone.

Denzil Mohammed: I saw an interview with you on Fox News and you spoke about your time in Afghanistan helping the forces. Including with Pete Hegseth, is it? Tell us what it was like working as an interpreter?

Abdul Saboor Sakhizada: So with Pete Hegseth and everyone we ran what’s referred to as the Counterinsurgency Training Center Afghanistan, and that was right around in 2007, 2008. U.S. mission began changing from hunting the insurgency to winning or nation-building to counterinsurgency. This idea of coin; winning the hearts and minds of the people. And I was one of the first. Pete Hegseth came later on, but when the inception of that academy took place, I was almost the only guy from the beginning of this program. And soldiers would always go back and forth and deploy, and they would complete their tours or complete their deployment, and return back to their homes. And Pete Hegseth came in and that was right around the time when I began slowly changing my role from doing interpretation to an administrative role, to more of teaching. Becoming an advisor. Teaching soldiers on culture, on language, on history, on politics. And then helping folks like Pete Hegseth understand what is it like to work with Afghans. And a lot of other soldiers who were getting deployed in Afghanistan. And so every soldier up until 2013 when the transition period began for that center that we were working on, because Afghan security forces began taking that doctrine of counterinsurgency and embedded it into their system. We were teaching them and every soldier that entered Afghanistan, they would have to go through our training center for five days before they would get deployed to their actual work zone or work area. And so that’s where Pete and I were instructors or advisors teaching them how to do this. Both in the capitol but also traveling outside the capitol, making trips to do it in the region.

Denzil Mohammed: Pete mentioned once this was not your job, but you were with him and other officers and you were pulling bodies out of vehicles, right?

Abdul Saboor Sakhizada: Yeah. We had to. As a young man, I had to experience some terrible, terrible sceneries. There was one thing of being in your home and seeing the bullets and rockets go above your head and you’re counting them. And then there’s another feeling of you’re actually in the mix of the war zone. You’re actually seeing bullets being shot at you. So it’s a different feeling early on in Afghanistan. When I started joining the military, because I was right there with the soldiers. So there were a couple of instances where the service members of the United States, but also coalition were attacked. And the second one that I was part of. The first one Pete wasn’t even in Afghanistan back then. But the second one Pete Hegseth and myself, we jumped in on the becoming the QRF team, the Quick Reaction Team that responded to that VB ID that took place that took a bunch of our students basically. They targeted a bunch of our students who were supposed to come and start a class. And so we responded to that. And then that was when Pete was talking about how we were pulling bodies of soldiers and civilians from vehicles that were destroyed or basically were burning. Quite a horrible moment to live through. But that was something we had to do what we had to do because that was what we signed up for. Not necessarily to pull dead bodies every single day, but that was part of the struggle. That was part of the battle. That was part of the mission is that you’re going to end up finding yourself in those moments and you have to be prepared to respond. And so that was what Pete was referring to in my interview. And he was exactly right.

Denzil Mohammed: This was your environment, right? I mean, this is where you live. This is what was happening. That’s really, really fascinating. So part of what I’m doing here with you right now, at least in this portion of the podcast is painting that picture and having the American public understand what this place was like, what you all were going through, what your childhood was like to really understand the very, very stark differences. I mean, it’s a world away. A lot of what you’re describing to me. What was the experience like for you personally working with the U.S. military? What did that feel like? And what was the public reaction to your working with the military?

Abdul Saboor Sakhizada: I mean, traditionally from a family standpoint, right? So my oldest brother began working, and then my second oldest and then followed up to me. It was all the sense of patriotism. You’re doing something for your country. You’re helping build the nation. You’re doing all of this work. And even reflecting on what we did in Afghanistan, and here we are on the state’s side and knowing where the mission of United States is right now, it will basically end and they would withdraw from Afghanistan. For me, or for us as a family, it always was a reflection of. We had seen enough destruction. We had seen enough violence. We had seen enough horrific scenery of people getting killed. Millions of people fleeing the country, taking refuge to the neighboring countries. Financially, it was not feasible for my family to do. I’m always stumped. I always think about this because had my father had the financial means to emigrate or take refuge to other country, we would have been probably somewhere else in the 1990s. But because we didn’t do it, we couldn’t, we didn’t have the financial means to out migrate or to leave the country we had to basically live and accept the realities that we lived. And so I have to say that even when I started working with the army from this idea of patriotism, the sense of patriotism, later on the conflict or this battle, this irregular war, became so complicated that, you know, the insurgents were very smart. They knew that a lot of these soldiers like Pete Hegseth would rely on Abduls, on the Sabbors, and their interpreters and their cultural advisers to help them understand the ins and outs of the community so they could better serve those communities. So they could better develop systems and policies that could help benefit the people. And the insurgents what they had to do was they started hunting folks like me, and folks like my brother and others of our peers. And because they knew what a critical role we played, because essentially we were the eyes and ears of the U.S. military of Afghanistan. We knew the language, we knew the body language, we knew the culture, we knew the dynamics that played into the different ethnicities and all of that. So they began hunting us. And a lot of thousands of interpreters have lost their lives and advisors have lost their lives because they were isolated and they were targeted. And it’s essentially that whole sense of patriotism of you being so proud of serving, building your nation, essentially flipped on its head. And the other side of the coin was quite evil, quite dark. And you have to go in hiding your identity. You have to disappear from society. You have to hide from your peers, from your friends. And so it is an overnight shift that sometimes psychologically very hard for you to process because here you are, you can’t go to soccer games anymore. Here you are. You can’t participate in wedding ceremonies, you can’t be away from home when the sun sets and all of those things. You can’t tell people what you’re doing. So essentially paints a very negative, dark picture in your mind. And you begin questioning every single thing you do from that point on. Not only for yourself, but also for your family, for your loved ones. Because no one wants to identify my parents, that his son is working because they could easily target him. I lost my uncle in host province. He initiated bringing a chapter of a TV station that was aired in Kabul at the capitol. He helped install their antennas into host, and one of the provinces and their districts that where he lived, and literally within three months he was dead. They dropped his body in a bag in front of their house. And so that was a lesson for hundreds of other villagers in that area, or people of that family. That this is what you get for doing this. If you go against us this is what you get.

Denzil Mohammed: You’re doing this work, and you’re talking about it within this frame of patriotism of doing things for your country. And at the same time, you’re seen as a traitor, someone betraying your country, and I guess your values and your history. And that’s absolutely fascinating. And how old were you when this is happening?

Abdul Saboor Sakhizada: So I started working with the U.S. armed forces when I was 17 years old, right after high school. It’s funny. Sometimes I talk about it and it hurts me because I played for the nationals of my country. I played soccer for the nationals of my country. And there was one point when I started working that I had to bring money to the family, that I had to decide between my soccer career versus working for the military. And I chose the latter as you could imagine. And I still think what we did was great, and I’m not trying to paint this negative picture, but seeing what my other brothers did and follow that path.

Denzil Mohammed: You mentioned being seen as a traitor, betraying your country. And come to the present day you also feel a sense of betrayal, but not from those people in Afghanistan, but from America and coalition forces. Thank you for joining us for the first of this two-part special of JobMakers. Next week, we come to terms with the pullout of security forces and the chaos and dread that’s resulted. Learn about the ad hoc and creative ways Abdul is getting family and friends out and find out how we can all be welcomers to those who helped us, those in need. We return to regular episodes of Jobmakers on October 14th. I’m Denzil Mohammed. Join us next Thursday at noon for the last of this two-part special of JobMakers.

Episode 26: Jim Stergios

JobMakers podcast logo: Jim Stergios on why immigrants are crucial to our successAs a child of immigrant entrepreneurs, Jim Stergios has special insight into the contributions of foreign-born people in the United States. As the executive director of the Pioneer Institute think tank, he also understands the current heated political conversation over immigration. Tune in to discover how he believes today’s immigrants are different and similar to the immigrants of his parents’ generation.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed. And this is JobMakers

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Denzil Mohammed: At the start of this year. Pioneer Institute collaborated with The Immigrant Learning Center on this podcast due to our deep roots among immigrants in Massachusetts and beyond, particularly those who are overrepresented in one very important field. Job creation. Immigrants have always been inherently entrepreneurial, from Levi’s jeans and Coors beer to Goya foods and Tesla, but that penchant for creating jobs flies in the face of the myth that immigrants take jobs. For Jim Stergios, executive director of Pioneer Institute, it is a story that needs to be told. It is after all at the core of American enterprise, innovation and prosperity. It’s what gives the U.S. its edge over other countries and it’s the truth, for Jim and is also personal. His father and uncles got together and started their own business as young immigrants to the U.S. from Greece. There’s a common story about immigrant families, old and new, and Jim believes the entrepreneurial spirit of yesteryear is the same among today’s immigrants, as you learn in this week’s JobMakers. 

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Denzil Mohammed: Jim Stergios, thank you for joining us on JobMakers. How are you? 

Jim Stergios: I’m doing really well. And thanks for having me, I really appreciate the opportunity and you’re doing a great job. 

Denzil Mohammed: Pioneer Institute is the one who approached The Immigrant Learning Center about doing a podcast on immigrant entrepreneurship and immigrant contributions called JobMakers. Where did that idea come from? 

Jim Stergios: There are all sorts of divisions in how people talk about immigration and entrepreneurship and frankly they’ve lost the sense that entrepreneurship and the creation of jobs and companies are an integral part of why we seek, why we welcome immigrants into this country. If you look at the left, I think there’s a lot of thinking that, I guess, all sides are a little bit cartoonish on this, the left believes that America is sort of an oppressor society. If you go to the traditional right, I think they’d probably say maybe even libertarian-side free capital and free labor, let it all flow, and then you have the more revanchist right that we saw during the Trump years really take hold, which is, oh my gosh, all of immigration is a messiness at the southern border and that’s all it is. And you know, I, sometimes I have to tell you, sometimes I look at the Facebook page where we post up the fantastic work that you’re doing, talking about people creating jobs and people coming here with dreams and wanting to do stuff. And I shake my head and say, do people actually think that immigrants, that the whole immigration picture is about protecting the southern border? And it’s a sort of madness. So, watching that kind of a conversation that people don’t even have, they just talking past each other. I wanted to really emphasize real people doing real things, facing real problems, trying to build a real life here in America, which is why they come you know, things like, “I want to start a business, I have a dream, I want to start this business and maybe I can’t get there immediately.” Let me go do something else on there, solve that problem or find some capital. I’m gonna find some talent. I’m going to figure out how to train them. I’m going to do whatever I can define the connections to find a way to go to market and improve people’s lives. And then, yeah, I’ll make a buck at the same time. That’s kind of what this country has been about. And I think that whole thing has been lost. And maybe if I get to say one more thing, which I think is absolutely crucial, this conversation, and that is I think Americans lose sight of the fact that the entrepreneurial spirit really does come from immigrants. Immigrants come here for a reason, for the most part. You know, of course there are people at the edges, I get all that. But they come here for a reason. They want to do something, and they recognize that this society allows them to do stuff that maybe their home country would not. And that’s the beautiful mix between an immigrant wants to build something in the United States, which tends to like to see people build stuff. 

Denzil Mohammed: It’s a story I hear over and over again, no matter if you’re in big pharma, pharmaceuticals, life sciences or you run a doggy daycare or a corner shop somewhere, it is the same story. And I’ve heard from again from highly, very highly educated people talking about, well, back home in India and Pakistan, I didn’t belong to the right tribe or my skin color is not something that people would want to give me money to invest in my business idea. Dominican women who came from a very patriarchal society who would not have been able to start businesses in the Dominican Republic are able to do that here. That entrepreneurial spirit, business owner, or not that entrepreneurial spirit drove them to take a risk and to come here to create a better life. Now, the fact that we present facts, we present research, we present stories and yet even some of the simplest things like the data is questioned. People question the data, the question, the numbers, the question, the motivations of people who come here. what do you think is at the heart of this kind of response, this really visceral response to immigration today? 

Jim Stergios: I think it’s dislocation in the economy, number one, and there were certainly sort of, we’ve always had ethnic. I shouldn’t say “we,” the entire world has always faced ethnic and racial biases. We are not unique in that. We have a unique story around racial bias and around ethnic biases, we certainly do, but anyone who’s traveled. And I spent the first 10 years of my career abroad in Europe and in the far east, and look, these are things I saw everywhere. I think the second thing I’d say, and this is more now than when I was a kid. I feel like these days, there’s just so much divisiveness around what you have and protecting what you have. It’s probably because people feel more at risk. I hope it’s not more than that. I’d like to think it’s not. And I think that’s why we’re doing this podcast and trying to participate in this way. And just trying to inform people about real stories and real people, is when you understand real people and those things start falling away.

Denzil Mohammed: And immigration has always been to our benefit, which is a big part of the puzzle for me, that has given opportunity to people who have in turn created jobs and built up economies and expanded local economies. But you have a personal connection to immigrant entrepreneurship. And tell me a little bit about your parents.

Jim Stergios: I have the traditional immigration story where mom and dad, neither, both of whom completed high school, one with a GED, came over from Syria and Greece. Neither had anything to their name and they meet, they fall in love. My dad had been at war and World War II. A Marine in the far eastern theater came back, had some trouble, I think, in terms of trying to figure out what to do with his life after war. War is a tough thing. Moved from sales position to sales position, and finally settled on working with his brother, very family-oriented business, and his other brother and founded a window and door and other construction materials, manufacturing facility. You know, it’s sort of hard work putting together money, trying to move things ahead. You at some point achieve some success and it’s kind of a funny thing. I guess the difference is these days, if I think about the culture, I mean, it was a pretty religious culture at home where you did a lot of Bible study and you’d try to read things and we were pretty different from, I think, immigrants today in two ways. One is, we were more closed now. We would hang around with Syrians and Greeks a lot and our interactions outside of that were at the public school where we’d get to meet other kids, so I think that’s a little bit different these days. I think there’s more of a yearning to connect with other immigrants, especially given the tenor of the conversation these days. I think it’s probably a little bit different, especially in urban areas. And I guess the second thing is my dad used to always say, “Don’t go to college. Work, do what I do, become just like me.” And I think these days, immigrants probably have a very different view for the most part, if you’re starting a business, you understand what education means and because we’re in a different kind of economy, a manufacturing economy, which is low investment, maybe upfront, building, building, building to the point where you can make bigger investments. That’s education plays a huge role now, which is, I think one of the big puzzles we have on the policy side in Massachusetts, to think through how we make sure we can address that issue. 

Denzil Mohammed: What I’m getting at is this idea that somehow immigrants from the past were inherently different than immigrants of today? 

Jim Stergios: Oh no, no, no, not at all. That’s not the case. I think they’ve just grown up in a different world where, you know, Daniel Bell, the sociologist from Harvard wrote a book called The Post-industrial Society back in 1968, I think it was. And he was simply saying, look, education is going to separate people going forward. And all I’m pointing to is that, that has had an impact on how immigrants come to this country and, and what they do here. But frankly, even back in the 1960s, we had a whole recruitment effort of highly educated Indians, for example, to come here and work in the medical field. So nothing’s really changed that much. I’m just saying that the educational emphasis is so huge now in terms of what you can do going forward that it’s probably something that has changed some of the pattern of what I grew up with, but the values are the same, the reasons why people come here are the same. I’m often really struck by when I talk to immigrants about what they think about the United States and then what I hear Americans say about their own society. I would guess the polling is somewhere around like, you know, the positivity around being an Americans, like huge among immigrants and among the sour-puss Americans these days, it’s so “we’re a terrible place.” 

Denzil Mohammed: But bringing it into Massachusetts, where much of Pioneer Institute’s focus is what have you seen as the impact of immigration in Massachusetts? Particularly in the past few decades? 

Jim Stergios: Yeah, I think there’s one constant, and that is immigrants coming into this country change not the underlying values, though people always feel like those are at risk. It’s rather how we interpret those values and the cultural impact of people across time are huge. And if we go back to the 19th century, anybody who’s been brought up in Boston understands the imprint on how we’ve interpreted freedom and how we’ve interpreted governing and how we’ve interpreted business creation the hospitality industry because of the Irish immigrants that were here, the role of Catholicism in our society vis-a-vis what was there before. I mean, huge, huge change. And every wave of immigrants brings that sort of larger cultural impact. And I think it’s all positive and enriching. I remember as a kid traveling to Fitchburg and to Lawrence and to Worcester connecting with people who were on my Syrian side, Syrian Orthodox church. And, you know, it was just terribly enriching to those places as well. So, it’s the impact of immigrants isn’t just economic, it’s literature. It impacts what we write about, the stories that we tell, the ones that we find most fetching, the ones that we find most interesting, it’s all impacted by that. But then of course there is this amazing impact on opportunity. And I think anybody who was in Kendall Square 30 years ago and stands there again now says, “Oh my God,” and I’m not saying those are all citadels built to the ingenuity of immigrants, but there are a lot of immigrants in those buildings. They built a lot of them. And that same thing is true across society. I mean, if you look at some of our institutions, our strongest institutions, the one that give real oomf, real impetus to the development of companies here, and let’s just talk for a second about our hospital sector, top dogs, ones that actually help us identify ways in which we can invest in the life sciences, a lot of immigrants there, and the people who are doing, even back in the seventies, you’re talking about a couple of decades going back to the seventies and eighties, the development of tech in this state, all highly influenced, highly driven by immigrants. So, I think anybody who talks to you, especially with MIT, Harvard, Boston University, Emerson College, Boston College, all these different universities, they’re highly dependent on, especially in the STEM areas, highly dependent on the talent that they can recruit and actively seek to recruit it. Come on, we know what immigrants have meant for the state.  

Denzil Mohammed: You talk about Kendall Square, and I think you mentioned Moderna earlier, Pfizer, the other vaccine manufacturer, also founded by an immigrant, you know, maybe a century ago, but that tradition of immigrant entrepreneurship continues today and we’re all benefiting from it. But let’s not forget Field’s Corner. Let’s not forget some of these other places. The Immigrant Learning Center is based in Malden Pleasant Street, Main Street, all populated by many, many immigrants, immigrant-run businesses of every kind from the Irish pub to the Vietnamese nail salon. All of these places have been revitalized through people moving in when the rents were cheap and over, may take a generation or two, but it gets there to a place of safety and prosperity.

Jim Stergios: So that’s kind of what I was trying to get at earlier and didn’t say as well as you just said it. And what I mean is, look I’m not sour on Americans. I love this country and I love my fellow citizens, but, when you go to, everywhere from, Brookline to Malden, to Fields Corner, to Lawrence, who are starting those neighborhood businesses, yes, there are people who have been here for a century or more, but the real energy comes from folks who are immigrants and what would we do without these quintessential neighborhood businesses as well? So, that’s what I mean by replenishing the entrepreneurial spirit. It’s the desire, you’ve taken a risk to come here, the idea of taking risk, again, to put, you know, some money down and take a risk on your talent and your work ethic. You know, this is true when, I spent some time in academia and I would always have a laugh with one of my professors who used to say, “Jim, you eat every book you have, you are very desirous, you have big desires.” And I said, “I think it’s because I’m a kid of immigrants,” and I think it is true. Even there. She would always say, my best students are immigrants because they don’t take anything for granted. So, it’s all to be achieved. Look, I’m not trying to be overly sentimental here, but I do believe there’s something to replenishing the spirit of the United States that comes through immigrants. I think that often gets lost in the messiness of our conversation.

Denzil Mohammed: You mentioned something that I find very fascinating, which is this idea of the child of immigrants. We actually did a study through Paul Watanabe at UMass Boston on the adult children of immigrant entrepreneurs. You spoke earlier about your father wanting you to be an entrepreneur, but that this generation, you know, even the immigrants who start the laundromats or the nail salons or the grocery, really do focus on education. And what we found in that study is that the majority of the children of immigrant entrepreneurs actually go into occupations of service. So, they go into the medical field, they become social workers, they become people who serve their communities by and large, which I found absolutely fascinating. And I see that, you know, in a sense you’re doing much the same thing by trying to improve policy in Massachusetts, but are we failing our immigrants? And particularly as we talk about the children of immigrants in Massachusetts, you know, when polled people often find that the most detrimental impact of immigration is on our schools, can you talk a little bit about how Pioneer feels about this aspect of immigration? 

Jim Stergios: Education is the thing that makes Pioneer’s heart go pitter patter, a good 50-60 percent of everything we do is related to K-12 education. It’s not even higher education it’s K-12 because we think those are the formative years. And, you know, I guess the thing I’d say is that look, Massachusetts is fortunate to have had political leadership in the past that supported big reforms and I think had some real impact on driving up the performance of low-income immigrant English language learner communities. And I feel like we have really slowed in that process to the point where, just to give one example, and I’m not trying to call out Boston per se, because it’s an issue that I think applies to a number of our districts, but the Boston public schools were actually put under a consent order by the Justice Department, the Department of Education in 2012, because the 17,000 of the 53,000, 54,000 students, about 30 percent of their students who were English language learners weren’t getting an adequate education. They weren’t having people that were trained. It was just a complete and utter mess. If you read the report, the department of justice, the department of education put out, it’s shameful. Massachusetts is a high-performing state overall, has among immigrants, even lower scores, and scores are not everything, but scores are something for their students than Florida. And I guess I’d say that’s something we need to rectify and pay a lot of attention to it for many reasons, there are reasons of equity and humanity and all the rest, but there’s also the one which goes to the heart of why people come here. That is a talent pool of people who are highly motivated because their parents are highly motivated and to lose the opportunity to have them do great stuff. That’s true of any kid, but of this group of folks who actually have probably inculcated into them from an early age, you must make something of yourself and do something to become a good American. That’s really shameful. And I think a real lost opportunity for revitalizing our cities across neighborhoods you’re talking about, but frankly, doing the great stuff in Kendall Square and elsewhere as well. 

Denzil Mohammed: What is Pioneer’s position on immigration, what areas or issues under that large immigration umbrella are most important to you and why?

Jim Stergios: So, I think our position is, maybe I could state three philosophical things, just a little bit broad, but, you know, we respect people. We understand that all people have value and have something to contribute. And I think sometimes it’s good to just remember, we’re talking about individuals that comes from the libertarian spirit, all people matter, no one matters more than anyone else. We also believe in the rule of law. And I think the other thing we believe in is, we like debate. We like open debates, civil debate, and all three of these come crashing together on the immigration issue, because it means Pioneer will not have a clear position on some things because the rule of law bumps up against respect for all individuals, because of course, some people come from quote, unquote outside and some people are inside. Right? The thing that matters to us most is number one, having a real honest, but civil conversation around this based upon real lives with in mind, from Pioneer’s perspective, with two things in mind. Number one, immigrants make up a large portion of our public schools. We have to do right by them. And number two is they play an enormous role in the economic prosperity of this state and we want to make sure that we welcome them, that we benefit from them as much as we can and that they can benefit from being here as American citizens, if they so choose, or on work visas if they don’t choose to be American citizens. And we want that to be done fairly and without bias. So, those are the two things that matter most to us and the places that we look most. And I think you’ll see, for example, Pioneer Institute is setting up a legal center. Some of the work that we’ll do will be probably related to making sure that immigrants are treated fairly here before the law, immigrant entrepreneurs will be treated fairly before the law. And you’ll see a lot of our work focus on making sure that people who may not have as much of a voice here are getting treated fairly by our school system and have ample opportunity to get educated. That’s through a new litigation center, we’re going to be setting up, early January and you’ll see Pioneer’s own work focus on those issues as well, over the coming years. So those are the two places where we land. I know there’s much more to the debate. 

Denzil Mohammed: So, let’s recap, immigrants have an inherently entrepreneurial spirit. They are job creators because of that spirit. They believe strongly in the American dream. They believe strongly in freedom and opportunity. I think we’ve seen over the course of many decades that immigrants do integrate, that immigrants do learn English. Immigrant Learning Center is a free English language program. We have never had to advertise our services. We’ve always had a waiting list. That immigrants are not just numbers. They are people with stories and dreams that immigration in the U.S. is not just the southern border. It’s much more complex than that. And that we especially here in Massachusetts, but of course across the country have benefited from that entrepreneurial spirit, that desirous spirit of getting to the American Dream, whether it’s Biogen and Moderna and Pfizer or the neighborhood business that rectifies a food desert. And that this is intrinsically tied to the American story, right? 

Jim Stergios: There is no American story without it. 

Denzil Mohammed: Jim Stergios, executive director of Pioneer Institute. Thank you for joining us on Jobmakers. 

Jim Stergios: Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. 

Denzil Mohammed: Thank you for making this podcast possible. JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and the Immigrant Learning Center of Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for this week’s fascinating discussion on how immigrants together with the U.S. will make a better. If you know someone we should talk to email Denzil, that’s D-E-N-Z-I-L at jobmakerspodcast.org. Leave us a review on your favorite streaming service. Join us next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 25: Jaisang Sun

JobMakers podcast logo: Jaisang Sun gives the facts about immigrantsAs an academic with a focus in refugee studies, Jaisang Sun has a unique perspective on today’s immigration conversation. Sun discusses the costs and significant benefits of our current refugee program, highlighting how refugees contribute financially and strengthen our communities. Listen to hear his perspective on the new influx of Afghan refugees that the United States is currently welcoming

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed, and this is JobMakers. 

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Denzil Mohammed: I’m sure you have an opinion on refugees, but how much do you actually know about them? What do you really know about the process of identifying, screening and resettling people from foreign lands who cannot go back home? For Jaisang Sun, research associate at The Immigrant Learning Center’s Public Education Institute, the co-host of this podcast, correcting misinformation and disinformation about refugees is paramount, especially today with the potential for an influx of refugees who assisted our special forces in Afghanistan and the consequent public discourse around it. Jaisang, or Jai, is completing his doctoral degree at Syracuse University with research on the deportation of refugees from the U.S. His interests include transnational migration, diasporic nationalism, multiculturalism and refugee studies. Jai clears the air for us on refugees and the resettlement program, including costs and benefits to us. And more importantly, he profiles just who refugees are, people just like you and me, except displaced and persecuted, with nowhere to go. Something many of us will never experience, as you’ll discover in this week’s JobMakers.

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Denzil MohammedJaisang Sun, research associate at The Immigrant Learning Center’s Public Education Institute, welcome to JobMakers! 

Jaisang Sun: Thank you. Glad to be here.

Denzil Mohammed: So refugees, of course, have been in the news quite a lot recently. And your research at Syracuse has focused on refugees, and the work you do as a research associate at The Immigrant Learning Center’s Public Education Institute looks at immigration broadly, including data and stories of refugees. Can you define who a refugee is and how that’s distinct from an immigrant?

Jaisang Sun: Sure. A refugee can be defined as a person outside his or her country of nationality who is unable or unwilling to return to the country of origin or nationality because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or a political opinion. 

Denzil Mohammed: So it’s almost someone who’s pushed out of their home country, right? 

Jaisang Sun: Absolutely. Forcefully displaced. 

Denzil MohammedAnd that’s really the distinction for an immigrant, which is someone who generally chooses to move for some reason. 

Jaisang Sun: Yes. A lot of people attribute that agency to regular migrants, whereas refugees would lack such agency to move about freely. 

Denzil Mohammed: So what kind of person is a refugee? What kind of qualities do you think they have, or characteristics? What do they bring with them? 

Jaisang Sun: Refugees are just like you and me. They are hard-working people, they are people with dreams and passion and goalspeople who pursue happiness in their lives. 

Denzil Mohammed: But the kind of person who is forced to move to another place. And let’s be clear, that move is not an easy move, right? It’s not as though they just get on a plane and land in Buffalo and they start a new life. Oftentimes they are forced to move to a neighboring country. They are in refugee camps, sometimes for years on end. The stories of refugees from Vietnam who had to flee in the dead of night, be caught by pirates, be caught by security, thrown in jail. What are some of the journeys like? 

Jaisang Sun: I am not a refugee myself, so these are anecdotal evidences and stories that I have heard from others. But yes, most of refugees’ journeys to safe resettlement have been very dangerous, treacherous, and they were met with force many times. And the fact that they were displaced from home, I think it presents enough challenge for anyone, but to make that journey to safety is … I can’t even begin to fathom how difficult it may be. 

Denzil Mohammed: And you bring up two important things. One is that they’re just like you and me. They just want to lead regular lives, they want happiness, they have dreams, they have passions. But they’ve also been through something that is life-changing, something that is dangerous, something that’s treacherous, liferisking. And so I think of some of the refugees that I know personally, you know, the person who cuts my hair, she tried to flee Vietnam 10 times as a teenager before she was actually successful. Each time she tried, she was thrown in jail. I think of Hong Tran who was interviewed for this podcast several months ago, who in the process of fleeing Vietnam, they were attacked by pirates and his mother and baby sister were killed. And then they have to go on in these new countries to learn a new language, learn a new culture, learn new laws, try to get an education. What happens to refugees once they’re resettled in the U.S.? 

Jaisang Sun: That’s an excellent question. Many refugees go through the resettlement processes, which have been streamlined as a result of the 1980 Refugee Act. Although different agencies do different things, they are resettled and they are asked to meet an economic self-sufficiency by getting a job very, very quickly upon their arrival to the United States. 

Denzil Mohammed: Specifically within two weeks. 

Jaisang Sun: Not necessarily two weeks. The data goes to show that most refugees, once resettled, are able to secure some form of employment within two weeks of arrival. 

Denzil Mohammed: And that form of employment is generally not where their careers left off in their home countries, right? I mean cleaning, Dunkin Donuts …

Jaisang Sun: Right, you see doctors and professors and these people with professional degrees having to start their new American life as dishwashers and janitors and things that they have never really done before. 

Denzil Mohammed: And so what happens when a family gets settled in the U.S.? Who determines where they go? Who are the ones financially helping them out? 

Jaisang SunThe initial journey that refugees make are partially funded by the State Department through this international organization called the International Organization of Migration. Each individual is generally given a loan of about $1,100 so that they can make the journey over here. And after six months of arrival, they are expected to pay back in full amounts, although interest free, of the money that they borrowed from the State Department. 

Denzil Mohammed: Beyond that, the help that they receive in settling in, in finding job, in learning a language, those are generally done by nonprofits, right? 

Jaisang Sun: Most of those works are done by nonprofits, and for decades, nonprofits have been the backbone of strengthening refugee resettlement programs within the United States, and also selling our model of doing refugee resettlement overseas to those countries that are just starting to pick up what it means to resettle refugees. 

Denzil Mohammed: So Jai, give us an overview of refugee policy in the U.S. It’s a fairly recent phenomenon, no? Or did it start off much earlier than we think? 

Jaisang Sun: It did start off much earlier than we think. When most people think about refugee policies and refugee resettlement, we often jump to the 1980 Refugee Act, which is not entirely false, but some would actually argue that the history of refugee policies started a long time ago. Some argue it started as early as the Mexican Revolution, when many, many people were displaced as a result of the revolution who were then admitted to the United States as refugees or given permanent residency. But certainly the modern refugee policies have roots we can date back to World War II, wherein Jews and other minorities under Nazi persecution challenged the world with a massive global refugee crisis. The first instance of the United States’ policies on refugees was perhaps the presidential directive dated December 22, 1945, when President Truman authorized displaced persons and refugees to receive expedited admissions to the United States within the framework of the existing immigration laws at the time, which was largely based on the quota system of 1917. Now, this directive allowed some 40,000 displaced persons to enter the United States under the existing quota regulations. And it was considered a success on the very first instance of the specific refugee act. And then in 1948, the Displaced Persons Act was passed, and it was the very first specific refugee act after World War II to address nearly 7,000,000 displaced persons in Europe in the aftermath of World War II and allowed refugees to enter the United States within the quota system. Needless to say, because of the immigration laws at the time, particularly the quota system and its roots in racism and segregation, it only accepted refugees of certain national and ethnic backgrounds. Notwithstanding its biased selection of refugees though, this act did admit more than 350,000 displaced persons into the United States. In 1952, the Immigration Nationality Act reorganized the existing immigration and nationality laws, and although it maintained a quota system, it lacked the refugeespecific provisions. So it allowed structurally for other ad hoc programs, including the Azorean Refugee Act of 1958the 1959-62 Cuban Refugee Programthe 65 Cuban airlift, the 62 Hong Kong Parole Program. All of these ad hoc programs were installed between 1952 and 1965. In 1965, amendments were made to the Immigration and Nationality Act that fast-tracked the adjustment of status for a lot of refugees that came in already in the United States. And then in 1980, the Refugee Act of 1980 was passed, overhauling a lot of these ad hoc refugee programs and streamlining a lot of the processes and administrative procedures to go about bringing in refugees on a more orderly fashion. 

Denzil Mohammed: So describe for us the waves of refugees we’ve seen since 1980.

Jaisang Sun: Since 1980, we’ve definitely seen a wide variety of refugees who entered the United States that have strengthened our diversity and our commitment to humanitarianism in this country. But many of our refugee patterns follow a lot of the crises that happened around the world at the time. So in the eighties, we saw a lot more Cubans coming into specific corners of our country and a lot of Indochinese refugees entering through the Pacific coast of the United States. And since then, we have seen an increasing number of refugees from the continent of Africa and the Middle Eastern region. 

Denzil Mohammed: And Eastern Europe as well, right? 

Jaisang Sun: Absolutely. 

Denzil Mohammed: So what you’re saying basically is that we’ve for a very long time accepted refugees, no matter where they are in the world. At one point, there was a quota system that would have limited those admissions to an extent. But what is the responsibility of countries to accept refugees? What is this rooted in? 

Jaisang Sun: I would argue that it’s rooted in our commitment to humanitarian principles. The United States government signed a United Nations High Commission of Refugees Convention, and the Protocol to it, as early as the 1960s. So some may argue that we are simply following our promise to adhere to these international guidelines, which are deeply rooted in the humanitarian principles to never see crises like we did in the aftermath of World War I and World War II. 

Denzil Mohammed: Let’s bring it into Massachusetts. And Massachusetts is perhaps not widely known as a popular place to settle refugees, but we certainly have, and will continue to. So give us some stats about refugees in Massachusetts. 

Jaisang Sun: Absolutely. Since 2010, to Massachusetts a total of 14,573 refugees resettled. The top five countries from which refugees came are Iraq with 3,849 people, Bhutan with 2,725 people, Somalia with 1,924, Democratic Republic of Congo with 1,576 people and Burma with 1,128 people. And there are different destinations within the state of Massachusetts, but we were able to identify Worcester, Lowell, Lynn and Springfield to be the top destinations for these refugees. 

Denzil Mohammed: What are some of the trends we see with refugees to the U.S.? You talked a little bit earlier about economic self-sufficiency. What are some of the trends, financial and otherwise, that you see with refugees? 

Jaisang Sun: Sure. There are different interesting facts and statistics and trends on refugees. For example, on average, refugees have shown to naturalize faster than any other lawful permanent residentsSixty-six percent of refugees who entered the U.S. during the period of 2000 to 2010 became naturalized citizens. There are other statistics that look at employment of refugees. Studies have shown that refugee men specifically are in the workforce in higher rates than their American counterparts. In terms of refugee economic self-sufficiency, we have to remember that because refugees’ resettlement goal is to meet that economic self-sufficiency, they’re encouraged very much to find jobs very fast. Despite the fact that they are forced or they are encouraged to find jobs very, very fast, there are a lot of studies that show that it takes, on average, about seven years for an average refugee to reach that economic self-sufficiency. And again, the path to getting that economic self-sufficiency is not always very flowery for most refugees. 

Denzil Mohammed: Describe that to us, because obviously most Americans don’t have a sense of what refugees have gone through in their home countries while being displaced, after leaving their home countries. Can you just sort of guide us through in a very descriptive way, what it is like for refugee families once they settle here? What do they go through? 

Jaisang Sun: Absolutely. For example, there are statistics that go to show that about 46 percent of refugees, upon their arrival, are on food stamps. Needless to say, when they are receiving public benefits, such as food stamps, they don’t have much. They don’t have family members here, they don’t have friends or other networks that are giving them cash, they don’t have food, they don’t have toys for the children. So, in most instances, they don’t have the educational or the language ability to seek opportunities that they may otherwise be completely eligible for. So every aspect of life is incredibly difficult for them. And not to mention, because they are refugees who have experienced varying degrees of persecution, many refugees suffer from either physical or mental disabilities, and many of them have shown to suffer from PTSD specifically. So refugee lives upon resettlement doesn’t revolve around success stories only. 

Denzil Mohammed: And as distinct from other migrants, I know that for instance, this podcast is called JobMakers, and we look a lot at immigrant entrepreneurs, who have a higher than average rate of business generation, because I know for immigrants overall it’s about 11 percent, and for refugees it’s about 13 percent. So Jai, can you sort of speak generally as to the impact of refugee resettlement in the receiving country? 

Jaisang Sun: Sure. Refugee resettlement, albeit it is different than immigration, but the impact to which refugees have on our country and our communities are very, very similar. They enrich our diversity. They populate our cities. They bring in jobs. They become entrepreneurs. They become our partners, our family members and they become Americans. So the impact refugees have on our country are not only very similar to immigrants, but the fact that they are able to overcome a lot of the hardships and the difficulties in making the journeys over here help us to

Denzil Mohammed: I mean, I feel as though they almost enrich the resiliency of America. 

Jaisang Sun: Absolutely, they do. Absolutely. They bring living examples of how to overcome these difficulties, how to be successful. And they provide a blueprint for our next generation to be this resilient generation of Americans who will lead our country and continue to help in the spirit of humanitarianism that we have been doing for the last decades. 

Denzil Mohammed: Is there anything else you wanted to add about refugees? There’s so much misinformation around refugees. If there are a couple of things that you wish would really be cleared up in the American public discourse on refugees, what do you think they would be? 

Jaisang Sun: Like you said, Denzil, there are smany information regarding refugees, immigrants, refugee resettlement, immigrant integration. There’s such a wealth of information online and outside. One thing that I hope that the general population will look closer into is, they’re feeding these unfounded claims on refugees and immigrants. For example, just like how we talked about in the beginning of the podcast, they are people just like you and me. They bring hopes and dreams to this country, and statistics have shown that they reach success. They don’t reach success illegally. They don’t reach success through crimes. They reach success because they have grit. They have a spirit of entrepreneurship with them just like you and me. So I hope thatwhen looking for information online, people are able to see the true intent, and the clear information that they can find that’s based on facts and empirical results. 

Denzil Mohammed: And I imagine that you will be coming up with some more of these facts and empirical results in your role as Research Associate at The Immigrant Learning Center’s Public Education Institute, whose mission is to educate Americans on the contributions of immigrants and refugees, and really to inform the discourse with facts, with nuance, with stories. And we need to remind ourselves that this is a nation of immigrants, and at the same time, we’re the greatest economic and cultural powerhouse in the world. And were enriched by all the different cultures and viewpoints and perspectives that have informed where we are today. Jaisang Sun, thank you so much for joining us on JobMakers. 

Jaisang Sun: Thank you. 

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center of Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for this week’s fascinating discussion on how immigrants and refugees, together with the U.S.-born, make a better U.S. If you know someone we should talk to, email denzil@jobmakerspodcast.org. Leave us a review on your favorite streaming service, too. I’m Denzil Mohammed. Join us next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 24: Jeff Goldman

JobMakers podcast logo: Jeff Goldman on how immigrants keep America competitiveAs co-founder of the Massachusetts Global Entrepreneur in Residence program, Jeff Goldman has seen firsthand how immigrant entrepreneurs make the economy stronger and more dynamic. Goldman discusses how the United States can better capitalize on the innovation and talents of immigrants, particularly entrepreneurial immigrant college students. Tune in to also find out how he sees undocumented workers impacting U.S.-born people’s day-to-day lives.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed, and this is JobMakers. 

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Denzil Mohammed: Immigrants innovate. Kendall Square in Cambridge or Silicon Valley wouldn’t be what they are today without the ingenuity of immigrants, but the dense and convoluted immigration system doesn’t always allow for that retention of skill and talent, which would of course be to America’s benefit. For Jeff Goldman, immigration attorney and chair of Governor Charlie Baker’s Advisory Council on Immigrants and Refugees, ingenuity to tackle that convoluted system was what was needed to ensure highly skilled and innovative immigrants could remain in the U.S., start companies and create jobs for Americans. Jeff co-founded the Massachusetts Global Entrepreneur in Residence Program, which modeled new ways for foreignborn university students to continue learning, teaching, innovating and creating jobs in the U.S. Jeff sees how much skilled immigrants add to economic vibrancy, and he’s also keenly aware of the tremendously positive impact on our daily lives of undocumented immigrant workers and what Massachusetts has done to enable them to thrive, as you’ll learn in this week’s JobMakers.  

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Denzil Mohammed: Jeff Goldman, welcome to JobMakers! 

Jeff Goldman: Thank you, Denzil.  

Denzil Mohammed: So you’re an immigration attorney, which means you help foreign-born people come to the U.S. legally. Is immigration a good thing for the country and the Commonwealth, and how do you know this? 

Jeff Goldman: Immigration is such a positive thing for the United States and for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and I know it because I see it every single day. I also know it because there are so many authentic reports that are put out by respected non-government organizations, bipartisan commissions, all pointing to the benefits of immigration to the United States. I see it every day, Denzil, because in my practice, we’re mostly working with business immigration, helping U.S. employers grow and expand in this economy. And they do it with U.S. workers, and when they can’t find enough U.S. workers, they look to hire foreign nationals. And my law firm is very busy making sure that they hire foreign nationals through the legal system and that everything is done correctly, and every time we get an H-1B visa, L-1, O-1 visa, green card for these companies, we see them grow again and hire again, mostly U.S. workers, but filling in with foreign nationals as needed. 

Denzil Mohammed: So I was gonna ask you also about your clients and who they are. You said business immigration and companies. What kinds of companies have you worked with? And also tell us, over the years that you’ve been practicing, has immigration law become easier or harder? 

Jeff Goldman: The companies I’m working with are mostly in the life science/pharmaceutical sectors, a lot of technology, manufacturing and definitely finance. All of the companies, and I’m talking about hundreds of companies that I represent, are in growth mode. It’s been a long time since I received a request on what to do if they’re laying off a foreign national or any worker. They’re growing and they’re hiring and immigration plays such an integral part. Has immigration become easier or more difficult over the years? I think it’s clear it’s become more difficult, for many reasons. First of all, the demand to employ foreign nationals has never been greater in the U.S. economy than it is today. Most of your listeners may or may not know that the number one way foreign national professionals come to work inside the United States is through the H-1B visa. It’s one of the only ways tech companies can get software engineers that they desperately need; life science companies can get biologists, chemists, scientists; and financial organizations hire the right MBAs and other leading financial experts to work inside the United States. But the H-1B is limited to 85,000 every fiscal year. The demand is in the hundreds and hundreds of thousands, and thus the lottery is set up and only 85,000 are selected every fiscal year. This is almost crisis situation, where companies need these foreign nationals to continue to grow and expand, but the supply is not there. Critical point: these companies must pay fair wage. These companies cannot undermine the U.S. labor force to bring in foreign national professionals to work. And for the most part, this works just fine. How do I know that? No company would pay immigration lawyers the fees we charge and the filing fees that the government charges to bring in a foreign national who is paid less. It’s not worth it. They’re paying so much in costs and fees that they wouldn’t do this. Nobody would do this. 

Denzil Mohammed: You hint at this scarcity of highskilled workers in the U.S., especially today where we see technology driving so much of the economy. So therefore you must have a very negative view on the past administrations really dramatic crackdown on legal immigration to the U.S., right? 

Jeff Goldman: Correct. The Trump administration is one of the first times I’ve known in my 30 years of practicing immigration law where a president tapped all aspects of legal immigration and claimed all of it is bad for the United States, contrary to mountains of evidence that state otherwise. And of course, we now know President Trump did this for his political agenda, to make sure that voters who were leaning toward President Trump, who are not generally in favor of immigrants, had a lot of fuel in the fire, to get them all excited to continue to jump on the Trump bandwagon. And it’s really unfortunate because had we just spent all of that time and energy trying to fix the problems with legal immigration rather than end it, we’d all be much better off today. 

Denzil Mohammed: You say that this was one of the first times that you saw these kinds of actions, and it’s something I keep saying on this podcast: if immigration was bad for the U.S., why did we have it in the first place? It just so happens that we are the greatest economy in the world, and we’ve always accepted immigrants, these people who are self-selected to have this drive and ambition and determination to do better. Do you see, however, a real way to rebuild since Trump, and is the Biden administration moving in the direction that you’d like? 

Jeff GoldmanThe Biden administration is cautiously moving in the right direction. President Biden has set forth a wide range of immigration reforms he would like to see during his administration, but he readily admits he’ll never get to all of them. And I think at the top of the list is DACA, finding a solution to the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who arrived without authorization as children due to no fault of their own, and they’ve been here their whole lives, and they add and add and add to our economy and our country, I am convinced. And both sides of the aisle is ready to move ahead with DACA and make it a permanent solution. 

Denzil Mohammed: I do distinctly remember then-candidate Trump saying that DACA recipients had nothing to worry about. And then once he was elected, Jeff Sessions comes out and says, hang on [laughs]. And this political football that they are playing in terms of these lives and futures of these young people is beyond tragic. And as you mentioned, most of the public is in favor of some sort of path to legalization for these young people who have been through our education system, who deserve in-state tuition, who deserve to have careers where they are able to pay more in taxes and contribute more. But let’s bring the discussion locally. So you’ve been instrumental in several initiatives that both offer foreign talent the chance to remain in the U.S. and thrive, but also that nurture a narrative that emphasizes what, as you said, the mountains of evidence have already told us: that immigrants are assets. One of those initiatives is called the Global Entrepreneur in Residence Program. Tell us about that and the kind of growth that it experienced over the past few years. 

Jeff Goldman: The Global Entrepreneur in Residence Program was created six years ago by a group of immigration lawyers, venture capitalists, corporate attorneys, and the government of Massachusetts, who came together to brainstorm solutions on how Massachusetts could continue to grow, even though the H-1B visas were so limited, and so many Massachusetts companies were left shorthanded in terms of software engineers and scientists, in order to move ahead. And I was on that committee, and we came up with a solution, which came to be known as the Massachusetts Global Entrepreneur in Residence Program, or the GEIR. Here’s the solution: the H-1B regulations limit the number of H-1B visas every year. However, there is an exception to the rule. There are four organizations that are called cap-exempt organizations. They can always hire an H-1B any time. Those four organizations are universities, nonprofit research organizations, government research organizations and nonprofit organizations that have an affiliation agreement with a university that benefits the university. Congress decided that these four organizations are so integral to the growth of the U.S. economy that they should always be able to hire an H-1B when needed. But that doesn’t exactly help all of the private companies that desperately need these H-1B workers. Well, I was familiar with one other exception in the immigration code: if a foreign national is present in the United States in H-1B status, then any entity, whether it be a nonprofit or a for-profit, whether it’s a government organization or a private organization, can immediately file its own concurrent H-1B petition and hire that same foreign national for full-time work at that entity. We presented this proposal to the University of Massachusetts, and the University of Massachusetts at Boston jumped at the chance to participate in this innovative workaround. So what’s happened in the past six years since this program has come into being? Well, hundreds of talented foreign nationals who were running out of work authorization and had nowhere to go have been legally employed by the University of Massachusetts at Boston, University of Massachusetts at Lowell, Babson College, Worcester Polytech and other universities who are participating in the Massachusetts Global Entrepreneur in Residence Program. Private companies have been able to retain them because they have capexempt H-1B status, and those private companies in the six years since our program started have hired thousands of U.S. workers, since they were able to capture these valuable H-1B workers. They have landed hundreds of millions in venture capital funding, all of that money staying here in Massachusetts. It’s been a win-winwin situation 

Denzil Mohammed[People say] I thought that if an immigrant took a job, that’s one less job for Americans.” And youre saying no, that an immigrant gets a job in the U.S. at a high-growth company, and that actually helps make the company grow and offer more jobs to more U.S.-born people. 

Jeff Goldman: If there’s ever a time in our nation’s history we need to celebrate this and expand it and grow it, it’s now. And we need to continue to be the attraction, the beacon of where these innovators and entrepreneurs want to be. We need to be inviting and welcoming and consistent. That’s what is so desperately needed in our immigration system. 

Denzil Mohammed: Consistency. And I guess for a short time, we didn’t have that consistency, and we saw the number of students applying to universities here drop during the last administration. There was even an article in Forbes by Stuart Anderson, who predicted that legal immigration to the U.S. would have dropped by as much as 49% because of the Trump administration’s policies. But talk a little bit about your clients and your networks. What are the kinds of products and services and technologies you’ve seen your clients come up with, and how do you see them benefiting the ecosystem here in Boston? 

Jeff Goldman: Well, some of the amazing clients I’ve had the privilege of working with are teams out of MIT, who are miles ahead in the effort to take ocean water and desalinate it and make it potable drinking water. This is something that people have talked about for hundreds and thousands of years. Wouldn’t that be amazing? And I think we’re closer than ever, and it’s foreign nationals out of MIT that are among the leaders working on this right now. I’m convinced that we wouldn’t have vaccines for COVID had it not been for the use of technology, and immigrants are by far and large behind the advancement of combining technology and science. I have clients in the engineering space finding solutions for 3D printing that actually is printing PPE gear, the protective gear that nurses and doctors need. Can you imagine that they’re now making this all out of 3D printing? All foreign nationals who came up with the algorithms and with the strategies and with the startup companies that are producing these materials. 

Denzil MohammedYou talk about vaccines. Charles Pfizer, co-founder of Pfizer, and Noubar Afeyan and Derrick Rossi, co-founders of Moderna. So, yes, we probably would not have had those vaccines if it weren’t for immigrants. So really incredible things that happen when we allow foreign talent to come here and innovate with Americans. You’re also the chair of the governor’s Advisory Council on Immigrants and Refugees. Now, I remember that in 2009, the previous council had developed a very meticulous Massachusetts New Americans Agenda. It contained detailed proposals and recommendations to bring out the best in the states immigrants and refugees, and covered everything from housing and language access to workforce development and civil rights. Where are we with this Massachusetts New Americans Agenda? Have any of the recommendations come to pass? 

Jeff Goldman: Yes. Without question, several of the recommendations have come to pass, and I can talk about a few of them. The first thing is informing or suggesting to the highest levels of our government to recognize the importance of immigrants in our economy. And without question, the last several governors who we have had in the state have celebrated the contributions of immigrants. Governor Baker himself has done so much to make sure the immigrant communities understand that they are valued and welcome in the economy, and that they are aware that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts cares. Just a few days ago, Governor Baker was among the first governors in the entire United States to issue a statement advising all Afghan citizens of the Commonwealth that they are welcome here, that we are here to help them find solutions. He has repeatedly spoken in public about the need for immigrants to get COVID testing and vaccines, and he’s even let the undocumented immigrant community know that they are absolutely welcome to participate in COVID vaccines and COVID testing. This doesn’t go on around the entire country. Another recommendation of the group you’re talking about was to find ways to integrate legal immigrants in the Commonwealth into the professions and everyday fabric of American life in the Commonwealth. And since that recommendation has been made, a lot of money has been put into the state budget to help integration, starting with naturalization. It’s really hard to integrate immigrants if they don’t want to step forward and be part of the Massachusetts cultural and civic environment, and naturalizing foreign nationals who are eligible to become legal citizens of the United States is really the starting point. So ever since the Commonwealth has added to its budget the efforts of the Massachusetts Office of Refugees and Immigrants to help naturalize foreign nationals, I think the number of naturalizations of Massachusetts immigrants has just exponentially expanded, I can’t give you the exact number. One of the biggest parts of the New American Agenda was to find ways to help new Americans, legal foreign nationals, work in the very careers in which they were trained outside the U.S., specifically doctors and nurses. And the Commonwealth successfully did help foreign doctors who might not yet be licensed due to the very restrictive licensing rules we have in the Commonwealth and across the United States for doctors. There was the ability during the COVID crisis to permit foreign doctors to help with some of the urgent medical needs that came about during COVID. 

Denzil Mohammed: You did make a lot of distinctions in terms of what Massachusetts has done for legal immigrants, and you did mention COVID testing for undocumented immigrants. I would venture to suggest that immigrants, documented or not, are all part of our economy. You take undocumented immigrants out, and who’s going to pick half of the fruits and vegetables in this country, who is going to take care of the sick? So in a sense, you can’t always parse out, let’s say for instance, federal aid that went out last year, not to families with undocumented immigrants. Massachusetts nonprofits got together and formed the MassUndocuFund to help fill that gap. Several other states, even red states, have done things that Massachusetts has not for its undocumented population. Things like offering in-state tuition to undocumented students, something as simple as that, so that they could continue and contribute more. Where do you see Massachusetts having not met the grade? 

Jeff Goldman: I think Massachusetts celebrates immigrants. I think we do a lot to help even the undocumented. However, it is true, we have not passed a law allowing for in-state tuition, and we have not passed a law allowing undocumented people to have driver’s licenses, even though there’s much out there showing that this is a benefit to all, that it does not take away. It’s a very sensitive subject. And I can’t say I support, but I respect Governor Baker’s opinion that now is not the time to push these issues. But I think overall, even undocumented people would say that Massachusetts has done a pretty good job of helping them with their lives and permitting them to continue to add to the economy as best as they can. But we’re progressive, we’re smart. We understand the deep, deep connection between all immigrants, both documented and undocumented, in this economy. 

Denzil Mohammed: Jeff Goldman, I could talk to you forever about these topics, and there’s so much more I want to get into, but I think we’re out of time for JobMakers this week. Thank you so much for making the time to do this. I really appreciate your insights, your perspectives and the information that you were able to bring to the audience. Thank you so much. 

Jeff Goldman: Thank you, Denzil, and thanks to all the listeners out there for listening to me today. Have a great day. 

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center of Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for this week’s fascinating discussion on how immigrant talent makes a better U.S. If you know someone we should talk to, email denzil@jobmakerspodcast.org. Leave us a review on your favorite streaming service, too. I’m Denzil Mohammed. Join us next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 23: Trevor Mattos

JobMakers podcast logo: Trevor Mattos shows how Massachusetts runs on immigrantsOn behalf of The Boston Foundation, Trevor Mattos studies how immigrants have positively impacted the economy in every sector, from small businesses to biotech. His work goes beyond the economy, though, and demonstrates how diversity itself is an incredible benefit to U.S.-born and foreign-born Americans. Listen to learn how he can prove it.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed, and this is JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Did you know that without immigration, Massachusetts would have lost congressional seats? Immigrants made up 90 percent of the region’s population rebound since 1990. Indeed, Massachusetts has always run on immigrants. In 1910, 36 percent of Boston’s population was born outside the country. In the Commonwealth today, there are more than one million immigrants making up about one in six residents. And while the immigrants of today may come from different parts of the world than before, the reasons are the same as they were back in 1910, freedom, opportunity, a better life. For Trevor Mattos, research manager at Boston Indicators, the research center at The Boston Foundation, educating those in city government and on Beacon Hill on the important contributions of immigrants is paramount, particularly in a time of divisive misinformation about immigrants and the precariousness of the pandemic. Trevor’s research reveals the disproportionately large impact immigrant workers, entrepreneurs and innovators are having on the local economy, from Kendall Square in Cambridge to the Latin Quarter in Jamaica Plain. His research goes further, however, to show how our increasing diversity enriches the lives of all Americans, new or old, and gives us a competitive edge, as you’ll learn in this week’s JobMakers. 

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Denzil Mohammed: Trevor Mattos of the Boston Indicators project, thank you for joining us on JobMakers. 

Trevor Mattos: Thanks for having me. 

Denzil Mohammed: So tell us about your organization and mission. What do you do and why do you do it? 

Trevor Mattos: So I am the Research Manager of Boston Indicators, which is the research center based at The Boston Foundation, which of course is the longstanding community foundation of our region of Greater Boston. What I do is analyze key indicators of social economic wellbeing. We research ideas for making our city, and I’m curving a little bit from our mission statement here, to make our city more prosperous, more equitable, more just. And we do a lot of this in partnership with other researchers, civic leaders, community groups. The output of all of that is oftentimes reports, research briefs, public forums. In the context of the pandemic all that’s virtual, but normally we’d get a whole bunch of people together at The Boston Foundation offices downtown and present some findings, have a discussion. At least from my personal perspective, I’ve always been interested in using rigorous analysis, research, to better understand our economic challenges, and the opportunities that are facing our population. Ultimately, full disclosure, what I’m interested in is creating positive change, reducing poverty, increasing access to opportunity more broadly. And then there’s a little bit of the personal side too, where, at least for the context of today’s discussion, I’m a second generation immigrant with family roots back in Peru and South America. I’m pretty deeply inspired by the courage and the journeys that immigrants like my mother took to the United States, and many others do every year, in pursuit of greater opportunity. So that’s sort of what brings me to the work, a little bit of my vantage point, if you will. 

Denzil Mohammed: You brought up making Boston more prosperous, equitable and just. If you had to rank those as to what really guides your research, what would you say is number one? 

Trevor Mattos: I would say the question of equity, and I’m using that in a really broad way. Certainly racial equity is a very important part of the work that we do, but economic inequality, in its own right, I think is a big issue in Boston, in our region, in our state. And we are a very wealthy state. So I think I’m interested in more equity. And so it gets back to the shared prosperity as well. I don’t know, how’s that for a ranking? [laughs] 

Denzil Mohammed: Sure, I mean, more equitable prosperity!  

Trevor Mattos: It’s all very intertwined. 

Denzil Mohammed: Exactly. So you’ve been able to see immigration in Boston, but I’m sure you also have a sort of historical perspective on Boston and the Greater Boston region’s immigrants. Who are Boston’s immigrants and how has it changed over the years? 

Trevor Mattos: So we have all kinds of different immigrants coming from all parts of the world. Really, really diverse group of people with many different skills and talents and experiences. I can say that looking back several decades, if we were say back in 1990, you’d see top immigrant subgroups in Greater Boston: Canada, Italy and Portugal, more of that former wave of immigration. Whereas more recently, if you look around, what we’re seeing is large and growing immigrant populations from China, from the Dominican Republic, from Brazil. So you can see they’re both different regions, but also sort of spread far and wide as well more recently. 

Denzil Mohammed: And one thing that’s unique about Massachusetts is that we don’t have one particular sending country that sort of outnumbers all the others, like the top three or the top five are almost neck and neck: China, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Haiti. So that’s something different as opposed to places like Texas or Florida, where you have Mexicans and Cubans. So from your research, what has been the impact of immigration on Greater Boston or Massachusetts? Has it been positive or negative, and in what areas have you seen this negative or positive impact? 

Trevor Mattos: Great question. I would certainly characterize it as positive. That’s my perspective, I think there’s good evidence to support it. If you sort of take a look back, I don’t think Greater Boston has always attracted the highly educated immigrant workforce that it does today, but it certainly does today. And I think this is part of the broader, longer-term changes that we’ve seen in the local economy. The economy of today is vastly different than it was even 15, 20 years ago, let alone if you look further back than that. But I would say, in terms of an impact, one thing that was definitely true then, and it is now as well, is that the vast majority of immigrants, they come to Boston to work hard, they make vital contributions, I would argue, to our communities, they have very high rates of labor force participation, many of them are very highly educated. There’s sort of two different slices, I guess, of our broader immigrant population in the region, and not all are highly educated, but many of them are. And in fact, they are overall, I would say, more highly educated than the U.S. population is, broadly speaking. So including both native and foreignborn, the total U.S. population has a lower rate of higher education than you’d see among immigrants in Greater Boston. So I think that just brings a lot of value. And even immigrants that come with less education are also working in really important industries and occupations. They’re working in agriculture, manufacturing, construction, food, hospitality. These are core sectors of our economy. And when you think about it just on scale, if you think about the state overall, state’s got seven million people in itI think we’re talking 1.2 million immigrants in the mix. One in six residents of Massachusetts is an immigrant. So you can think about just how critical that is to making our economy function. In terms of other characteristics, other sort of economic impact that immigrants have, there arthese trends that you see where when there’s a scarcity of labor, research shows that immigrants are more agile in going to fill open jobs in different regions, different parts of the state, different parts of the country. So we benefit from that. And then another big thing, and this is true in Massachusetts as much as it is anywhere else in the country, and this has to do with our aging population. And so I think immigrants are sort of mitigating the impact of the older, whiter population aging out of the workforce, which of course also brings with it a whole bunch of value. 

Denzil Mohammed: I find it fascinating that you talked about lowskilled immigrants in our region’s past. And we think about people who came to New Bedford as fishermen from Portugal. And we also have lowerskilled immigrants today who are cleaning buildings. And we see that, especially during the COVID pandemic, they make up such great proportions, almost half of our agricultural workforce, but they’re also three tenths of our physicians and huge numbers of our home health aides. People seem to forget that low-skilled immigrants have always been attracted to the U.S., as well as high-skilled immigrants, but it’s those people who had their backs against the wall, who didn’t have opportunity, who didn’t have choice back then, whether it was the Irish Potato Famine, whether it was war and genocide, whether it was a Holocaust, whether it was natural disaster that forced them to flee. And another thing you brought up was the nimbleness of immigrants when it comes to work. A lot of people seem to have the perception that, if you make somewhere a sanctuary city, immigrants are going to flock there, and there’s going to be all these negative consequences, or if you have driver’s license for undocumented immigrants, that’s what moves them. No, they go where the jobs are. They go to the poultry factories, they go to the meat packing plants in Nebraska, non-traditional gateway cities. And we’ve always seen that throughout our history, right? 

Trevor Mattos: Absolutely. And I would add to that, that there’s I think another misconception, or certainly a debate that’s raged on for quite some time, even amongst the economists that are out there, that has to do with the idea of immigrants going to take the jobs of other deserving, native-born workers. And although some of the econometric, technical parts of that debate seemed to rage on pretty endlessly, I would say that there is a consensus that when immigrants go and they work and they start businesses, that they’re just growing the economy, there’s a multiplier effect here. And so when you really look at things in the aggregate, I think not only is it the case that there’s a good deal of consensus that immigrants aren’t coming to take our jobs, but it’s that, more broadly, they’re adding so much more to the economy. Every dollar that they are spending, every job that they’re creating in their businesses, it just sort of adds extra fuel to the economy, which is so important as well. 

Denzil Mohammed: And I want to remind our listeners that in 1910, the foreign-born population of Boston was 36 percent. It’s 28 percent today, but it’s not the highest it’s ever been. So it’s not something that’s as [inaudible] as it has been in Boston’s past. And as we bring up the past, population loss. We recently had census data released and certain states lost congressional seats like California, and others gained like Texas. Massachusetts was able to hold onto all of its congressional seats. Why did that happen? What was responsible for that? 

Trevor Mattos: I would certainly point to growth in the immigrant population. I know that the data we’ve crunched shows that since 1990, more than 90 percent of our net population growth has been due to new immigrants coming into our region. So, that just speaks volumes about, you know, could you imagine what would have happened in the absence of that population growth? So I think that’s just huge. And when you look at the specific groups, folks of Latinx origins have among one of the highest rates of growth of any racial group in Greater Boston. At one point back in 1990, we saw them at less than 5 percent of our region’s total population. They’re now pushing 13 percent Asian Americans were, back in 1990, less than 3 percent of our region’s population. Now they’re pushing almost 10 percent. So you see really, really fast growth that as you point out, has been vital for our civic life and our wellbeing in a much broader sense as a state. 

Denzil Mohammed: According to researcher David Kalik, no metro city has been able to rebound from the slump in the sixties and seventies without immigration. Not that immigration caused their economic prosperity from the 2000s onward, from 1990 onward, but mostly it hasn’t been able to do it without international migration. That’s a really, really important point. Tell me about what role immigrants play in our workforce, and talk about your experience with immigrants as entrepreneurs. 

Trevor Mattos: Absolutely. And just to add a little color behind some of that as well, I would suggest that immigrants, even beyond just the raw economic contributions, which I’ll get into in just a moment, are bringing a level of diversity, there’s ethnic and racial diversity, but there’s also diversity of thought, and I would suggest that that is part of the creativity as well. There’s another linkage there where we see the innovative spirit that you’re getting at. So huge swaths of our frontline workforce that have sustained us all during the pandemic are indeed entrepreneurs. But beyond that, as you mentioned, there’s so much innovation, there’s so much of an entrepreneurial spirit. And we’ve done a little bit of research on this recently at Boston Indicators, and at the very least, I know, to put one number in your mind, that nationally speaking, some of the most recent data suggest that immigrants have a rate of entrepreneurship that is double that of nativeborn workers. And we see that play out all throughout our region, but I think as we are trying to transition out of this pandemic, as we’re trying to look towards a recovery, these are the job creators, these are the creators of new ideas, really adding so much value. 

Denzil Mohammed: So you’re saying that immigrants are JobMakers. 

Trevor Mattos: [Laughs] That’s exactly right, yes. 

Denzil Mohammed: Dig a little bit deeper into immigrant entrepreneurship. As you said, immigrants are twice as likely to found a business compared to the U.S.-born. Even during the Great Recession, the rate of business generation among immigrants increased, whereas it decreased among the U.S.-born, and I think that points to the nimbleness that you spoke about earlier. They are able to adapt to these changing environments, just because of the fact that they’ve moved to another country, they’ve had to adapt to different laws, different cultures, different languages. And I do also like the idea that you brought about when it comes to diversity. Diversity is a contentious issue for some people as though the U.S. is, and has always been, some sort of homogenous nation, but what’s our favorite fast food? Taco Bell. We are lucky to be able to have Thai food and Mexican food and Chinese food. And that’s just one example of how immigration has enriched the U.S. Italian food, Irish food, German food. Apple pie is not even an American thing, it was brought over here with foreign influences. So the idea of diversity somehow being negative, I think some people probably have fallen into an area where they just are accustomed to it, and they don’t realize the diversity that has made the U.S. what it is. But again, going into entrepreneurship a little bit, can you highlight some areas of Greater Boston or industries that have specifically benefited from immigrants starting businesses? 

Trevor Mattos: You see the impact of that entrepreneurial spirit, and even just taking a step back from entrepreneurship, just of the high level of skill that so many immigrants bring. And so I think you’re right to think about Cambridge, to think about the 128 corridor, where you have tech, you have pharmaceuticals, and you have folks coming in with a lot of educational skills, folks that are coming from other countries to gain those skills at our universities, and then, I think in the best case scenario, sticking around to start new companies, and to sort of drive the clusters of innovation that we see in places like Kendall Square in Cambridge. But I think there’s one that hits perhaps a little closer to home for our day in, day out lives, walking up and down the streets, it’s looking more closely at the main street businesses that we go into on a more regular basis, I think shape our day-to-day lives a bit more. And I can think of two examples in Boston. One of them is the neighborhood that I live in, and this is in Jamaica Plain’s Latin Quarter in Hyde Square. The other one is in Dorchester in Field’s Corner. And I think these are two super vibrant examples, two places that have benefited tremendously from immigrant entrepreneurs. And you name I think probably one of our favorite examples, just being the variety of cuisine. I think we are so blessed, certainly in my neighborhood in JP, whether it’s Dominican, Cuban, all kinds of different Latin American restaurants that have cropped up, and then looking over to Field’s Corner, to Savin Hill in Dorchester, seeing all the Vietnamese offerings, but we also happen to have two Ethiopian restaurants just around the corner, and it’s a privilege to be able to enjoy some of those amenities, I would say. 

Denzil MohammedEthiopian food in the Latin Quarter, are you serious? 

Trevor Mattos: I am so serious about that [laughs]. The Blue Nile, check it out. 

Denzil Mohammed: Oh right, I forgot about that! So, given this net economic benefit that you’re talking about, this complementary workforce, this larger than population labor force participation, this great economic benefit that we’ve had, what is your view on what has been happening in the past few years with the federal administration’s dramatic crackdown on legal immigration to the U.S.? 

Trevor Mattos: So perhaps unsurprisingly to your listeners, I’m quite critical of the way, certainly the Trump administration, attacked our immigration system at all levels. That isn’t to suggest that other Democratic administrations haven’t been part of the problem in some cases, I would certainly contend that as well. But I think the nature of the actions that the Trump administration took were just kind of on another level. And I think Trump and his allies, they really cut to the core of the legal structures that are in place to serve immigrants, and many of these immigrants were fleeing instability, fleeing violence. And it’s worth saying, perhaps as an aside, that many of the countries, not all, but some of them certainly in Central America, that immigrants are fleeing, you know, we have a large and growing Salvadoran population in Greater Boston, think of Chelsea, East Boston, et cetera. That’s a country that the United States has a long history of involvement with, and I think some of the instability we see today is not at all disconnected from the interventions of the past. The changes that the Trump administration made, many of the times through just executive order, through rule changes, they really completely subverted what had been codified into law, and asylum is one example of this. They basically threw due process out the window when it came to immigrants coming to the Southern border. 

Denzil Mohammed: It’s funny that you mentioned U.S. involvement in other countries instability, which leads to more immigrants, refugees and asylees from these countries. One word: Afghanistan. And what will our reaction be, particularly in certain parts of the country, about resettling Afghan families who are fleeing what is certainly to be a very devastating Taliban administration? Whether you’re talking about economics, or social issues, or cultural issues, immigration is tied into our communities, our industries, our labor force. So it’s not a separate issue. If you take immigrants out, whether it’s documented or undocumented immigrants, everyone is going to feel the impact. Everyone will suffer. That’s a really important point, and I’m glad that you made it. The lines are blurred, and it’s always been that way, because America has always been a nation that has been founded on the idea of attracting people from other places whose commonality is not their ancestry or their religion, but their desire for freedom and opportunity. Would you agree? 

Trevor Mattos: I would, absolutely. Very well said. 

Denzil Mohammed: Thank you so much, Trevor Mattos of Boston Indicators, for joining us on JobMakers. It was a real pleasure talking to you. 

Trevor Mattos: Yes, thank you so much for having me.  

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contributions produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center of Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for this week’s fascinating discussion on how immigrants have enriched Massachusetts. If you know someone we should talk to, email denzil@jobmakerspodcast.org. Leave us a review on your favorite streaming service too. I’m Denzil Mohammed. Join us next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 22: Danielle Goldman

JobMakers podcast logo: Danielle Goldman on why the U.S. needs immigrant talentDanielle Goldman joins the podcast to discuss how she helps growing companies connect with in-demand, highly skilled immigrant workers. Through Open Avenues Foundation, Goldman “opens avenues” for the United States to welcome foreign-born innovators and entrepreneurs. Tune in to discover how a well-timed H-1B visa is responsible for a technology that many businesses and families have relied upon during the COVID-19 crisis.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed, and this is JobMakers. 

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Denzil Mohammed: I know, we’re all “Zoomed” out. A year and a half of Zoom classes and meetings and interviews has definitely taken its toll. But ultimately, aren’t we incredibly grateful and lucky to have had this technology in the first place? For our kids, our jobs, our health care, even to see family members we couldn’t visit? But do you know why we were so lucky to have Zoom? Because after getting rejected for a visa eight times, the U.S. finally allowed Eric Yuan from China, Zoom’s founder, to come and stay in the U.S. For Danielle Goldman, co-founder and executive director of the Open Avenues Foundation in Boston, Yuan is an important example of why the U.S. needs to retain the high skill, foreign-born students and workers who benefit from a U.S. higher education. The Open Avenues Foundation developed a unique model that affords high-growth companies and start-ups the chance to retain the talent they need through cap-exempt H1-B visas, no matter where they come from, in highly competitive industries where talent is scarce. This grows our workforce to the benefit of American workers. And, as we saw with Zoom, can create indispensable innovation when we need it most, as you learn in this week’s JobMakers.  

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Denzil Mohammed: Danielle Goldman, thank you for joining us on JobMakers. 

Danielle Goldman: Thanks so much for having me, Denzil. 

Denzil Mohammed: Tell us a little bit about the Open Avenues Foundation. 

Danielle Goldman: Open Avenues is a non-profit based here in Massachusetts. We were started in 2018 at the height of the Trump administration and everything that was going on with migrant families being separated at the border. I was actually working as a consultant at the time, not in anything immigration related, but I grew up with an immigration attorney as a father and it was a huge part of my life, and so my father and I actually co-founded Open Avenues to change the narrative about immigrants and demonstrate the value of foreign nationals in the United States. We felt like that was a really important story to tell in that moment. Open Avenues is a non-profit that’s actually education-focused, and we are working to demonstrate that foreign nationals can actually train the future workforce. So Open Avenues is a workforce development program, we are really excited about the fellowship that we run and I’m sure we’ll dive into that a bit more in a few minutes, but ultimately, we’re showcasing that foreign nationals in the U.S. are very talented individuals who are working at high-growth companies and can also create jobs for U.S. workers. 

Denzil Mohammed: Explain to me that very important point of the value of foreign-born high-skilled workers to the U.S. as a whole. 

Danielle Goldman: Open Avenues partners with high-growth companies typically in STEM fields, but we also work with companies in finance and business. Our companies are coming to us. Typically we work with HR professionals who are managing talent acquisition and trying to find ways to fill their talent gaps at the companies and we are a solution for them to retain foreign talent. Our global talent fellowship is a visa solution, it’s a leadership development solution for these foreign nationals, and when I talk to HR representatives the reason why they’re willing to invest right now in foreign talent and nominate them for our global talent fellowship program is because there are talent challenges at these growing companies. They have tens to hundreds of job openings in these technical STEM fields, and even if they don’t have job openings, sometimes they’ve just identified a really extraordinary candidate from outside of the United States. I think one of the things I’ve learned is that people and talent are not just numbers. They’re not just seats that are filled. Companies are looking for the best of the best and when they find them, they will do anything to have them stay in the U.S. and help them grow their companies, and sometimes those individuals are foreign nationals and they need to find ways as an employer to ensure that that those individuals can continue to help them grow their companies. 

Denzil Mohammed: You talk about how the challenges of finding talent, the challenges of retaining talent, depending on where they come from, is extraordinary when it comes to our immigration system. Could you just give us a sense of what this work visa is like and how it poses a challenge to companies? 

Danielle Goldman: Yeah. It’s really important to understand that our country’s top work visa, the most popular work visa, is called the H-1B, and it is built upon a randomized lottery system. We have hundreds of thousands of international students in the United States right now who are graduating from U.S. universities, they are educated by U.S. professors, they intern at U.S. companies and they’re getting a U.S. education. And when they graduate they are given practical training, optional practical training, from the U.S. government, and that’s one short opportunity they have. And after they finish their practical training the number one, and really for many people the only pathway they have, is to enter into this randomized lottery system which is capped at 85,000 individuals per year. So we’re looking at hundreds of thousands of individuals finishing O.P.T. (optional practical training) every year after receiving a U.S. education and then having to enter a randomized lottery. And hundreds of thousands of individuals are getting shut out. And the only option for some of those individuals is to go home, and that is really challenging and frustrating for companies who have invested in hiring those individuals for a few years during their O.P.T, and it’s really frustrating for the foreign nationals who have received this U.S. education and are willing to invest their talent into U.S. companies. It doesn’t really make sense from that perspective. There are a few organizations that are exempt from this lottery system, they’re called “cap exempt organizations,” and that’s what Open Avenues is. We’re a non-profit that is affiliated with the universities and we are exempt from this cap. 

Denzil Mohammed: That’s a really good explanation. You know getting that U.S. education, paying into U.S. universities as an international student, is so much more than in-state tuition. First of all, it’s a lifeline for many schools, and having that talent, growing that talent, and then shutting them out seems to not make a lot of sense. The H-1B has been a very contentious issue for many years I know, but the fact is shutting out talent really is not going to benefit the U.S. and that just seems to be a no-brainer. Tell us a little bit about how your program works, the nuts and bolts of it, and where that inspiration came from. 

Danielle Goldman: Sure. So as I started to mention, there are few organizations that are exempt from this H-1B lottery system. Congress deemed these types of institutions exempt because Congress knows the value that these organizations can provide to U.S. society. The four types of organizations are universities, non-profit research institutions, government research institutions, and non-profits that are affiliated or partnered with universities. And Open Avenues is a non-profit that is affiliated with universities. So Open Avenues is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, we actually go into affiliation and sign partnership agreements with our university partners around the United States, and what we do is we’ve built a fellowship program where we’re able to hire global talent who are working at high-growth companies who have been shut out of this lottery system and we are able to hire them for five hours per week of part-time work. And during that time we have them placed at our university partners and they launch career development and STEM education projects for students to train in those fields, get experiential learning and prepare to enter that future workforce. We call this the Global Talent Fellowship because our fellows are international individuals working at high-growth companies. In terms of inspiration, all of this again stems from our mission to demonstrate the value of foreign talent. My co-founder Jeff has a long history of innovation within immigration, he’s very entrepreneurial in the space, he started the Global Entrepreneur in Residence (“GEIR”) program with Governor Deval Patrick back in 2016, which also leverages the cap-exempt H-1B portion of immigration law with universities. And the GEIR program does the same model for universities and is open to founders. Open Avenues Foundation has built a program that leverages the cap exempt H-1B visa but helps mid- to senior-level employees who are critical to the growth of companies stay here in the United States through our fellowship. 

Denzil Mohammed: And might I remind our listeners that Zoom was founded by an immigrant, a high-skilled immigrant. 

Danielle Goldman: [laughs] Very important point. 

Denzil Mohammed: There is a narrative out there that a foreign-trained, foreign-born worker comes in and gets a job, that’s one less job for Americans. Anyone who studies economics knows that the economy is far more complex than that. I want to learn more about some of your fellows and some of their stories. Explain to me, and explain to our listeners, how this benefits the U.S. 

Danielle Goldman: Our fellows range from founders of companies, some are mid- to senior-level employees at companies, all of them are owning projects, owning products and building out teams. When they grow their product at a company, or when they conduct their research at a company, what ultimately happens is there is a demand for more talent to support what they develop. It happens with our mid-level scientists who are working at therapeutic companies and developing new technologies or new therapies where their research ultimately leads to more jobs being created. It happens when our founders are able to stay in the United States and ultimately build their companies here and hire talent. So I can tell you through the stories of our fellows, but that’s what ultimately happens, economics aside this is literally happening on the ground in front of me, I have the picture in my head of what is happening, and Open Avenues continues to try to share these stories of the successes of when our fellows stay in the United States, what they are able to build for their companies, which translates to new jobs. And on the other side of what we do, our fellows are training U.S. students to go into their field, so we are also showing that when foreign nationals stay in the United States they are able to contribute to the growth of U.S. students and open jobs for these students.  Our fellows are thrilled to contribute to U.S. society and say, ‘we love to be here in the United States, we feel lucky to be growing careers here, and we want to give back.’ They want to ensure that U.S. students at community colleges and technical institutions, these are the schools we’re partnered with by the way, that the students who are from underrepresented communities, from the middle of the country, that those individuals who might not have been exposed to some of these high-growth companies yet are connected through our fellows to these hiring companies. And that is really important for the economic growth in the United States. 

Denzil Mohammed: You talk about immigrants as job-makers, that’s such a unique thing to say!  

Danielle Goldman: [laughs]

Denzil Mohammed: Immigrants are twice as likely to start a business, we know that they are the ones who are driving the growth of mainstream businesses. If we did not have immigrants we would not have the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, they both had immigrant founders. Tell us another story, as you intimated a moment ago, this idea of these foreign-trained people who study here wanting to give back. That’s a narrative we don’t hear a lot about, either. 

Danielle Goldman: Yeah it’s true, we definitely know that that’s the sentiment. You don’t learn about that sentiment of giving back, necessarily, from news articles, right, but when you talk to immigrants and you have conversations with these individuals, these individuals really appreciate the opportunities that they are given in the United States and I find from my conversations that it actually is really exciting for them to be able to also contribute here. It’s how people feel included, by giving back to society and by doing more for others, you actually feel like you are part of that society and not a stranger or on the outside. So our foreign talent love to be part of this of this fellowship and it’s absolutely one of the benefits that foreign talent get when they participate, is that inclusion. And companies know that, that’s part of why companies want their foreign nationals to participate in our program, because it is a major benefit for them.  

Danielle Goldman: Regarding some of our stories, we have an amazing cohort of talent. First of all, the companies we partner with are really exciting. I encourage anyone who’s listening to go to our website and take a look, at bottom of our home page we have the 30 logos from our partner companies that are linked to their websites, and we’re just so excited by the growing partnerships. Our partners are working across STEM fields, we are looking for high-growth companies that are focused on some of our biggest challenges in the United States and are also innovating and creating new technologies. We have startup companies that are working on micro-bakeries because COVID really changed the way that we eat, and they’re driven by robots which is just really cool and innovative. We have fellows that are working on cancer therapies for pharmaceutical companies, we have bioinformatics fellows working on A.I. to address precision medicine and questions in precision medicine. One of my favorite stories is from during COVID. We had a fellow working at a company based in Cambridge, it was a company out of MIT Media Lab, it was a 3D printing company and they were able to print materials that were going to be used across industries. One of the industries that they wanted to use these materials for was the medical device industry, but they hadn’t really tapped into the market yet. And then COVID hit, and they had the machines built they had the software ready to go, and what they did was they ended up printing testing swabs, and they started to 3D print these testing swabs. And our fellow was the second employee at this company and led all of the software behind this. He was from Germany, hadn’t won the H-1B lottery, and was going to have to go home. He would have been printing those testing swabs but he would have been doing it somewhere else, because he’s such a brilliant human, and we were so excited to learn that this company, with Yannick our fellow on board, was able to pivot and address something that was so critical to the medical industry at the time and to the United States. And so that was just one story I love about what can happen when these minds and these individuals, this talent, are in the United States and are working for U.S. companies here. Our fellow led projects related to developing the software behind the 3D printing machines with our with our students at our university partners, so he was doing his awesome work and then also letting students know about this awesome work and training them to potentially do that work in the future. And that’s the beauty of this program,  it’s not just about the foreign nationals working for these high growth companies, it’s also about them enlightening and empowering students to also solve some of these pressing challenges for the United States.

Denzil Mohammed: Finally Danielle, if you had to succinctly make the case to the American public that high-skill workers who may have been born elsewhere are a net benefit to us, that their presence here is an asset to the country, to American workers, how would you frame that narrative? 

Danielle Goldman: The fact that Open Avenues Foundation needs to exist tells us that there is a problem within our current immigration system. It is not helping companies reach the level of talent they need, and retain the talent they need, to thrive. That is a huge problem for the growth of our economy. We need to empower companies to ultimately have the talent they need to grow to their optimal potential, and we’re not there right now. So, foreign nationals are filling these gaps, and more importantly they’re not just filling these gaps, they’re creating new gaps. Foreign nationals, as we talked about, are filling current gaps at U.S. companies that ultimately leads to new growth and new creation of new departments. It’s not a zero-sum game and we need to stop looking at it that way. We need to look at what happens over time through data points. Open Avenues is creating new data points that we can ultimately look at. When our foreign nationals are staying in the United States they are creating new jobs for our U.S. university partners and the students there, so that’s really exciting for us to be able to demonstrate. And ultimately, I’m going to have a much better answer for you, Denzil, because all of the data that we’re collecting is going to change this narrative and be able to show this succinctly, and I’m really excited that in the next few years we’re going to have a lot more data about what our fellows have been able to achieve and how many U.S. students have been placed at these companies. 

Denzil Mohammed: And you’re barely three years old as an organization. Danielle Goldman from the Open Avenues Foundation, thank you so much for joining us on JobMakers, it was a real pleasure to be enlightened on the kind of work that you’re doing and how important it is to America. 

Danielle Goldman: Denzil thanks so much for having me, it was a really important conversation, and I am thrilled to have it. 

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center of Massachusetts, the not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you so much for joining us for this week’s fascinating discussion on how immigrant talent makes a better U.S. if you know someone we should talk to, email Denzil at [email protected]. Leave us a review on your favorite streaming service, too. I’m Denzil Mohammed, join us next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.

Episode 21: James Witte

JobMakers podcast logo: Prof. James Witte on immigration disinformationDirector of the Institute for Immigration Research James Witte shares how he uses immigration data, research and stories to combat misinformation and disinformation about immigrants. He also discusses the challenges of communicating accurate, data-based information in the current media ecosystem. Listen to hear an academic’s take on the positive impact of immigrants on the United States.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed, and this is JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: What’s the total foreign-born share of the U.S. population? What do you think it is? It’s 13.7 percent. That’s a fact. Now, do you believe me? Misinformation and disinformation about immigration in the U.S. is ubiquitous, and it’s easy to fall victim to the short, false soundbites we keep hearing from politicians. For Professor James Witte, director of the Institute for Immigration Research, getting the facts about U.S. immigration out to the public is one thing, getting them to believe facts is another. The Institute for Immigration Research is a joint venture between George Mason University and The Immigrant Learning Center of Malden, Massachusetts, the co-producer of this podcast. One of the goals of the Institute’s work is to position the immigration data, research and stories within a framework of inclusiveness where Americans will be able to see that they are not disconnected from immigration. We all, U.S.-born and foreign-born, help power this country’s economy, enrich its culture and make it the powerhouse that it is. Professor Witte also helps explain the resistance to immigrants and facts about them, and how we can counter that, in this week’s JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Professor James Witte, Jim, welcome to JobMakers.

James Witte: I’m very glad to be here, Denzil, it’s a pleasure.

Denzil Mohammed: Thank you for joining us. Tell us a little bit about what you and the Institute for Immigration Research do and why this work is important today.

James Witte: The Institute for Immigration Research was created in 2012 on the initiative and generous support of The Immigrant Learning Center. And then in partnership with George Mason University, we have grown the institute over, I guess we’re going to have our 10-year anniversary at some point soon. What we do is we really try to highlight the various types of contributions that immigrants make to America. Our focus is on America, immigrants to the United States and U.S. immigration policy. And so there we’ve done a full gamut of topics that we have addressed. Those include things at the very high skill level, like physicians or scientists, as far as the Nobel Prize winners and where immigrants have made great contributions there. But then also we think about jobs that don’t require the same degree of education and skill, like being a truck driver, or the roles that a number of immigrants, along with their native-born compatriots, played during COVID-19 as essential workers: cleaning hospitals, stocking grocery store shelves. All of that to show that the immigrants are working shoulder to shoulder with the native-born to maintain, get us through the pandemic, recover from it and then eventually to grow the U.S. economy. Our primary focus is on the economic contributions. As we went into the pandemic, unemployment in the United States was under 4 percent. That’s a real signal that without our foreign-born workers, we would have been in real trouble. Economic growth would have slowed. And now as we pull ourselves out of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re still going to need those workers across the entire spectrum of the labor force. Beyond the economic, we’ve done a lot of work on civic engagement and the extent to which immigrants participate in civic life in the United States, both in very informal ways, you know, volunteering with different civic organizations, and then also politically. We’ve seen an increase in either immigrants or children of immigrants in politics in the United States in the last 10 or 15 years, and that’s really a good thing. They’re not called representatives for nothing, you know. They represent a population, and the U.S. population right now is close to 14 percent foreign-born. And then we have to consider also the children of the foreign-born who are U.S. citizens, but then also part of their cultural and social identity is tied to the background of their parents, and that strengthens and diversifies the United States. We also see important cultural contributions that immigrants, the foreign-born and their children, are making to the United States and have made throughout our history: bringing in new ideas, new dining options, new forms of art. One of our first cultural projects was looking at immigrants in the arts, and you saw after World War II that painters from Germany and Austria had an enormous impact on the art world in the United States. And so this is not just today, but throughout the course of our history, we see immigrants bringing in new ideas that strengthen and enrich our culture. The group BTS, they have revitalized McDonald’s through a promotion that they’re running built around this Korean boy band. So all of these things are influential and strengthen and build the resilience of American society. And this is all coming in through immigrants and their children.

Denzil Mohammed: You bring up a lot of great points, including the fact that immigrants have impacted just every aspect of American life, from sports, to culture, to restaurants, to the kinds of cuisines we take for granted that we have access to. As well as, you know, as your research has found, 28 percent of physicians in the U.S. are foreign-born. They make up nearly half of our agricultural workers. And especially in this moment of pandemic and the idea of recovery, we’ve really seen how immigrants have played a crucial role, and without them we would not have been able to reach the point where we are today. I mean just the fact that Pfizer and Moderna both have immigrant founders, and those are the two first vaccines that we had. And you also mentioned the fact that immigrants are less than 14 percent of our population, and every time I poll people on what is the foreign-born share of the U.S. population, they come up with 50 percent and 35 percent. They’ve been getting these messages, the idea of invasion, infestation, surge, all these kinds of terms that are used to describe the influx of immigrants to the U.S., when it’s always been a particular kind of flow. What do you think is responsible for this kind of misinformation about immigrants in the U.S.?

James Witte: When you say misinformation, I know we’ve talked about this before, there’s a distinction between misinformation and disinformation. Misinformation is a lack of knowledge. Disinformation is bad information being propagated. So we can start with some of the misinformation, and this goes back into something I see as an insight from everyday sociology. People of my generation and a little bit younger, as we were growing up, the foreign-born population was about 5 percent. And so yes, there has been an increase to get us close to 14 percent, which by historical standards is fairly normal, it’s been that level before. But the perception leads people to think that there has been some kind of surge, some rapid influx in the foreign-born population, when in fact it’s been relatively gradual. The anomaly was in the 1960s when people didn’t see that many foreign-born, and as our immigration policy changed, we were able to create a new group of new Americans who were able to do exactly the sorts of things we’ve been talking about: contribute economically, civically and culturally. The fact that they’re getting it up to 50 percent, that’s where the disinformation may come in, where people then begin to throw out numbers. Over the weekend, I saw a post from someone with a college degree, a well-educated young woman, who believes that 67 percent of the deaths from COVID-19 are among the vaccinated. Because this disinformation is being promoted, people are misled and sucked into a set of false beliefs, and I think that’s where the 50 percent of the United States being foreign-born may come from.

Denzil Mohammed: You talk about being misled, and there’s this tremendous perception that one person comes into the country, gets a job, that automatically means one person in the country is denied a job. I don’t want to get into the economics of this, but it’s not a zero-sum game. The more workers you have working, the economy expands and provides more jobs for more people. Is that right?

James Witte: Yes, that’s absolutely true. We know from decades of research that it’s small and medium-sized businesses that create jobs, and that small and medium-sized businesses are more likely to be founded by or run by the foreign-born. Again, we’re not going to go too much into the economics, but in a certain sense, when you get to be a large business, particularly a publicly traded large business, part of your aim to please your shareholders is actually to reduce employment, to think about ways to cut your costs of labor, to rationalize production, to introduce techniques of automation. And that doesn’t create jobs. So it’s not when a foreign-born individual comes here that they take jobs. They actually make jobs, and I think that’s what we have to somehow convince people, and fight against the misinformation and disinformation about what’s the role that the foreign-born and their children play in the U.S. economy.

Denzil Mohammed: And that’s really what this podcast is about. It’s about JobMakers who are immigrant entrepreneurs. Immigrants are creating jobs in the U.S. You talked about in the 60s that the foreign-born share of the U.S. population was about 5 percent, and it’s now almost 14 percent. People have seen a rise in people who look different, people who have accents, people who don’t readily know the English language. Refugee resettlement has introduced foreign-born populations to very much non-traditional gateway cities and states. We see right now the fastest-growing immigrant populations in places like West Virginia and North Dakota. So people are being introduced to immigration in a very, sometimes abrupt, sometimes dramatic way, and we get to this point of people being uncomfortable. You talk about diversity being such a net positive in such a globalized world, this exchange of ideas, the fact that so many of our Nobel Prize winners were foreign-born, but what at the core makes people uncomfortable about this whole matter?

James Witte: I think you bring up a good point with the refugees, and part of that is because refugee resettlement often happens in places where there have not been many foreign-born. And yes, that may lead to uncomfortableness in the beginning, but it actually, I think in the longer run, produces acceptance and familiarity with something that’s new. And I think that’s really one way that we can promote greater integration and understanding of the foreign-born is through exposure and contact with one another. There’s a lot of research that shows that the more contact you have with immigrants, and immigrants of different types, and you’re absolutely right that the immigrants of yesterday were often white and from western Europe, and that’s very different today, but when you think about the contact people begin to have with the foreign-born, that’s what breaks down some of these barriers. I think where there is a real potential is some of these refugees that are coming now who have completely different religious beliefs, they often are of a different race, clearly a different ethnicity. I think that provides an opportunity for people who have had little exposure, when in a small town in West Virginia, you have some refugees there who in a sense become unavoidable, that you have contact with them, that they’re working in the community, and you begin to realize this sense of commonality and common humanity that I think can only be broken down or introduced through daily contact.

Denzil Mohammed: People seem to forget that families, no matter where they are or where they come from or what their background is, they have the same desires and ambitions. Parents want their children to be healthy. Parents want their children to do well at school. Parents want their children to do better than they did. Children just want to have friends and be social, and that is something that is common no matter what your background is, no matter what your religion is. People seem to not recognize that, and I think this idea that you have of more contact, more visibility, and seeing how these families operate, will help to mend that, I hope. Awareness is one thing, but inclusiveness is another. This idea of inclusiveness, of not just knowing about your neighbor and his family, but feeling as though you have this commonality, feeling as though you can do things together, and this is both social and cultural, as well as economic. Immigrants are not a separate entity, they are part of our society, they are part of our economy, they are part of the wheels that turn and make us an innovation hub and make us the greatest economy in the world. People seem to forget that when you talk about immigrants, you’re talking about yourselves as well. So talk a little bit about this idea of inclusiveness.

James Witte: Inclusiveness, I think, is so important. I think we’re seeing, in the United States and around the world, a renewed emphasis on inclusiveness. I would say, in the U.S. at least, it really got a large push from the #MeToo movement, and the fact that women were not being accorded the same respect and opportunity in the workplace, were being exploited and taken advantage of. And then we also saw it with the Black Lives Matter movement and the revelations with #MeToo. It began with revelations, most notably with the George Floyd killing, but also other incidents of abuse of African Americans at the hands of the police. There, people began to say, why are we not given and accorded the same privileges and rights, and also responsibilities, of the mainstream population? And so that led to a call for inclusiveness, and I think it’s very important that if we think about immigrants, and the inclusiveness of immigrants in American society, that we can look back at what worked and what didn’t work with the #MeToo movement and the Black Lives Matter movement. There were certainly ways that people called attention to exploitation, to things that were not working, that people were excluded, and at the same time there was an understanding that if these people were included, we would all benefit. I think that’s really the fullness of inclusiveness that we should focus on.

Denzil Mohammed: Even when presented the facts about immigration and these stories and these images … you know, I think about George Floyd, and support for Black Lives Matter skyrocketed, I think primarily because there was this visual, there was this video, and it sort of reminds me of the migrant kids in cages. When people saw these images, it forced a real emotional reaction, and there was tremendous backlash against the kinds of policies that would allow something like that, which led to actual change in the rules. So #1, does it take something as dramatic as that to force a change in people’s thinking? And even when presented these facts, these stories, these images, some people still interpret it in a different way or refuse to believe. What causes that?

James Witte: I think that’s a good point. As you know, at the Institute for Immigration Research, we’ve had this discussion for years, almost since our very beginning, about the relative value of facts and data and stories. I think through our work and the work of many others, we’ve developed what should be, and I say should be, convincing facts and convincing stories. But as you point out, they don’t always work. And this is why we’ve been talking and thinking a lot about inclusiveness. As dramatic as the facts may be (’cause I believe in numbers, facts are often dramatic, but also the stories can be very, very dramatic), if I can’t put myself into that situation, if I can’t imagine my child in that cage or my partner as the person being abused and killed by the police, then it’s still a bit remote. We really need to accept these convincing facts and stories as part of our own lives, and we have to include ourselves into what’s happening to these groups, whether they’re immigrants, immigrant children or minorities.

Denzil Mohammed: We are the greatest economy in the world and we are a nation of immigrants. We’ve always had immigration to the U.S. and somehow we became the greatest economic power in the world. I think one thing probably has to do with the other.

James Witte: I absolutely agree. You had talked a little bit about the Irish. When the Irish came to the United States, they were considered to be a different race. Perceptions of race even change overtime. But as the Irish, the Italians, other southern Europeans became integrated in the United States, over time their descendants have become the native-born, and I think that’s the point you’re trying to make. Somehow we have to emphasize that there is almost a circular process where immigrants come into the country, they gain a footing, often that footing is accomplished through their own initiative, other times it’s facilitated through people who are already here. But then once we move through the circle a little bit further, the people who are already here are those same immigrants and their children, and they’re the ones who are going to facilitate and benefit from the next group of new Americans. We should be celebrating the full diversity of our country, and again, that’s part of what inclusiveness is about is understanding our strength comes through that diversity.

Denzil Mohammed: Our strength comes from our diversity. Very well said. Professor James Witte, Jim, thank you so much for joining us on JobMakers.

James Witte: It was a pleasure to be with you, Denzil. Take care.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurs produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center of Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you again for joining us for this week’s fascinating story about immigrants and their contributions. If you know someone we should talk to, email [email protected]. And leave us a review on your favorite streaming service. I’m Denzil Mohammed. Join us next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers podcast.

Episode 20: Sonny Vu

JobMakers podcast logo: Sonny Vu, former refugee, uses faith to drive innovationFleeing Vietnam and coming to the United States as a refugee instilled a strong work ethic and drive to succeed in Sonny Vu. As a serial tech entrepreneur, he has started companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars and created countless jobs. Listen to learn how he strives to create “positive, planet-level impact.” We have a full-length video interview from earlier in his career here.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed, and this is JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Refugees enrich the U.S. People who’ve been through unimaginable tragedy and hardship often know how to be creative and inventive to survive, even in totally foreign lands with totally foreign cultures and languages. Often, as displaced people, they’ve done it at least once before. For Sonny Vu, embracing diversity, change and the unknowns of new knowledge was what his parents instilled in him. Their journey to the U.S., leaving under cover of darkness, sailing below deck to a camp in Malaysia, finally to be resettled in Oklahoma City, meant they were survivors and they embraced the transformational change of life in the U.S., as hard as it was at first. Transformational change is what Sonny is all about today. As a serial entrepreneur and investor, he works across continents to develop new technologies, processes and products that have what he calls positive, planet-level impact. This is impact that makes lives and environments safer and better, which Sonny considers at the core of his faith. And all of this from a guy who studied linguistics, as you’ll discover in this week’s JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Sonny Vu, welcome to JobMakers!

Sonny Vu: Great to be here, thanks for having me.

Denzil Mohammed: So tell us a little bit about your current company.

Sonny Vu: I’m working with Arevo. We’re an advanced manufacturing technology company based in California and Vietnam, and what we do is we automate the design and manufacturing of carbon fiber composite parts. If you’re not familiar with what composite materials are, they’re materials that are composed of more than one material. And carbon fiber reinforced polymer, so what we do is a mouthful. Carbon fibers are very strong fibers, super strong. It’s an amazingly strong material with polymer, or plastic, coating, like a matrix that it’s in. That’s what makes it solid, otherwise it’s a fiber. So you can make quite a few things from this material. Typically it’s associated with high-end bikes or military aircraft or fancy cars, so it’s typically a premium material. But using software and robotics and automation, we’re able to make it a lot more affordable, and we can make it a lot faster as well.

Denzil Mohammed: But by training you’re not an engineer, you have a degree in Hebrew Linguistics, you worked under Noam Chomksy.

Sonny Vu: Right, right. I’m actually a mathematician by training, and I just happen to like languages, so I worked on a PhD in Linguistics. But yeah, I like science, I like math and anything technology. I do believe a lot of human progress can be made through the vertical progress of technology. As long as we use it well, I think we can be in a good place.

Denzil Mohammed: So how did you make that transition from mathematician, lover of languages, to your first company was a software company, and then you went to medical devices and Misfit Wearables. Tell me about that transition. How is that even humanly possible?

Sonny Vu: Well I’ve always loved studying and I miss academia to be honest, I’d love to go back someday. But I left my PhD program to start my first company where I was doing software to get computers to understand languages, natural language processing software technology. We sold that to a search engine, this was back in, gosh that was a long time ago, 2001. Then did a medical device company serving the diabetes community. We had invented a way to measure blood sugar much faster and more affordably, and so we did that for a number of years. And then we did a wearable technology company, that was Misfit. That was my last company and sold that to Fossil Group. The whole in all of these companies was based on some sort of technological or scientific breakthrough, some invention that we made, whether it was getting computers to understand languages, or making a diagnostic test more accurate and faster and cheaper, or shrinking a technology so that you could wear it on your body. And then for Arevo, this time it’s making something that’s normally very expensive, very valuable because it’s super light and strong, but making it a lot faster and cheaper. And so I’ve always really enjoyed deep tech, technology that has some deep scientific basis to it, and so it’s always been associated with, I guess my curiosity to learn things. So in academics you get to do it all day long, and in the startup world, you have to balance running a business as well as learning new things.

Denzil Mohammed: Guide us through that process of your first company. You said a technological breakthrough is the common thread among your companies, but I imagine it must have been really difficult not having the business savvy.

Sonny Vu: Oh yeah, that was hard. That was hard. I mean, I’d never done business before, I was a PhD student. But I saw a bunch of people do it. I was kind of roped into the MIT $50K, well it’s $100K now I believe, which is an entrepreneurship competition, and we didn’t win, but during that process it taught me how to write a business plan, how to prepare, how to sell things, how to pitch ideas. So I learned a lot doing that, it was a lot of fun. I watched other people do it ’cause they asked me to be the subject matter expert for a few of these projects, and then I said, “well I could do that, doesn’t seem so hard,” and so I gave it a shot and we didn’t win, but we did get funded and started a company and sold the company, so I think it was okay.

Denzil Mohammed: Take us back to your immigrant story. You moved to the U.S. when you were six years old from Vietnam, and you moved to the Midwest. Tell our viewers your story. What prompted that move? I know that your father was incarcerated, right?

Sonny Vu: That’s right. So I was born in Vietnam, my father was at a labor camp for a few years in Vietnam, and after he left we were able to leave the country. So we came to the United States, I guess as refugees in 1979, and I grew up in the U.S., and had very fond memories of Vietnam as a kid, and had always wanted to go back. But I actually grew up here, grew up in the midwest in Oklahoma City, so we made our life here. And then over the years I just fell in love with math and science, and so went to school and just never lost that interest. But I’ve always had a love for my country back in Vietnam and so we actually moved back to Vietnam about six years ago and have been living there for a while. We’re back in the United States now just because it’s a pretty safe place for COVID reasons, but we kind of have a bicontinental existence between Vietnam and the United States.

Denzil Mohammed: Guide me through two things. One, I know you were six years old and obviously you took to schooling here really well, but what was that experience like when you first moved here for you and your family?

Sonny Vu: You know, I was a kid so I had a great time. I didn’t have to go to school and Dad took me swimming all the time, so life was pretty good. But it was pretty tough for my parents obviously, ’cause we had to leave in the cover of darkness and go into a ship down under the deck, and then go to a refugee camp in Malaysia. It’s a pretty typical kind of story from the late 70s, there were a lot of us from Vietnam who came to the United States that way, and other countries in the West. And so we’re not an exception, we’re a part of that era. So my parents definitely struggled. We didn’t have any money and started with nothing, so I’m just grateful, one that we survived, two that we had an incredible host country. You know, we love America. What a great place to be. And Mom worked at Kmart, whatever job she could find, Dad had to redo his board certification. Fortunately, he was able to get his medical degree to be recognized by the U.S. government, and so he didn’t have to redo medical school. He’d been a practicing physician for a couple decades, and fortunately he knew some English, so that helped as well. So he was able to pass his boards, do residency again. So in the early years, I think there’s definitely some struggle for the family. My brother and I, we were just kids, we didn’t know any better, they always provided for us. I mean, we lived modestly for a number of years, but we never lacked anything.

Denzil Mohammed: And I remember you telling me that your father taught you to embrace diversity. Tell me some of the lessons that your parents taught you and how that influenced where you are today. Did they ever engender in you an entrepreneurial spirit of any kind?

Sonny Vu: No, but I would say what they engendered was a spirit of curiosity more than anything. My dad read voraciously and he’s a doctor, but it’s funny, he actually discouraged my brother and I to go into medicine, he didn’t really think it was a very interesting field, at least academically. I mean that’s his opinion, obviously. But the question at home was never, “what kind of grades did you get?” I don’t ever recall my parents asking what kind of grades we got, but my dad always asking, “Hey, did you learn about this yet or did you learn about that yet? Why didn’t they teach you this in school? What do they teach you in school these days, and why haven’t you learned about blah blah blah?” And I told him, “Well, Dad, I’m in third grade, I’m pretty sure you don’t learn that in third grade.” I remember one time I was in a world history class, and it was basically European history. I mean God bless the teacher’s heart, she was an amazing teacher, but the focus really was on European history. It was European history, with a little bit of American history. And then India, China and Africa, we just read it over the holidays, those chapters. I was like, “I’m pretty sure those are pretty important regions of the world.” And I remember my dad asking, “Why don’t you learn more about that? It’s supposed to be called world history, isn’t it?” And so he’s always giving me books to read to supplement, “Okay, you should be reading this. I can’t believe they haven’t yet made you read this yet.” So there was a lot of that. So the biggest sin in our family was not getting bad grades or blowing things up or whatever, they gave us lots of freedom. The biggest thing was not knowing stuff, just like, “Why didn’t you learn this?”

Denzil Mohammed: I find that almost atypical of an immigrant family.

Sonny Vu: Yeah, it’s not typical at all, in fact. And so he actually took me to Hebrew school and he said, “Hey, how about this?” And I said, “That sounds pretty interesting, I’ve never heard of Hebrew or these people, the Jews.” Gave me a book called Exodus by Leon Uris to read about the founding of the state of Israel. I’m like, “This is an amazing book, wow, okay, so let’s do it.” So he actually took me to synagogue as a kid, and we learned Hebrew together, that’s where it all got started.

Denzil Mohammed: So again, atypical that an immigrant family would want to go out of their comfort zone so much.

Sonny Vu: Oh yeah, there was no comfort in the house, that’s for sure [laughs].

Denzil Mohammed: I want to bring it into today with this pandemic and vis-à-vis your company. You’ve previously pointed out that robotics and automation are a key category seeing increased potential, acceleration. How has the pandemic impacted your vision for your business moving forward when it comes to robotics and animation, the fact that robots probably can’t, you know, sneeze on each other?

Sonny Vu: That’s a good point. Well, certainly automation has, I don’t know if it’s gotten a boost, but it’s definitely gotten a second look now that we don’t really want to be in the same buildings with each other unless we have to be, more and more. Although in a post-vaccinated world, things are also changing somewhat back as well. But I’ll just say that the pandemic has only accelerated some of these trends, but we’re drifting towards a multipolar world, a less globalized vision than it used to be, where local manufacturing is not just important economically, but it’s important strategically, where supply security is an issue. Not everyone wants to have their stuff made in China anymore. People want to have stuff made in America, people want to have stuff made in Germany, or wherever you happen to live. Because face it, it’s pretty inefficient to ship things across huge oceans just because labor is cheaper in different parts of the world, right? And so we can eliminate that from the consideration and have local manufacturing. How amazing is that? That’s part of the dream of what’s called additive manufacturing, or using 3D printing techniques as one of the techniques of additive manufacturing, to make things just in times when you need something, you just hit print and you get your thing. And that trend has been started 35 plus years ago and now it’s finally becoming a thing, it’s finally starting to be able to supplant traditional manufacturing techniques. It has a great place in the world, especially moving forward, especially in this multipolar world where trade is more considered, and I wouldn’t say it’s less free flowing, trade will continue to flow, but you can make stuff in America and people kind of prefer that.

Denzil Mohammed: Tell us a little bit about Alabaster, and what is your version of positive, planet-level impact?

Sonny Vu: Yeah, so after our last major exit (it was a great exit, we started the company and sold it in a little less than four years), we wanted to invest in things that could really have a positive, planet-level impact as we say, meaning really affect a lot of people. Misfit was fun, you know, but I felt like I was basically trying to help rich people lose weight. It’s like you know what? We have other problems in this world that we should probably work on, like the environment or poverty or energy. I mean, there’s a lot of really pressing things to work on, so let’s work on those. And so Alabaster was founded, it’s really just our small family office, but we work in conjunction with other venture capitalists and venture firms to invest in what I’ve called deep tech, so technology based in some sort of scientific breakthrough, or some engineering breakthrough that has a needle-changing potential for positive impact. So about 70 percent, a large majority of it was climate change reversal related, so energy, food, new materials, that kind of stuff. So that was a lot of fun, I got to learn a lot about a lot of different areas. And for the last five years, did about 35 investments in these different fields in conjunction with a number of venture firms that were supportive of our mission.

Denzil Mohammed: This is a question that I don’t get to ask a lot of entrepreneurs, but you’ve been very vocal about your Christian faith, and I was wondering what impact does faith have in you as an entrepreneur?

Sonny Vu: We have to ask ourselves why we do things. At the end of the day, why should we care about the environment? Why should we care about our fellow man? Why not look out for number one? And I have to say that for me, the Bible kind of gives a pretty clear outline on how to do what I think is one of the most important things we can do, and that is to love, to do things with great love. If we can succeed in doing that, and I think we’re pretty far ahead, and I feel like this is a world that often lacks in that in a lot of ways. So for me, faith is the nexus of meaning for why I do things, and that’s to glorify God in all I do. If you dug to the core, that’s why. But then again, faith without work is dead, right? So if you do things and you just talk about it, it’s not so interesting. But if you can actually serve your fellow man and make food more plentiful and energy cheaper and clean up the environment, you know, technologies that make a lot of money and make a cleaner, more sustainable world, I mean, how awesome is that? That’s living out your faith, man. That’s exciting. I’d sign up for that. The name Alabaster comes from my favorite story in the Bible where a poor and sinful woman breaks an alabaster jar of perfume over Jesus’ head and basically bathes him in this very expensive perfume that she saved up as an act of worship to him. I just thought it was a beautiful story and I kind of feel like that’s what we do at Alabaster, and that is to pour ourselves out.

Denzil Mohammed: Arguably you’ve been doing God’s work throughout the years by creating meaningful work and jobs for people, improving livelihoods, creating new technologies and products. So really, on behalf of America, I want to thank you for the work that you’ve done. You’ve really added value, and I hope that this idea of immigrants and their entrepreneurial spirit, their job creation, their innovation, really spreads. JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurs produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for this week’s inspiring story of another immigrant entrepreneur. If you know someone we should talk to, email [email protected]. Leave us a review on your favorite streaming service, too. I’m Denzil Mohammed. Join us next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers podcast.

Episode 19: Shane Smyth

JobMakers podcast logo: Shane Smyth on how immigrants saved restaurantsKeeping his five restaurants afloat through the COVID-19 crisis has given Shane Smyth unique insight into the role immigrant entrepreneurs like him play in the restaurant industry. Irish-born Smyth also discusses how immigrants make up one in five food prep and service workers and two in five agricultural workers. We have a full-length video interview here.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and this is JobMakers. Immigrants from Ireland were vilified and discriminated against when they began moving to the U.S. to flee the Irish Potato Famine, which saw 1,000,000 Irish die and 1,000,000 more Irish migrate. It was a sad but common story of former immigrant groups looking down on new immigrant groups, but those Irish immigrants back before them and since persevered, worked and built dreams that those who came after them could build on. For Shane Smyth, the path built by Irish immigrants before him helped him to start Hugh O’Neill’s Irish Pub in Malden nearly 20 years ago and he’s the co-owner of five more restaurants in Newton and Boston, Massachusetts, even launching one during the pandemic. Shane went on to find more odd jobs to survive and live out his adventure in California. Here, as his visa was about to run out, he and his friends heard about something called the Morrison Visa, one of the few immigration bills in U.S. history that sought to increase immigration out of the Immigration Act of 1990 signed into law by President George H.W. Bush. Through this program, he was able to apply for permanent residence, submitting hundreds of applications, presumably to increase his chances. It worked and within months he had a green card, he moved to Chicago, continuing his string of odd jobs, but it wasn’t necessarily as hard as it was for other immigrants. Shane sees how immigrant workers are the backbone of the restaurant industry. They are more than 40 percent of our agricultural workers and one-fifth of our food prep and serving workers. And he also sees the tremendous skills and drive they bring. So Shane has some strategies on how restaurants can survive crises, and he says it cannot be done without immigrants. As you’ll find out in this week’s JobMakers. Tell us a little bit about your journey to the U.S. You came from Ireland many years ago. What was that experience like and why did you do it?

Shane Smyth: It was a very exciting experience for sure at the time. I came first 30 years ago, in 1991. I was a student in college and a friend and I were discussing what we would do for the summer and plans for working. We needed to make money for the next year and he had been to Cape Cod the previous summer and loved it, on a J-1 student visa and I decided I’m going to apply for one also, and we came up with the idea to move to California. I’m not really sure why. Maybe watching too many Beach Boys videos or something, but we decided California was the place and we chose San Francisco. I remember you arrived that first night and the program puts you up for your first night and then after that you’re on your own. You leave in the morning and you have to make your way and yeah, it was definitely intimidating, but I think the first impression was all the yellow cabs, so it definitely looked like it did in the movies. But you know our experience was I suppose, the typical immigrant arrival experience. We got an apartment, probably just something advertised on a window. We had a studio apartment that we shared with three other people, so there were four or five total in a studio for the first six months and also a colony of cockroaches that shared the place with us. We tried to find work. Our first job was putting an earthquake foundation into someone’s garage, which was pretty crazy for us. I think being from Ireland you have the advantage of speaking the language here obviously, so that was a big plus, but then also we had another advantage in that many, many people came before us from Ireland and then so many immigrants emigrated to America and so while I didn’t know anyone specifically, you would meet Irish people through sports and things like that and it would help you a little bit along the way. But they blazed the trail, the people that had to leave hundreds of years before us and so that would have helped with that experience.

Denzil Mohammed: Quite remarkable that you just 30 years ago were able to apply for a green card, whereas thing is today it’s so much harder, not just thinking about the backlog that we’ve seen in the past several years, but how many hoops people have to jump through. And it was relatively easier for you 30 years ago. Coming from a place like Ireland, I remember Larry O’Toole talking about just the sheer diversity that he encountered versus the lack of diversity in Ireland. You must have seen a lot of that in Los Angeles, in California.

Shane Smyth: Yeah, for sure you know, and that was definitely another eyeopening part of it. As I said, I grew up in a farm in the country, and never, even when I went to college in Dublin, you know, my siblings and I were the first generation of our family to ever go to college and I think even then, 30+ years ago there was no diversity in Ireland. No one wanted to come to Ireland. There was nothing there to attract them. There wasn’t any work. The weather wasn’t great. It still isn’t obviously, but it wasn’t the kind of country that people came to. It was a kind of country that people left unfortunately, and that was my experience. It certainly wasn’t as much needing to leave as kind of wanting to maybe, but I think yeah, there was very little diversity in Ireland then and it’s great to see it now when I do go back, how it’s changed and how it has become a place that’s desirable to go to and the economy has boomed in the years since, and it has given a lot of people a lot of opportunities from other countries to come there to make a life for themselves. It’s nice to see that reverse migration where we sent our people to so many nations for literally hundreds of years out of necessity and now we can welcome people to Ireland and offer them something where they can make a better life for themselves. That’s something for us to be proud of, I think.

 Denzil Mohammed: You mentioned about the Irish immigrants who blazed the trail in the U.S., those who came before you. What is the legacy of that and how do you feel about those immigrants? Who came before you from Ireland?

Shane Smyth: Well, I think the legacy is unending. I would say it started from the beginning, during famine times in the 1800s, where people had no option but to leave because it was either that or die. And unfortunately, a lot of people died on the journey. But when they came to foreign lands they were treated as third class citizens and began in the very bottom rungs of society and did all the jobs that no one else wanted to do, very common with immigrants nowadays too, that we see in this country anyway. But I think when you look back at the experiences of my own ancestors and everybody else’s ancestors in Ireland where everybody knew someone who emigrated, it was a sad legacy really, in a way that they had to do this. It really came from colonization from the British and them stealing our food, stealing our land and our language and making it a thing where people had no other option but to get out of there to be able to feed themselves and feed their families. And now, in in the couple 100 years since then, specifically speaking about U.S. history but this applies to almost every country around the world where Irish people made a life for themselves, they created a legacy and they broke through those barriers that were there and broke down those prejudices that were there through hard work and perseverance and they really created a future for the generations like myself that came after who emigrated. Those people had already broken down those barriers and had shown, particularly in the U.S., that they could work hard and they could make something of themselves so that Irish people were no longer stigmatized like they were in the beginning. The pinnacle of that was John F. Kennedy becoming president here, and every household in Ireland had a picture of him and the Pope or the Virgin Mary in the front room.

Denzil Mohammed: You bring up some really interesting points, and one of them is the discrimination that they faced when they first arrived in the 1800s and it’s something we’ve seen over and over again in U.S. history. Every group that comes here faces this similar discrimination and then the group that comes after them faces discrimination from the prior group, so, Italian immigrants were discriminated against by the Irish immigrants who came before them and it’s a constant legacy. And then you spoke about taking the jobs that people weren’t doing, the most menial jobs. And as someone who is in the restaurant industry, I’m sure that you see that very, very starkly. You know, Hispanic immigrants are probably single handedly responsible for holding up the restaurant industry, being behind the scenes as cooks, as chefs, as cleaners. What are your thoughts on today’s immigrants? Do you see that they are any different to the immigrants who came before them?

Shane Smyth: No, I don’t. I think they have the same stories. They have the same dreams and goals and aspirations as the generations of immigrants before them. 99 percent of people are coming here or moving wherever it is to make a better life for themselves and for their families, and there really isn’t any difference. The times changed maybe, the countries that they’re emigrating from change, maybe the reasons change, but at the end of the day, everybody has the same goal. They just want to make a better life and I don’t see any difference. And that’s something for me personally then, it’s hard for me to understand how people who are here today, who are mostly, let’s face it, most people who are in the U.S. are descended from an immigrant, most of them, if they’re not American Indian anyway. And it’s interesting and sad to see how people can treat immigrants so poorly and think so poorly of them. It’s not everybody, of course, but those that do. You wonder, why? Because in reality they had the same background. It just might be a few generations ago. It might be one, might be two, but like you said, we have different generations who discriminate against those who came before them, and that’s mystifying because you would think that they would have more empathy, and you would think that they would be looking to support immigrants more. That’s ironic, it’s sad, but yeah, it seems to be history repeating itself in that regard. But I do think that immigrants today work just as hard as immigrants before them. You mentioned the restaurant industry and yeah, we are the restaurant industry, it would never survive without immigrants. In fact, immigrants are not only creating jobs in the restaurant industry, but doing those jobs, and I think It’s an incredible industry for immigrants to get involved in because you can become something from nothing without any background in the industry, without any formal training. I know personally, that’s my own kind of background, but also people who work for me currently or have worked for me maybe started as a dishwasher and worked their way up to being a head chef. Or people who started out and are now owners creating jobs themselves. In terms of immigrants holding up the industry, I don’t see how we would survive without them, and it’s a big challenge right now, obviously there’s a huge staffing crisis in the restaurant industry and across a lot of industries right now. We need more immigrants to come here now, I feel like. I wish we had more people who were able to get visas and were able to come and work. Immigrants are making the country run and we need to continue giving opportunities to immigrants to come into the country legally, to work, to pay taxes and to help the rest of the economy.

Denzil Mohammed: You remind me of someone who’s actually across the street from you, Douglas Tran, who started out as a busboy and now he owns All Seasons Table and multiple other restaurants. Similar story to yours. Your first restaurant is located in Malden and just taking a walk down Main Street or Pleasant Street, you see so many immigrant-run businesses, particularly restaurants and food services. When I’m talking to young people in schools, 5th graders, I remind them, don’t take for granted that you have access to all these different kinds of cuisines. Thai food, Mexican Food, Irish food, the haven in J.P., Scottish food because of immigration. There are parts of the country where they don’t have that luxury. They don’t have that variety of cuisines that enriching of our cultures. But I want to talk about your restaurants now. First of all, give us the overview of the spectrum of restaurants and cuisines and locations and clienteles, and then tell us what it was like starting your first restaurant.

Shane Smyth: So I’m involved in, a pretty diverse group of restaurants in that we span everything from Irish as you mentioned to American and then to some Asian cuisine as well. A lot of the food is influenced by European cooking techniques, French and Spanish. I’m very lucky to have a business partner in the Newton locations who is a chef and classically trained, and has great skill in terms of bringing those flavors to people. In Malden, there’s an Irish pub that was the first one started 20 years ago and then in Newton we have different restaurants that are kind of going from bistro style to a ramen shop that’s in Newton Center as well. So, Little Big Diner is that one. We opened a pizzeria during COVID, Jimmy Pizzeria, and then we have two more, more classic restaurants, Buttonwood and Sycamore, that are as I said more kind of bistro style. Then in Boston, I’m calling it Brasserie. That’s an American Brasserie, and that’s kind of like an all-day type experience for lunch, dinner and late night, which unfortunately, we’re still closed post pandemic, but we’re working on our reopening there at the moment. But it’s kind of a little bit about maybe trying different experiences, and as you were talking about, giving people the experience of trying different types of cuisine no matter where they are and you can’t really try and replicate the same thing. It maybe doesn’t make the most sense. It kind of works for some certain concepts, but we always wanted to offer something new each time we opened a new place. That’s kind of something that makes it maybe a little bit more interesting for us as well. You’re not repeating yourself.

Denzil Mohammed: But what was it like starting your first restaurant? I venture to suggest that you didn’t have the intention of starting an Irish pub when you first came here, did you?

Shane Smyth: No, definitely not. To be honest when I came first, I really had no idea what I wanted to do, how to kind of live my life as they say, or professionally anyway. And I’d studied business management in college. I didn’t particularly enjoy it, it was during one of those times when I was living in Chicago. I had an injury from work, I couldn’t work for a couple of months and I really needed to make some money. I had no income, but you’re on your own as an immigrant and I didn’t have any family or support system so I got a job working on the door at a place in downtown Chicago. Kind of like a bar restaurant just checking IDs and things like that and that was my first ever experience of hospitality in the U.S., and then a friend of mine who I had met in San Francisco from the same part of Ireland as me, we played football together, had moved to Boston and he was opening a bar in Cambridge and he had reached out to me and asked, would I be interested in coming to work from when he opened it? I said sure, why not? I was in Chicago at the time. I moved to Boston and the rest is history. I started there just working the door again and serving tables and kind of bar backing and working my way up the chain until I was bartending full time and then did some managing and at some point I just kind of realized that I was good at it. I guess maybe the business management course actually stuck to me at some point. I realized that I was fairly decent at what I was doing and I worked a lot of shifts. I worked seven nights a week some weeks, just trying to save as much money as I could and luckily was able to do that with the tips that I earned along with that friend who I owned the place with and another partner. Then we chipped in together and opened Hugh O’Neill’s in Malden, coming up 20 years ago. And that was the first place that was kind of an Irish pub. Obviously what we knew of it was the experience that we had grown up with, an Irish pub being the place where three to four generations of the family would gather for all kinds of celebrations or events, parties, and even the sad times of a funeral. At the time was kind maybe a little bit underserved in terms of having options for dining out and places to go to get a good drink and we tried to fill that need and here we are, we’re still there.

Denzil Mohammed: What was the downtown like in Malden 20 years ago?

Shane Smyth: It was very quiet to be honest. There were a few stores there, there were no other restaurants on the street. There was a pub up at the top of Pleasant Street that didn’t even serve food, so there were literally no dining options on Pleasant Street in Malden. And now, as you mentioned, just to see the difference today, where almost every second building is a restaurant and most of them ethnic restaurants, most of them immigrant-owned and all serving amazing foods that give you flavors from their home countries. I try to support them myself personally, as much as possible and send our customers to them, and their customers come to us and it’s a really great kind of a community, the restaurant community in downtown Malden.

Denzil Mohammed: But I know that you had like 180 employees total before the pandemic. What happened last year, to your businesses?

Shane Smyth: Well obviously, last year when COVID hit was just like pulling the handbrake in the car going 70 miles an hour on the highway. It was just a complete stop we came to. We had to shut down by state order so it was pretty traumatic to be honest emotionally, financially like all of those things. And not just for myself and my partners of course, but for the staff as well where people’s livelihoods were pulled from underneath them in in one day. It was very challenging to halt your operations immediately. First thing was to shut down your facilities and we obviously got a lot of perishable product. A lot of that was lost, but we were able to give a lot of it to our staff that now had no job and then we were able to start, a few weeks later, start cooking it, cooking meals for staff that didn’t have any work. But we had to furlough our staff, which was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do professionally and personally, but luckily for the staff, the state started an unemployment scheme. People were able to get unemployment right away, but then of course there’s staff who weren’t able to get unemployment. And that was one of our biggest challenges, was trying to figure out how we could help our staff that weren’t able to get unemployment. And like I mentioned, cooking for them is one thing. We had a GoFundMe at one point that one of our regulars started up. Our industry is still going through a lot of challenges created by that, and I think they’re probably going to last for quite some time. Our businesses look very, very different today from what they did back last March.

Denzil Mohammed: Talk a little bit about that. How does the business look different today?

Shane Smyth: Yeah, so I suppose some of the more obvious things that you could see, or anyone can see from the outside is we have outdoor seating, which most of my locations didn’t have. Hugh O’Neill in Malden did. That was the only one that outdoor seating. A lot of them didn’t even offer any takeout, which, now takeout sustained us through the winter, and that was kind of like your new business model, a takeout restaurant. Little Big Diner actually completely flipped from 100 percent dining into 100 percent takeout over the course of about six weeks last summer. So those are some of the more obvious things and also, our hours have changed dramatically in that we haven’t been able to get back to full operation yet. Some of the restaurants were open more than seven nights a week and those are only open five nights a week currently. It’s not just as simple as being able to ramp back up to full operation, but also so many challenges in terms of staffing and still having a little bit smaller menus and we had to adapt to having a lot less business, so you couldn’t offer the same amount of offerings as you had before. Like Hugh O’Neill, for example, had 36 beers on tap. Well, now we couldn’t. When we reopened, we couldn’t reopen with 36 beers because we just simply didn’t have enough business to justify that. You would never keep them fresh. We’ve increased the use of technology, simple things like QR codes, you’ve seen them everywhere during online ordering. You know, really your strategy was just survival at the time, so you know it was a case of take on whatever projects you could. Sycamore started subscription service during the winter. Buttonwood became takeout only for three months during the winter, these are some of the things that we had to do. Each place was different, but we just had to adapt to survive.

Denzil Mohammed: By the way, Shane, you’ve been living in the U.S. for over 30 years. You moved here almost on a whim. It was adventure. It was uncertainty. You had to be scrappy. You had to end up in every possible industry before you started this career. What are your thoughts about America as the place that allowed you to come here and eventually flourish? What is your thoughts about America as a home for immigrants?

Shane Smyth: Ah well, I will be eternally grateful. That’s the first thing I can say, for the opportunities that were allowed to me by this country. And also obviously having the opportunity to get a green card back 30 years ago, which I know was incredibly lucky at the time, with whatever programs were there in that day. I was able to do so and able to become legal. I would never be able to have the opportunities and have the things happen for me that have happened without that. I wish that more people had those opportunities. Today it’s so much harder for people to get a green card. That that needs to change. I do think that this country needs immigrants to replenish the workforce. It needs immigrants to bring that diversity of lifestyle to the country and it’s important that this country continues on that path. It’s important that we continue to be that country. It’s important that we continue to give people those opportunities to build up our own communities, to build up the people around us, because if the people around us are successful everyone else will be successful and I think we all see that. You talk about Malden Center and walking up Pleasant Street, if you didn’t have immigrant immigration policies, you’d never have that. Look at all the jobs that are created by immigrants. That’s been going on for hundreds of years. We need to continue that. I hope that people get back to realizing that immigrants are a positive and not a negative, and that immigrants bring so much to the table.

Denzil Mohammed: Shane Smyth, I couldn’t have said that better myself. Thank you so much for joining us in JobMakers. This was a really fascinating and insightful conversation and I really wish you the best of luck as we come out of this pandemic.

Shane Smyth: Thank you Daniel. I appreciate you having me on and this was a great experience too. All the best, keep up the good work.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for this week’s inspiring story of another immigrant entrepreneur. If you know someone we should talk to, email Denzil. That’s Denzil at JobMakerspodcast.org. Leave us a review on your favorite streaming service too. I’m Denzil Mohammed. Join us next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers podcast.

Episode 18: Anita Worden

JobMakers podcast logo: Anita Worden takes immigrants' skills to the next levelAs an English-born immigrant entrepreneur who founded a successful solar company, Anita Worden is passionate about welcoming immigrants and women into the growing renewable energy and tech sector. Listen to the episode to discover how she believes we can shift the narrative on immigration in the United States.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and this is JobMakers. Women have long been underrepresented in crucial economic sectors like technology, a place where they can innovate and have a real impact. For Anita Worden, while things certainly have improved for women in tech, there’s still much more work to be done. Anita was born in England, of Indian parents, grew up in Algeria, and moved to the U.S. as a teenager. Graduating at the top of her class, she went on to MIT, where she co-founded her first company, Solectria Corporation in 1989 while still a student and then went on to found Solectria Renewables in 2014, both of which were acquired. Now retired, Anita is working to promote tech as a viable, lucrative, and satisfying career choice for women and girls. Just as she’s working to educate Americans about climate change and changing the narrative around immigrants in the U.S., as you’ll find out in this week’s JobMakers. Anita Warden, welcome to JobMakers.

Anita Worden: Thank you, glad to be here.

Denzil Mohammed: Tell me about your past 30 years and what you’ve been doing.

Anita Worden: Oh wow, 30 years! So, I started my first business with my husband in 1989. For about 15 years, we built solar and electric vehicles. I say solar because our first vehicles actually had solar panels on the roof. These were small commuter cars and you could run the fans and  accessories with the solar. But, we later took off the solar panels and focused on building electric vehicles. Personal commuter cars were four doors and hatchback commuter cars. Then, we later moved into electric pickup trucks and step vans, like bread vans. They were all electrified before we sold the business. We’re actually building a lot more hybrid vehicles, including hybrid school buses and big several-ton trucks or facilities with large cargo-carrying capabilities. In 2005, we sold that business to a Canadian company, and we started to spin off the organization. A distributed energy business to build inverters, which were electronic boxes that would be able to take similar technologies that we had in the electric vehicles but then use them for grid-connected capabilities. So, our focus had started within our first business, but the new acquirers didn’t want to have anything to do with that. They wanted to stick with vehicles, and we didn’t want to have anything to do with renewable energy, so we will spin off our business, taking all the technology that we had developed, for a dollar, we were able to license that royalty-free and we spun off into Solectria Renewables, a pretty sizable organization, which then we started to focus purely on solar applications. So, that business went on for several years before we were acquired in 2014 by a Japanese company. But we still believe that renewable energy is the way to go for us to combat climate change. As it comes to the forefront almost daily in our news cycle, weather patterns in different parts of the United States and the world, we realize that we have large strides to make in order to take away our dependence on fossil fuels and move into a cleaner lifestyle. Lowering our lifestyle energy, becoming more efficient with our processes, transportation, homes, and so forth.

Denzil Mohammed: When you started your business in 1989 with your husband, I recall that you said only about 30 percent of the graduates at MIT were women. How do you see women playing a role in tech these days?

Anita Worden: I was gratified, certainly in the last 10 to 15 years, to see more women involved in technology, although not as much as I would like. For instance, MIT is now close to 50 percent women, which is wonderful to know. Hopefully, this will not be an anomaly, especially in technology,  particularly in solar, where we have seen many women involved both on the technical and business sides of things. However, we still have to make strides in getting more women involved in the business and technology side of things. It comes from women seeing women in those fields. If you see someone you can relate to, you are more likely to go into that area. I think we need to do a lot more with STEM education at younger ages, and I have been involved in supporting young girls to join STEM opportunities in middle and high school. We should also introduce them to STEM at younger ages by teaching them that it is just as acceptable to be in this field as anything else.

Denzil Mohammed: As you talk about STEM, we see, especially in Massachusetts but across the U.S., that STEM fields in colleges are really dominated by immigrants and people from other countries. Why do you think that is? And why do you think there is not enough being done to encourage STEM for U.S.-born children?

Anita Worden: I think STEM has not been glorified as a lucrative career choice, which I mean in a way that other finance sectors are glorified. “Oh, you can make tons of money working for Morgan Stanley or somebody like that,” but I counter that with the fact that you can make a ton of money being an engineer. In fact, engineers are more sought-after today. If you look at the competitive nature of today’s job market, companies are doing their best to literally steal people from other tech companies with great employment packages because they need software engineers, mechanical engineers, and electrical engineers on their teams in order to develop the products that are making a difference today. So, I think it comes from a career choice from the financial side, but I also think it’s a matter of some amount of work ethic. I agree that when we were hiring engineers, nine out of 10 of them were immigrants. It’s too bad because I think immigrants should join those wonderful fields, but it’s also important to have people born in the United States, even if they’re from an immigrant household, to join the STEM field. We actually work really early on to let them know how fun and interesting it is to be a scientist, technologist, engineer, or math major. God forbid, I don’t want all of our development of technologies to happen in other countries. I want immigrants to come here and do it here, so I’m fine with that.

Denzil Mohammed: A little bit. You talk about STEM and also the fact that you were an employer. Take me back to your childhood and the kinds of values that were instilled in you that would eventually prompt you to get into STEM and to be an entrepreneur. You were born in England, I know, and you grew up in Ghana. Is that correct?

Anita Worden: Yeah, I actually grew up in Algeria. So, I attribute a lot of my work ethic and belief in working in a STEM field to my dad. He was an electrical engineer and worked both in the UK as well as in Algeria. Later on, when we were in high school, we moved to Miami, and he worked there as well. For me, it was more about modeling by dad. He would show us stuff and explain things at home. My brother and I became very interested in what he was doing. He had an amazing work ethic, and we saw the fruits of his labor pan out into a great, comfortable lifestyle. He came from a family where his dad was a farmer. His dad toiled with some things on somebody else’s land. He didn’t own his own land, and similar to my mother’s family. But my uncles were engineers, and we had a couple of my mom’s side of the family that immigrated here early on back in the ’70s. We immigrated here in 1981. You could see that the work ethic and success of being an engineer parlayed into a really good lifestyle. We weren’t just experts in our trade, but we were also interested in politics, philosophy, and all the things that come with it.

Denzil Mohammed: Did you set out to be your own boss? Was that something that you had in your mind growing up?

Anita Worden: Absolutely not. We did not have any entrepreneurs in our family to my knowledge, especially growing up. I mean everyone I know, my two uncles who were engineers, always worked for somebody else. My dad also worked for somebody else, and all of my family members were not entrepreneurs. Interestingly enough, one of my brothers is now an entrepreneur. As for me, I was, you know, working for my husband, and then a couple of my husband’s siblings were entrepreneurs, so it’s another generation. We talk about the immigrant story, and we lift it. We came here for the land of opportunity, and my dad, in his wisdom, brought my brother and me here. We took full advantage of that opportunity, and we got great educations. We worked really hard. We moved here in ninth grade, and somehow we immediately got to the top of our class. Don’t ask me how that happened, because there were lots of brilliant kids in our classes. We graduated as valedictorian and salutatorian four years later, and never prior to that had we lived in this country. That allowed us to go to really good colleges, and Dad helped us which was amazing. He used a lot of his savings to help us pay for college, and we got some loans, which was really important. Both of us worked in college to support ourselves and to support some of our financial aid packages. Soon after that, that work ethic led us to start a business. You probably already know this, but there was no downtime. When I met James, he had this idea to go into electric cars, and that could come across as like, oh, that kid, he’s got great ideas. I still say, thank you to my dad for allowing us to move to the U.S.. He had this opportunity presented to us, and we took full advantage of it and built an amazing company. We got two big, amazing companies that employed lots of people and hired a lot of immigrants and changed the lives of a lot of people. I feel like I should take credit.

Denzil Mohammed: You talk about taking risks at that time. But of course, being an entrepreneur, you do take risks. And also, being an immigrant, you take a risk. You move to another place, and you’re not entirely sure what it’s going to be like, or what the transition is. And I’m sure moving from Algeria to Miami was a bit of a drastic change, right?

Anita Worden: Growing up in Algeria, and traveling to other countries, as well as going back to India every couple of years, gave us a unique perspective on the world. Even as teenagers, we felt like we understood and knew a little bit about the world, which is an opportunity that many kids in this country don’t get that opportunity. There are kids in my own town who have never left the area, maybe the farthest they have gone is across the border to New Hampshire so they don’t understand how lucky we are in the United States and how many opportunities we have compared to other parts of the world. They also don’t understand how different people live in other communities. We had a better worldview. We were lucky that our parents allowed us to see those things, which gave us a broader perspective on the world. Going to college wasn’t such a culture shock for us because we had already met people from countries like Morocco, Vietnam, China and others. It was great to be part of a melting pot and to live in a multicultural setting. We had a tiny taste of that experience from moving overseas.

Denzil Mohammed: So you’re getting into something that is a little bit controversial for some people, the idea of the melting pot, of America being a home for immigrants from all over the world. It has always been that way, but it’s so contentious nowadays. I mean, what are your thoughts about America as a home for immigrants, and what are your thoughts on the public perception of immigration today? How can we fix that?

Anita Worden: Oh gosh, you know, many times I think that we live in a bubble in Massachusetts because Massachusetts has been more welcoming of immigrants. Look at all the high-tech companies that have started and staffed in Massachusetts and even New England, and a majority of them are immigrants. I mean, who isn’t an immigrant, really? That’s the thing that shocks me when I think about people not accepting immigrants. If you look back enough generations, you’ll realize that your family was once an immigrant to where they are now. You got the opportunities available to you now on the backs of those people who came here from a different place. One of our friends, her grandfather immigrated from Italy. People who went through Ellis Island, that original New York transition, all worked hard to get here. They probably had to put their life savings into that journey into this country. So many people who have forgotten that you know. I look at the vast wealth in this country and the businesses that have been founded. So many of them are founded by immigrants. Okay, maybe they’re second-generation, but many of them are first-generation families who have started small companies that have grown into multinational corporations and employed so many people. People who disparage immigrants forget the fact that so much of this country’s wealth has been because we have had immigrants starting businesses or running businesses or providing the technology for those businesses. So, I think we need to ask ourselves, can you and I make a change? Maybe not single-handedly, but perhaps as a community, we can get the message out there that we are all one and we live under the same roof. We have the same aspirations for food, shelter and a good quality of life.

Denzil Mohammed: It’s a story that hasn’t changed. Immigrants moved here for particular reasons generations ago, much the same as immigrants are moving today. They are fleeing natural disasters, persecution, and they need some sort of safety, both economic and physical. It is something that people seem to forget and not make the connection that 1900s immigrants and immigrants from 2020 are not much different. They may look different and have different accents, but the story remains the same. Your perception of immigration comes from your deep relationship with the city of Lawrence. You have actively worked to develop Lawrence economically and in so many other ways. Your factory or business took hold of one of those great mill buildings in Lawrence for all these years. Tell me a little bit about your experience in Lawrence?

Anita Worden: Well, I love the fact that we were able to move to Lawrence when we found it, thanks to Solectria Renewables. With a little story behind it, my mother actually saw the “for lease” sign on the building as I was driving back with my newborn from a doctor’s appointment. It was located at Riverwalk, right off the highway. What was great about it is that it was thousands of square feet and, at the time in 2005, a lot of it was unoccupied. We were able to get great rates there. But the best part was that we were in a community that had all this raw talent, and we could hire locally for all of our manufacturing and staff, most of whom came from the city of Lawrence. At one point, I looked at our production staff and 75 percent were Lawrence residents. I am very proud of that. It was great to have people come from the local community, many of whom used public transportation to get to work or carpool with their friends. They would come in the morning, and the great advantage of our production environment is that most people start at 7:00 AM. That’s when the parking lot was empty, and by the time I left working there, that parking lot was always full. It just showed that the complex became very busy and active with lots of businesses in it. The team that we hired was able to be trained, and they came with a large skill set. We had folks that had been trained as HVAC technicians, worked at Raytheon or worked in a small startup environment. They had a skill set that wasn’t predetermined to be an inverted manufacturing technician. That’s not something you hear often. But because our technology was not rocket science, we had great manuals and work instructions. We had this team of very skilled laborers, and they developed a technique that enabled our customers to look inside our product. That all came from the team that we hired there. We talked earlier about ESL training. One of the things that I realized came about because I was in the hallway one time with one of our custodians in the building. He walked up to me and said, “My uncle just moved here. Do you think you could give him a job?” I said, “Sure, what’s his skill set? Give me his resume.” He said, “Well, here’s the thing. He doesn’t speak any English, but he has this technical background from the Dominican.” I cringed inside because all of our manuals were in English at the time, and my production manager was not bilingual. Later on, I had bilingual production managers, which was a very big asset to have. However, the instructions were not such that someone with only a Spanish background could read, translate and work in. So I realized that we needed to do a lot more for ESL training in our community. Both James and I spent a lot of our personal charitable giving to make sure that ESL programs were well-funded. There’s never enough funding for those, and there are never enough seats. But that is something that I continue to want to champion because whether you came back in the 1900s or are an immigrant today if you don’t have a foundation for the English language, many times you don’t have a skill set from your mother country that you can jump right into a work environment with. Suddenly, your economic prospects are not validated.

Denzil Mohammed: It’s an underutilization of skills, and we have to bear in mind what you just said. People come here with skills. They come here in their 20s and 30s with skill, talent and a real desire just to work. That’s why immigrants have a larger presence in the labor force. They come here with the intention of working, and the English language is the vehicle that allows them to transfer their skills, grow, pay more in taxes and become incredible contributing members of our community. There’s this terrible perception that immigrants don’t want to learn English, but I can safely say from The Immigrant Learning Center’s free English language program, which is almost entirely privately funded, we’ve always had a waiting list, even after the 2016 election. The waiting list jumped to well over 1,000 people, and there’s no English language program that does not have a waiting list. People really want to learn the language, and they’re passionate about it. We need to give them a warning. This was a truly fascinating conversation. Thank you so much for joining us!

Anita Worden: Thank you very much Denzil, it was a pleasure to be with you today and I certainly hope that we can help move the needle and all the things that we’re doing together. So I applaud you for all that you’re doing as well.

Denzil Mohammed: And I applaud you for all that you continue to do, even in retirement. JobMakers is a weekly podcast produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for today’s inspiring story featuring another immigrant entrepreneur. If you know someone who should talk to, please email Denzil at JobMakerspodcast.org. And please leave us a review. Join us next Thursday at noon for another episode of JobMakers!

Episode 17: David Kallick

JobMakers podcast logo: David Dyssegaard Kallick on the facts about immigrationAs an economics professor and researcher, David Kallick has studied the many ways that immigrants and refugees contribute to our economy. In this episode of JobMakers, Kallick shares how immigrants revitalize metros, combat economic decline, reverse population loss, create jobs and more. Tune in to hear an academic’s take on the positive impact of immigrants on the United States economy.

Denzil Mohammed: I am Denzil Mohammed, and this is JobMakers!

There’s a lot of misinformation about immigrants in the U.S, and leaders have exploited this ignorance for political gain. We often forget that the United States is a nation of immigrants founded on the idea of behaving for those seeking freedom and opportunity. And this immigration was such a bad thing for the country or do we continue to have it, but David Dyssegaard Kallick deputy director of the nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank, the Fiscal Policy Institute and assisting visiting professor at the Pratt Institute. His work focuses on the impact of immigrants in local and national settings, and what he’s found should come as no surprise. Immigrants and refugees are a net benefit to the U.S, and always have them.

In fact, we owe a lot to immigration for revitalizing metros in USA after population loss of economic decline since the 1960s, enriching our culture and cuisine, making our communities safer, creating jobs and businesses, and giving us a competitive edge when it comes to innovation, as you’ll find out in this week’s JobMakers podcast.

David Dyssegaard Kallick, thank you for joining us on JobMakers!

David Kallick: Thanks for having me!

Denzil Mohammed: Tell me a little bit about the kind of research that you do.

David Kallick: So, we look at immigration, especially the economic aspects of immigration in the United States. We focus on New York State in particular because we’re based here. It’s also a very particularly interesting story about immigrants in New York. But we also look at immigration around the country, and we have partners in most of the 50 states, think tanks that are based at the state level, looking at state level immigration issues around the country.

Denzil Mohammed: And what have been some of the successes of the Fiscal Policy Institute in New York City in terms of how you’ve been able to influence policymakers?

David Kallick: So very recently we’ve been involved in this campaign to allow for undocumented immigrants who were excluded from any of the benefits that were recently extended to other workers during this pandemic. To be able to include them in an excluded workers’ fund in New York State, that was really exciting. A $2.1 billion fund that allows for people to get basically the same level of benefits as other workers would have gotten if they got unemployment insurance last year. So that’s a pretty substantial amount, and really something that can sustain a family in these really tough times. So that was a very exciting thing to be part of.

Denzil Mohammed: The undocumented population of Massachusetts. It’s about 20 percent of the total immigrant population, and you spoke about that victory with New York City when it came to COVID relief for undocumented immigrants. What’s in the documented population of New York City?

David Kallick: So, it’s about 400,000 in New York City. It’s about 600,000 in New York State. That’s out of 4 million in the state, so, it’s not the majority by any means, but it’s not a trivial portion of the population either, and of course when we’re talking about people, we’re also talking about families, and as you know, people live in these many different kinds of households and many different kinds of families, and it’s very common that a person who’s undocumented, it might also be living with another person who’s not undocumented, or even with kids who were born in the United States. So, the number of people affected is even bigger but 60,000 is also a substantial number.

Denzil Mohammed: So, tell us about your own immigrant experience. You know you were born in New York City, but your journey didn’t really start there.

David Kallick:  I was born in Western Massachusetts actually.

Denzil Mohammed: Oh, really?

David Kallick: But that was a long and maybe not terribly relevant story. I grew up in Connecticut, and then I moved to New York City as an adult. My family is from Eastern Europe and I’m really kind of across Eastern Europe and a little bit from other places as well. Most of them were Jewish, mostly they came after pogroms in Eastern Europe and came essentially as refugees. That was at a time before we had the current refugee resettlement policies but came fleeing horrible situations in the villages and towns that they came from, and really not a lot of other choices and not a lot in their pockets, and arrived here and made their way. I will say that even though it was some generations back, very deeply embedded in my own families’ experience of who we are and how we fit in America was in a positive way. I feel like we’re very conscious of the idea that this was a place where we could come we as a family with nothing or leaving everything behind and living by my parents’ generation quite comfortably, also with some sense of appreciation for the idea of the immigrant experience. To me feels like there’s a great radio program you may know called The Feet in Two Worlds and I love that title. I think it’s a very nice way of saying, you’re on the inside and you’re on the outside, and I think if you think of American literature for example, there’s this huge tradition, especially in the 20th century of the person who’s on the inside and the outside, writing about what is the experience of growing up here, but also having your head in a different kind of consciousness and in a positive way like some stuff, and how they have a culture that other people don’t have access to. And in a negative way that you feel maybe like you’re not entirely always included or when people say things you’re not entirely always thought of as part of what they mean when they say American.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s almost a quintessential American kind of thing though. Just having these different traits are not always fully belonging, because we have such tremendous diversity.

David Kallick: I think that is totally to me, that is very much what America is about and in fact, if you think of it, I am gonna say in somewhat philosophical terms, I think there’s like a process. It’s not so much about being, as it is about becoming, but it’s always a question of becoming like what we’re always integrating, we’re always having one foot in and one foot out. I think that’s a very creative and exciting kind of thing. And it is part of the tragedy to my mind of the way that the immigration debates have been so polarized today is, if you go to other countries and hear them talk about America, they are very much aware. I think that America is a country that’s always been about immigration. It’s always been reshaped as people come here, and it’s always been a process of becoming, and we still are in all the complicated ways. It’s still happening today.

Denzil Mohammed: I want to get into your research head right now, our audience really wants to know certain things about immigration. This podcast is based on the idea that immigrants are inherently entrepreneurial and so they start businesses and create jobs at a higher rate, but there is net benefit to our economy. Can you tell us definitively if immigration benefits us economically?

David Kallick: Of course, it does. I will say at the overall level, I really don’t think there are any economists who seriously doubt that idea that there is an overall benefit, and even you can talk to George Borjas, or maybe you will admit that in the overall there’s a positive benefit to immigration. So, there may be people raise questions about details and whether or not what we want our policies to look like would be better. But overall, one of the things that we’ve been quite interested in is that idea. So first of all, when we’re talking about immigration as I said, we’re talking not just country of origin, we’re talking in a much more diverse group than I think people often appreciate. So, immigrants work in all kinds of jobs. Of course, it’s well known that people worked in landscaping and construction, and some of the lower wage jobs. But they also work in health care and in engineering and in some of the higher wage jobs as well as many accountants and architects and people in the middle. So, I think immigration is much more diverse than people recognize, and in that sense, people are contributing. I also think if you’re talking about entrepreneurship, it is one of the rare areas where people will generally acknowledge. Immigrants are more entrepreneurial. I will say for good reasons and bad reasons, I think that immigrants are more entrepreneurial. You could say by nature they’re a self-selected group who decided to take a big risk, go somewhere else, try to make something new, that is an entrepreneurial kind of decision to be making, so it’s not too surprising that those are people who might be more entrepreneurial in general, they come up with a set of ideas and even potential products and potential services that they may have from the countries that they came from. They may in fact also be in many cases able to sell those products or services to people from their communities to begin with, and then expand to a bigger world. So, I think in that way it all kind of makes sense and out the battle and the kind of positive column of why immigrants more entrepreneurial. I mean, the negative column is that people are also often excluded from jobs that they might otherwise be able to do, and might be preferable for them, at least in the initial stage. So, if you’re an accountant, and you apply for a job at an accounting firm, and they don’t accept you because you might not look like what they think an accountant should look like. Or maybe your English is not perfect. Or maybe you don’t have references because you just came to this country. What do you do? Well, you might start your own accounting firm, which might be just you. You are hanging up a shingle. That’s what I would say is a more negative kind of entrepreneurship. Sometimes those turn out to be very good. So, there are plenty of stories of people who were kind of forced into that by being excluded. But then who made good and did great, but I think no matter how you parse it, it’s true that the rates for immigrants are higher than for U.S born. And the rates for some groups are pretty off the charts compared to others.

Denzil Mohammed: So, you were looking at numbers here and under the Trump administration. For instance, let’s say refugee admissions were ended up being capped at 15,000. We didn’t even get anywhere close to that, partly because of the pandemic under the Biden administration has been increased to 62,500 this year. For the next 50 years, these numbers just seem very arbitrary. When I think of the economy, it was not a zero sum game. It’s not like one person comes and takes a job from another person and then that’s it. As an economist you know these things well, but these sort of arbitrary number, like is there any way to determine an optimal number of immigrants particularly from an economic standpoint?

David Kallick: It’s a hard question. I think you definitely start with what you said, which is right idea of a zero sum game is just misguided, when people sometimes think it’s all just a kind of simple supply and demand as if anybody took an economics class might remember that if you have more supply this can be less, we must know it’s gonna be bad for the other workers. I think that’s true. If you only read page one of that textbook, you know if you go on to page three and four and five what you see is the important thing that’s in that part chart is all else equal. If that’s the only thing you’re talking about, is more workers and nothing else changes, then sure, they’re going to be fewer opportunities for other workers. But of course that’s not the case, what happens is when more people come, that also means that they have families that they buy stuff, but when they take the money that they earn and they invest it, so they’re expanding the overall economy in the same way as it does if you or I have kids and they grow up and you want the economy to be expanding. You don’t necessarily have more people to do that, but it’s certainly a possibility to have a bigger economy. At the same time, as you have more people and more workers, I think that’s what we see over and over again. The optimal number I would say that there are many things we’re achieving through immigration policy, and so you mentioned the refugee resettlement numbers. One of the things is clearly a sense of moral obligation, like what we do. Refugees are people, so we have different categories of people coming as immigrants or people who apply to get a green card. People who come on temporary visas. People come undocumented. People who come across illegally and stay in the country over time, and refugees are people, asylum seekers who come to this country seeking asylum people. Refugees are people who come from some of the most horrific situations in the world and leave those places because they have no other choice wind up often in resettlement agencies, and then surrender settlements in refugee camps for years and then some tiny fraction of them out there. I think after 20 million people in refugee that the UN High Commissioner refugees identifies as in need of resettlement of the 20 million. I think 1 percent of them have been resettled, so there’s some vast number of refugees looking for resettlement and the United States through the refugee resettlement program. Primarily, I would say is trying to fulfill a humanitarian obligation to do its part as other countries also do to welcome refugees to this country. It’s also true that when they come here, they benefit us, they benefit society. We see this in New York State where most of the resettlement is in upstate cities, in Buffalo and Rochester and Syracuse and Albany and Utica. You see a revitalization of the downtown areas that comes from refugees moving into areas that U.S-born people have often moved out of. So, I think there is a benefit to us, but I would just underscore that to my mind with refugee resettlement in particular, the goal is to be part of a global effort to fill this humanitarian mission. Other important categories to me are family unification is really important if you are in this country. You may have been here for many years and you have a wife, kids, parents in another country. Being able to have that family come and be reunited in this country is, I mean that was the story of my family. I think it is a great part of American culture, it adds to America as well. Of course, if you have a family to come to, then they’re going to support you as you get rooted here and start to become part of American society and the American economy.

Denzil Mohammed: A lot of actions at the state level though over the years many restrictive, but others also allowing undocumented immigrants to have in-state tuition in states like, Kansas, allowing them to have driver’s license. During the pandemic we saw that certain states adjusted their credentialing and licensing requirements for health care workers so that they could have more health care workers in the hospitals. One thing you brought up with family reunification, and that is the cornerstone of American immigration policy as it is our own research has shown that for high skilled professionals, immigrant professionals, social capital is extremely important in their ability to climb the ladder to be able to succeed. If you’re here in our country alone, it’s much harder if you don’t have family with you obviously. But in the past few years’ discussion has come up on immigration based on skills. There are certain countries that have point systems. Maybe we want to look at just immigrants who have the skills needed in industries where we are lacking workers. What is your position on that?

David Kallick: I feel like I’m very appreciative of how well we do with the immigration that we have, and I feel like to my mind a much better focus on skills would be how do we develop skills among the U.S. farm workers and immigrants who already are here, which we don’t do a great job for either group. I think I’m skeptical about the idea of filtering by certain skill levels, I mean, for one thing you leave out lots of people, and people who want to come here and have been as we’ve seen do well over time in the United States. Otherwise, there are lots of examples of super entrepreneurs as well as the kind of people who open stores and do regular kinds of more bread-and-butter economic development work who would not have qualified under those kinds of programs. They might have been kids for example. They might have been people who didn’t have the educational background, but that might be required, so I feel like there’s a question about who gets left out. I’m also not so convinced that we can do a great job of figuring out who the right people are to let in. I think there might be times when there are shortages of nurses and so do we want to think about having people who already have a nursing degree admitted, that seems like a good idea, but let’s also then recognize what is that telling us? It tells us that we’re not producing enough nurses, and so how do we make sure that we’re investing in the American system for educating nurses, make it open to everybody who wants to do it. So, there’ll be lots of immigrants to be part of that, but also lots of people who aren’t immigrants. I think I’m skeptical about the idea that a skill system is the best way to do it. I also mentioned George Weyerhaus before. I don’t want to pick on him in particular, but I can’t help remembering that he once did this calculation, and I guess thought about what it would be like, and he was at the time quite in favor of the idea of a skills-based system, but he also acknowledged that if we had a skills-based system, he would not have been able to come.

Denzil Mohammed: It’s a different type of selection. We talk about immigrants as being self-selected to have this ambition and this drive to determination to take the risk is a very different kind of selection in this way, and as you say, who knows if we will really get it right. Another thing you brought up is revitalization of neighborhoods and economies. This is a part of the conversation that I think gets really ignored. So as an example, when the census data came out and we saw which states were gaining and losing congressional seats, the Boston Business Journal reached out to find out what role immigration played in Massachusetts being able to hold all its congressional seats. And I dug into the data a bit and saw that immigration to Massachusetts increased by 50 percent since 1990. Domestic migration increased by 10 percent, and so migration was what allowed Massachusetts to be able to hold on to its congressional seats. And your research has consistently shown that for many metro areas, immigration is what saved them.

David Kallick: Absolutely, I think that’s extremely clear. If you look at the 50 largest cities in the States, many of them lost population in the mid-20th century. So, like 1960 to 1980, I think 20 to 27 percent lost population. There were a number that rebounded and all of the ones that rebounded did. So, with immigrants playing a very substantial role in that rebound, even more than what you’re describing in Boston. How many cities were there that rebounded without immigrants? Zero. So, I think that doesn’t prove that immigrants cause a population rebound. But I would say if your idea is that you’re going to see the population of a city rebound without immigrants, there are zero examples of that happening in the 20th century.

Denzil Mohammed: It’s such an excellent point and I’m glad that the research has found that.

David Kallick: If you want to talk about disproportionate levels of immigrant entrepreneurship, we really focused there on what we called Main Street businesses. So Main Street businesses are the kinds of businesses that have given the neighborhood its character, have a storefront, this place you can walk into. And it is very important question of revitalization of cities that have seen declining populations because when you have a Main Street that has boarded up storefronts and feels unsafe or uncomfortable to walk through, that causes a lot more negative repercussion than just in that storefront. It obviously affects the sense of whether people want to be in that neighborhood, live in that neighborhood, work in that neighborhood. So, what we see over and over again, is the story in a place like that, an immigrant family comes in seasonal opportunity, the storefront is pretty inexpensive to rent because it’s been boarded up. They start a restaurant, maybe people start to come to that restaurant next door. Somebody opens a food shop, then next door to that maybe somebody opens a clothing store, and little by little the area becomes revitalized, and it becomes a place people want to come to. If you’re going to look at the economic impact of that, of course it matters how many jobs are created there and what are the revenues and putting the properties back on the property tax rolls. So, seems all counts, but I would say that those are a small part of the economic impact, what really has happened is that the whole neighborhood has begun to get to be more appealing and you see ripple effects through the housing market and through safety. And in some ways New York is such an extreme example of that, but people forget it. But in 1970s that was the story of New York City, but New York City population dropped by 1,000,000 people from 8,000,000 to 7,000,000. Sometimes there were a million people worth of empty apartments. The Bronx was burning people. Landlords were setting fire to their apartment buildings in order to collect on the insurance. Like it was fairly unimaginable from today’s perspective at New York State real estate, but that’s some New York City real estate, but that’s what it was the case then. I think what changed the immigrant population in the difference before and after 1970 to 1980 the U.S-born population stayed basically the same. In fact the U.S-born population is today about the same in New York City as it was at the beginning of that period when it was low. What’s different is we today have 3,000,000 immigrants in New York City. So, they more than made-up for that population loss.

Denzil Mohammed: You make me think of Field Corner in Boston, which was in heavy economic decline for several decades. The rent was cheap, so Vietnamese immigrants moved in. They started some nail salons and some restaurants and some food stores as you mentioned and now the area has been totally revitalized with beautiful storefronts. Sidewalks that don’t need repair anymore, streetlights, it’s safe. And that’s a really vivid example of the kind of revitalizing you’re talking about. I think what the population growth in the cities and even this idea of excluding immigrants, undocumented immigrants from COVID relief speaks to the point I want to get at finally with you. Is that immigration seems to be considered very separate issue of American politics and American culture? This is a thing we talk about over there, about people over there. And the fact of the matter is, immigrants are and have always been all across this nation. In every state we see some of the biggest growth in places like, the Dakotas not a traditional gateway state for immigrants, so it’s not a separate issue. And the undocumented immigrants as an example providing these goods and services, delivering home health aides, you name it, up at the forefront in many essential services and industries. If you want economic rehabilitation, you can’t just exclude one route like that because they’re immigrants.

David Kallick: In some ways I feel like in recent years that line between undocumented immigrants and other immigrants has softened some, maybe partly because undocumented immigrants have been here so long at this point. And I think we’ve recognized maybe that we need to live with this issue for a long while, and hopefully we will also address it at some point, but in the meantime, we’ve also lived with it a long while. But I also think that the attacks on immigrants have not usually been very nuanced, it’s been attacks on immigrants overall, and in fact not even just immigrants. I would say anybody who looks different, who looks like they might be an immigrant too. That’s been especially true about Latinx populations, but also, we see the attacks on Asians. There’s not somebody looking and saying, hey, are you actually an immigrant? Were you born in another country? Are you undocumented? I think they’re saying, we assume a lot of stuff about you based on what you look like, what their skin color may be, and I think it feels to me like not the America I know or love. I mean I feel like it should be not what we stand for, and I feel like there’s some hope maybe in how far we’ve gone down that road that we can begin to look in the mirror and recognize ourselves and say, wait a second, that’s not really the way we see. And we’re not really talking about what people’s legal status is or what people’s immigration status is, we’re really kind of talking about what their racial identity is, or things that we may not want to be as open about, and I think we just have to be able to get past that and say, people are people. I think there’s value in maintaining your own distinction and having one foot in and one foot out. I think that’s a very positive thing about America, but also about being able to live together and say now, we are the sum of our parts. That is a purpose.

Denzil Mohammed: It’s a wonderful way to contextualize this whole discussion about immigration when it comes to our present day, our past, and our future, David Kallick, thank you so much for joining us on JobMakers! It was a real pleasure to talk to you.

David Kallick: Thank you, likewise.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and The Immigrant Learning Center, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants voice. I’m so happy that you joined us for this week’s incredible podcast. If you know someone else, we should talk to, email Denzil, that’s D E N Z I L at jobmakerspodcast.org, and please leave us a review. I’m Denzil Muhammed, and please join us next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers podcast.

Episode 16: Ely Kaplansky

JobMakers podcast logo: Ely Kaplansky goes from immigrant to Inc. 5000 insurance entrepreneurEly Kaplansky had an unconventional start. Born to parents who met in a concentration camp and moved to the United States for a better life, Kaplansky dropped out of high school before launching Kaplansky Insurance as a young man. Today, Kaplansky Insurance employs 85 employees in 15 offices across Massachusetts. Listen to learn how Kaplansky took advantage of all the freedom and opportunity he discovered in the United States.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed, and this is JobMakers. JobMakers is a weekly podcast produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center, a not-for-profit, giving immigrants a voice. Every Thursday at noon we explore the world of risk-taking immigrants who create new jobs, products and services in Massachusetts and across the United States. Immigrants are twice as likely to start a business, so an outsized share of immigrants give back to the country they now call home by creating jobs. The paths they take are usually unconventional, and oftentimes they fill gaps in the products and services being offered. For Ely Kaplansky, that unconventional path included dropping out of high school and essentially taking the place of the business that gave him a break, when it was found that they were committing unethical practices. Unconventionally, for an immigrant, his business was more conventional than most: insurance. But since 1974, Ely has created hundreds of jobs in Massachusetts and beyond, with 85 employees and 15 offices across the state today. And he’s grown his business, especially during the pandemic, with 37 acquisitions to date, such that Kaplansky Insurance was named to Inc.‘s “5,000 Fastest Growing Private Companies in America” list. Eli’s success is more than just the pride of having made it. It fulfilled the desires of his parents when they moved from Israel to America in 1955, with just the clothes on their backs and an aunt to take them in. Their journey began in the concentration camps of Germany. And Ely’s story is all about the freedom America offers as you’ll discover in this week’s JobMakers. Ely Kaplansky, thank you so much for joining us on JobMakers.

Ely Kaplansky: Hi, it’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me join you today.

Denzil Mohammed: Tell us a little bit about your business and your vision for your company.

Ely Kaplansky: Well, Kaplansky Insurance, I founded it in 1974 at the ripe old age of 22 and started from scratch. Basically saved up a couple thousand dollars. Had my mother parents cosign for another $4,000. Rented a storefront. And I had no idea what I was doing, and we’ve been growing steadily since then. The first, I’d say first ten years, were difficult. But, we’re going on, I don’t know I’ve lost track, 46 years or something like that, right now, and we’ve been very active both in organic growth and in acquisition. So, and we’re continuing to do so.

Denzil Mohammed: You were named by Inc., Inc 5000, as one of the fastest growing private companies in America. What do you attribute to that growth?

Ely Kaplansky: Well, a lot of it really is due to acquisitions and really understanding our industry and timing is part of it. It’s an industry where the average owner of insurance agencies are getting older and they’re retiring, so there’s more and more opportunities. And I think too that you know, it’s not a very, in most people’s eyes, a very glamorous business to be in. But people who work in it, realize that that’s not the truth. It’s a great business to be in, and the people have the ability to make very nice incomes from it and be there for our clients when they need us the most. Insurance is something you have to have, you hope you never have to use, but when you do have to use it, that’s what we’re here. And, unfortunately, I found that out the hard way about four or five years ago, we had a major fire in our home. We were displaced for almost a year and a half of rebuilding it, and I’m evidence that insurance is important, trust me.

Denzil Mohammed: So you said you started in 1974. You actually moved to the US when you were just three years old, right?

Ely Kaplansky: I did, my parents.

Denzil Mohammed: Your parents moved here after relocating before that.

Ely Kaplansky: Yeah, they, my parents, met in a very unusual situation. They met in Hitler’s concentration camps. My father had been in for six years and my mother had been in for one year and they met very close to the end when they were liberated and they met. They were in Germany. I have an older sister who was born in Germany. Then they immigrated to Israel, and I was born in Tel Aviv. And when I was three, they came over here. My aunt had already immigrated. She had already also been in the camp. She had survived and immigrated to Worcester, Mass. And so my parents decided to come over and be with her and the other interesting part of that trip was in those days, what people seem to do is that my parents weren’t very wealthy at all, and, but whatever they had, they converted into a diamond. And that’s the way people brought their wealth from Europe or from Asia into the United States. And, she had put, my mother put the diamond in a wallet and my older sister was playing with the wallet and lost it. So, when they landed, they literally came here with nothing. Fortunately, we had some family. And my father, my father had a trade, and that’s probably what kept him alive in the camps was he’s an upholsterer. And he made a lot of furniture for the Germans and so, he was able to get work here pretty quickly because he was very good at what he did.

Denzil Mohammed: Wow, as family reunification is the cornerstone of today’s immigration system. And, our partners at George Mason University, The Institute for Immigration Research, along with World Education Services, did a study a few years ago looking at what are the factors that enable high skilled immigrant professionals to succeed, and one of the biggest factors was family, having social support, a social network and it’s really crucial and it was to you because they were the ones who gave you the loan to start your business.

Ely Kaplansky: Well actually my mother ran the show in our family and, she was, based on what they went through, she was very, very careful about she didn’t like to take any risks at all. She wouldn’t let my dad start his own business. She wouldn’t, you know. She, he wanted, you know he wanted to be a bit of an entrepreneur and she wouldn’t really let him. So my parents, they banked at a small credit union, which at the time was in Mattapan, and then we moved to Brookline and I approached the president of the credit union for that $4000 loan. And he said, “I’d love to give it to you, but you have no credit.” And he says, “Well, why don’t you have your mother sign?” So your parents. So I contacted my parents and I asked him to sign and my mother said, “No, when I, we can’t risk that.” So I went back to him and he said, “Wait,” he says, “What’s your mother phone number?” And he knew her and he picked up the phone. And he said, “Sign the loan for this kid. Trust me, you’re doing the right thing.” And she did. And then, then there was that.

Denzil Mohammed: And you hadn’t even finished high school, but you had got into the business of insurance, right?

Ely Kaplansky: Yeah, I got into insurance. You know there’s this joke, nobody gets into insurance on purpose. It’s usually their family business, so they somehow fall into it. But I when I was, when I got my driver’s license at 16 and a half, I got a part-time job after school, delivering license plates and registrations as a runner to car dealerships and insurance agencies. And one of those agencies  when I was about 17, offered me a part-time job in the evenings several nights a week, and I learned how to write, sell basically auto insurance at the time. And when I was in my senior year of high school, that agency offered me a full time job. I had worked for them for the previous summer, and they offered me a full time job and I had two months to graduate. And I said, well, this was a great opportunity. I wanted to take the job and I figured, well, I can always go back and finish those two months. I’m still thinking about doing that, but I haven’t done it yet. As it turned out, I found out that that agency was doing some things which were clearly unethical. I wasn’t aware of it, sort of going on in the back. And  I said that I don’t want to be involved in that, and I said, I don’t think this agency is going to get themselves into trouble. And they’re going to be gone. They were one of the more prominent agencies in the Brookline area at the time. So this area is going to need another agency. So, again, I started from scratch and opened up and I was right. The one of the two owners end up going to prison. And I always worked from the age of 11 on. I always had a job. I never, never didn’t have a part-time job after school, from the age of 11 on. So, I was always active and enjoyed doing things that were exciting and interesting and challenging, and not easy. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.

Denzil Mohammed: Speaking, of not easy, I was going to ask you about what the insurance world was like since March of last year.

Ely Kaplansky: Ooh, that’s an interesting question. I feel almost a little guilty answering it because we’ve done very well both as an agency ourselves and as an industry because of a number of reasons. One of the big reasons is claims have been very, very limited. People haven’t been driving, people have been home taking, less exposure to risks in their homes. From an experience and profitability standpoint,  the industry has done very, very well. And agents have typically have profit sharing agreements with their insurance companies and we benefit from that. So, like I say, I almost feel bad about it, but we did very, very good in that arena and, at the same time, the amount of business that we did, our level of new business and new clients increased, which was actually our best year ever and I think a lot of people were just looking for ways to save money and improve things and they had a little more time because of their working remotely. So we really, as an agency, and we’ve already completed three acquisitions this year, we also benefited from the fact that we’ve been working the, although a lot of our staff has been back in our offices. Our offices have been closed to the public, and we’ve been doing most of our business remotely. And for us, it’s worked out nicely and I think for our clients, because we’ve sort of educated them that most everything could be done remotely, they don’t need to come into the office. I mean, they’re welcome to, so I think going forward it’s going to be a plus for our industry.

Denzil Mohammed: You know you see billboards everywhere for GEICO, and it’s all so gimmicky. You have the caveman, you have Flo, and they’re doing everything they possibly can to get clients. But what? How have you been able to be successful compared to all these big, big businesses?

Ely Kaplansky: Well, quite frankly, you know the guy goes and the Progressives of the world. They have a certain market and they a lot of their clientele. So tend to be people who don’t that just where we’re protecting their assets is not that important. Somebody buys a car, they just want to get the set of plates on the car and drive it. So GEICO will sell them the minimum coverage. We won’t do that. Some agents will, but most agents try to make the buyer understand that they need certain amount of liability. They need rental reimbursement. So if you’re buying just on price, you get what you pay for, and if something happens, you then you can have a problem. In addition, again, if you’re dealing with these direct writers, you’re dealing with somebody who’s either in South Dakota or maybe in some foreign country. And if you have a problem, you really you have nowhere to turn. We’re there for the clients you know, you know. Fortunately, in our industry, it’s another positive thing about our industry is 80 percent of our clients, pay their bills. They don’t have accidents. But it’s the 20 percent, that where there’s problems, it’s financial or claims. And we spent 80 percent of our time with those 20 percent, but that’s what we’re here for, to help them. But we want to make sure that we’re selling them the right coverage. And like I say that, interestingly enough, to, you know, you mentioned Flo, that’s Progressive, and those are the two of the biggest direct writers in the country. But what most people don’t realize is Progressive is the largest independent agent company in the country. So we represent Progressive as well. They don’t really advertise that a whole lot, but even if somebody for some reason they want to be with Progressive, they can come to us as well.

Denzil Mohammed: So you said that your dad wanted to be an entrepreneur as well. It’s sort of strange that your mom took this stance of not taking risks, because I mean they took a risk to migrate. They took more risk to migrate twice into a new place. What do you think it takes to be an entrepreneur?

Ely Kaplansky: Well, I will say I was an entrepreneur before I got married, so I didn’t have that issue that my dad had. And again, like I say he, both my parents came here, not speaking any English and my dad went to night school and eventually they both got their citizenship and I tagged along with that. My mother just learned to speak English on her own, but she was much more social and she learned the language much, much better and quicker than my dad. As an upholsterer, when you’re working, you’re really not doing a lot of talking. His English was a lot more broken though, I mean, he did ok. I spoke I grew up in in my house speaking Yiddish to my dad until I moved out until I was 17. After a while, he wanted to open up his own shop, and again, she was just so, I mean I guess from what they went through, she just didn’t want to take the chance. I’ve had a number of other businesses along the way. I started this business at age 22. And this has been successful. The others, not so much. So I’ve failed a number of times. I’ve probably had five, six, seven other businesses, and, as I said earlier, I have absolutely learned more from those failures than I have from this one success. But I’ve been in the rental car business, car rental leasing. I got into the travel business a year or two before the Gulf War. So I bought an agency, and it was doing ok. And then the Gulf War happened and the world stopped traveling. And that was it. We basically lost 75 percent of our business overnight. I think back, it’s like one of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned. I somehow ran across a book when I was in my early to mid-20s after I had started my business and the name of the book was called OPM. And I never heard those initials before, but it meant Other People’s Money. And I didn’t realize it, but I had already done that. I borrowed some money to start my business, but after I read that book, it made me, you know. And so I grew up in a no risk type of environment. But I realized that that’s what it takes. So I’ve learned that borrowing is not a bad thing and extending yourself a little bit more than you think is reasonable. Taking a little bit more, not too much, but if you feel you can take X amount of risk, multiply that by 1.1 or 1.2 and take that, because if it doesn’t work, you’re not going to end up in too bad of a situation.

Denzil Mohammed: And how do you personally feel about America as this place as full of immigrants and has always depended on immigrants, opened its arms to immigrants?

Ely Kaplansky: I think being one and my family being one, I think it’s the most amazing country in the world. As to how it’s always had its arms open to immigrants. I have mixed emotions about illegal immigrants because I saw how hard my parents worked to become citizens, how difficult it was for them to learn the language and go to night school and do everything that they had to do. And they were proud to become citizens and again as a child I automatically became one. I didn’t have to go through the process, but because of what I remember them having to go through and how much they appreciated what this country offers. We have landscapers. My landscaper is American, but he has illegal immigrants working for him. Now, these are nicest people in the world. I love them, but I just I wish there was a better way for them to become legal, maybe not as difficult as it might be now. But I just feel that immigrants will feel like they’re part of something, that they’re not outsiders if they are citizens of the United States, and if they can legally vote and legally drive and do things of that nature.

Denzil Mohammed: Ely Kaplansky thank you so much for joining us on JobMakers. This was a fascinating interview. So happy that you join us for today’s an inspiring story of another immigrant entrepreneur. If you know someone who should talk to, email Denzil, that’s D-E-N-Z-I-L at jobmakerspodcast.org, and please, leave us a review. I’m Denzil Mohammed. Join us next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers podcast.

Episode 15: Semyon Dukach

JobMakers podcast logo: Semyon Dukach on the high value of immigrants for the U.S. economyLongtime angel investor Semyon Dukach started One Way Ventures to invest in immigrant entrepreneurs after he noticed how well their startups performed. As a refugee from the Soviet Union, he knew the grit and resourcefulness it took to start over somewhere new. Learn how investing in immigrant talent has paid off for Dukach, the immigrant founders and the economy!

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and this is JobMakers.

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An investment in immigrants is an investment in America. Immigrants are part of our communities, schools, companies, and they come here with a one-way ticket. When it comes to their entrepreneurial spirit, there’s obviously tremendous value there. Semyon Dukach knows this all too well. An entrepreneur himself, who was born in Russia, the early restrictive moves of the Trump administration, particularly the Muslim Ban, prompted him to take action. So in 2017, he started a seed stage fund for immigrant tech founders, One Way Ventures. In his 20 years of angel investing, Semyon had noticed a trend. Immigrant led companies repeatedly outperform the rest of his portfolio. Indeed, immigrants make up less than 14 percent of the US population, but started 24 percent of high tech startups and founded or co-founded 55 percent of America’s billion dollar startups. But Semyon doesn’t see through just the economic lens and views much of our immigration policy as inhumane and misguided, as you’ll find out in this week’s JobMakers podcast.

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Semyon Dukach, thank you for joining us on JobMakers. How are you?

Semyon Dukach: Great, thanks for having me.

Denzil Mohammed: So tell us a little bit about your current venture, One Way Ventures.

Semyon Dukach: One Way Ventures is a venture capital fund that invests in technology companies that are started by immigrants.

Denzil Mohammed: And why do you think this focus on immigrants is particularly important?

Semyon Dukach: Well, it fits our mission and sense of identity in that we are all immigrants and we really believe that people should have the same opportunities to work to create companies to do whatever peaceful thing they want to do regardless of where they have been, regardless of what paperwork they may have. We generally identify with other immigrants more than with necessarily people, just people who came from the countries that we specifically came from. So we also believe in expanding identity in that way, but specifically for venture capital, it’s also where lucrative investment works. Immigrants are much more likely, all things being equal, to build a really large disruptive business, and in venture capital, the returns to investors, I often drew by an outlier. Someone built something really big. So, so over half of all the unicorns have been started by immigrants, whereas only one-fourth of the early stage VC investments are invested by immigrants. So it’s kind of a natural focus for us for those reasons.

Denzil Mohammed: It says on your website 55 percent of $1,000,000 startups are started by immigrants. And of course we know that throughout American history, immigrants have always been inherently entrepreneurial. It’s something I often say, which is that the act of migrating is itself an entrepreneurial act. And you have previously said that immigration is fundamentally entrepreneurial experience. I want to get into your personal experience first. Your family came here as refugees from the Soviet Union. What was that experience like? You were 11 at the time, right?

Semyon Dukach: Yeah, I was a kid. My parents, I think, did a pretty brave thing, in that they left their country to live in and went into a total unknown.  They had very little information about the outside world, and they also couldn’t bring very much with them. I think it was about $100 that they would let you exchange, right? And then you give up your citizenship. You give up most of your relationships, right? You don’t expect to ever be able to go back. So it’s pretty amazing, really. But I’m very grateful to my parents, having done that, largely thinking of me and my sister. Delighted to be with them.

Denzil Mohammed: What is the move really for? You and your sister to have a better future, a more secure future?

Semyon Dukach: I think that was probably the biggest part of it, yeah, but I think for my father in particular, he was quite tired of that sense of dishonesty, you know, lies that remain in society over there.

Denzil Mohammed: I recently interviewed a journalist called Jo Napolitano, who’s coming out with a book on refugee students and their fight to have good schooling in education, and she had spent some time on the U.S. border and saw how much education and opportunity was really such a driving force for even parents to send unaccompanied minors through the perilous journey to the U.S. Tell me a little bit about what the experience was like as an 11 year old moving to the U.S. What was that like? What was going to school, learning the language?

Semyon Dukach: Yeah, well, first we were in Europe for some time. We were in Austria and then over in Italy, near Rome for a couple of months. Where ’cause we also know papers, right. Like it’s, so it’s, they kept your passport. It was, you were, basically renouncing your motherland. You were kind of viewed almost as a traitor, in a sense. And so when you left, you had nothing, right? And so it took so long to establish some basic credentials, identity papers of some sort. And then to apply for refugee status in the U.S. we had to be granted that. But when we arrived in the US, it was 1979, we flew into JFK airport in New York City, and were taken in by one of the charitable organizations that helps refugees with a lot of funding from the federal government as well, I think. We lived in the projects in New Jersey for a while. Eventually my father got a job in Texas. We moved to Texas. Then, things started to normalize. But at the very beginning of it, I remember my parents being scared, right? Like for me it’s kind of an exciting adventure, but, I could also sense that how out of their comfort zone they were. And of course, the language, the culture, everything is super confusing. I remember like around the airport we stopped at a Burger King or McDonald’s or whatever and then like that going in there with a $10.00 bill in order to get us all food. We came back with, you know, four meals and some coins ’cause, that’s what it cost to buy meals for four people. At the time, it was about 10 bucks. He, you know, he was all white ’cause he only had like 100. He expected to get, you know, 9.50 in change. So, that was memorable. And then, for me as a kid, there was plenty of violence, I guess bullying. Kids that be tough on other boys who don’t understand the culture ’cause they don’t know what to look at, how to act. That’s how I got into fights. I got beat up.

Denzil Mohammed: People often very much underestimate just how fast, particularly refugees need to get settled. And you arrived, I would assume, before the formal resettlement program began in the U.S. and so what happens today is very different to how it was back then. But the kind of financial assistance you received from the government would have been just for a few months, and your family really was forced to find some sort of stability really fast, right?

Semyon Dukach: Yeah, I mean, I think there were charitable organizations that shared that burden of assistance. I don’t know how long it would have lasted, certainly not forever. It couldn’t have been more than six months, though. We also didn’t speak a word of the language, but we eventually we figured it out.

Denzil Mohammed: So unpack this idea of migration being an entrepreneurial experience. Can you sort of get into the qualities or characteristics of a migrant or refugee that makes them inherently entrepreneurial?

Semyon Dukach: Well, I mean, you going against the mainstream, against the grain. It’s not a normal thing to do in a society to pick up and leave and go somewhere else isn’t weird unusual I think, right? Most people would never do that and they think the analogy would be for someone to go leave to create a new company. You’re also thinking, you know, it’s a lot of faith in human decision. It’s a lot of being willing to do a little bit less safe, less obvious choice. And plenty of people will advise you not go straight and don’t when you’re starting your first business, people say don’t leave the jobs, like, be careful. And they will tell you, don’t leave us. Don’t leave your homeland, don’t leave your support networks. I think some people probably feel betrayed when you leave. I mean you might leave Paris, France, behind, or whatever, and they might not necessarily wish success upon you. They might be hoping you’ll fail and come back, which is why one of the reasons it’s so difficult to go back, right? Cause, you don’t want to admit that they were right and you were wrong. So once you cut those ties, you sort of, you have to keep going. And then it’s entrepreneurial that, you know when you get to where you’re going, you just don’t really understand how the world works, right? Like you don’t understand the culture. Often you don’t understand the language. And so, in the same sense, when you starting some new little start-up to try to compete with big companies, you might have an advantage to some particular thing. But if you don’t really understand how the business works, how their market works, what all the relationships are that affected the resellers, right, the suppliers, like there’s many things you just don’t know. And the only advantage is that you can move faster and you have less fear and less to protect. Like, the reason the startup can beat a big company is that the big company has a lot more to lose. So in everyday decisions, they have to go carefully. At least with the existing customers, they can’t just radically change the product. And they wouldn’t be able to if they wanted them to, because there have so many entrenched, comfortable people doing things the way they do things. And when you’re starting over, you could do a lot more. Likewise, when you come to a new country, you’re not constrained by the social strata, the social structures of the existing network. Yeah, it’s hard to build a network from scratch, but on the other hand, the sky is the limit when you’re building it from scratch. You don’t know anything about it. You’re like a new person.

Denzil Mohammed: You’re inherently a risktaker, right?

Semyon Dukach: Well, I think every entrepreneur is inherently a risktaker.

Denzil Mohammed: But in a place where you have to learn how to take the bus and tax regulations and all sorts of things.

Semyon Dukach: That’s right.

Denzil Mohammed: Prior to One Way Ventures, you had started several technology companies and you were the director of Techstars in Boston. But, One Way Ventures, really, from what I can tell, started out from a moment of activism, right?

Semyon Dukach: Little bit, yeah. I mean I was already planning to be Techstars and start some kind of an investment fund, but I didn’t really know what kind and ended up going to the airport to protest at a moment where, early in the Trump administration, they stopped people right in airports and turned them around because of where they were born, not even their paperwork or citizenship status, just instead, their place of birth, which seemed kind of unfair and arbitrary. And so, I was up there jumping up and down, yelling with signs, which I hadn’t done since I was in college because we realized that the immigration system didn’t care about people personally. And it sort of clicked and I decided to the bank would be different, so the fund as well.

Denzil Mohammed: So that particular moment catalyzed this idea of supporting immigrants in order to thrive. What has the experience been like so far with One Way Ventures?

Semyon Dukach: It’s been great. You know, we made a lot of investments, we first fundraised, then invested in about 50 companies, had quite a bit of success. And we were able to raise a larger fund. I mean, there there’s lots to learn about building a venture capital fund, but one thing we haven’t measured on this core thesis of backing immigrants. In fact, I would say we have become stricter in how we define immigrants than how we were at the beginning, We see more and more just how strong founders can be.

Denzil Mohammed: Have you sort of witnessed firsthand the damage of these restrictive immigration policies of the past four years when it comes to their entrepreneurial ecosystem here in Boston?

Semyon Dukach: As someone who is an American citizen that has some positive feelings for the country I live in, it does concern me when America starts cutting back on immigration, you know it’s gonna hurt America. But as far as you know, One Way Ventures, it’s probably better for the fund if it’s hard to immigrate, like because this is only stronger. The people who manage to get here anyway, if it’s harder, are going to be even more likely to build a big business, right? And if there was a world where there was no borders and visas that people can just come, well, this thesis wouldn’t necessarily immediately generate good results, right? Because if anyone could come, and it wasn’t hard, and then we have to find some other thing that people went through that was really hard in order to decide what kind of people to back because, then, the fundamental thesis of people who went through a really hard thing are more likely to overcome the challenges ahead of them than somebody who had relatively privileged and easy path to get to where they are. Right. That’s the core thesis.

Denzil Mohammed: I remember talking to Johannes Fruehauf, who founded BioLabs in Cambridge, talking about, you know, it’s not the aristocrats who migrate to other countries. It’s people who have their backs against the wall, whether they take a plane ride or they cross a desert.

Semyon Dukach: We don’t view ourselves as directly philanthropic in any way. It’s not a consideration of ours whether an immigrant founder needs extra money, needs extra help, which, that’s just not what we do, you know. We just want to invest in the absolutely strongest people that are gonna probably succeed without our investment. Probably lots of people want to invest in their companies And I would say our dedication to our mission to our beliefs only make it easier for us to convince these founders to accept our money. It’s really them that are doing us the favor most of the time. And the reason they’re doing it is that they like our thesis and they like our approach. And they know that we are genuine. And so it works out in that way. Also we have a very strong network. At this point, we have a lot of portfolio founders who willing to help each other. We have LPs who are investors in our fund who often themselves were immigrant entrepreneurs who had success or they were friendly with immigrants or were immigrants themselves. And so there’s 160 of those people and most of them are very eager to help the people who are building their companies and they’re doing it not just because [inaudible], they’re doing it because they like our idea of helping people expand their identity and creating this, like, powerful mafia of immigrant founders, right, that’s collectively more successful than all the founders who were born in this country, as a group. It’s really the most successful group of all.

Denzil Mohammed: Talk a little bit about the kinds of companies you choose to invest in. I realize that it covers a range of different kinds of services, right?

Semyon Dukach: Products, models, services, enhancement services, yeah, pretty general fund but pretty broad. It’s generally some kind of technology. Because it needs something that’s defensible as it scales, as it grows. And we mostly we look at the strength of the founding team, and what the market says is a unique, differentiated, ideal or other business model differentiation, something that will we believe will grow to be large and keep going larger, even in the face of bigger competition.

Denzil Mohammed: We often hear that Boston has many advantages when it comes to starting businesses and growing businesses, but one of them being that we have all these people from around the world. Could you explain to an American audience the real value of that kind of cosmopolitan workforce?

Semyon Dukach: Yeah, I mean, I would say probably the biggest value drivers would be the people who actually starting the large destructive companies, people investing in the big businesses. People like, Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, who really build gigantic, successful companies, who come here as immigrants. You know that’s probably the most, like, I forgot the value. But I would say that the people who come just to work some job also bring value because they can do the job better and cheaper than someone else. And I would actually argue that even the migrants will come without any education, the people who walk on foot from Honduras, like across the border illegally and have zero education and have all kinds of other issues, you know, they’ll probably consume some services in the very beginning just to get on their feet. But I would say they actually add tremendous value in that then they’re very social as a group like, you know, most poor people indoors don’t walk 2,000 miles to get to the Mexican border. Like you gotta think about the people who actually do that. They are generally the ones with the most dedication, the strongest work ethic, right? They’re the ones, if you gonna hire people, for some job that doesn’t require an education, I mean, I would hire those people in a second over people who didn’t go through the journey, right? They get preselected, they pretested. They’re the best people. So it’s, yeah, America is a country that benefits from a more open immigration policy and I suppose it might benefit a little more from encouraging the highly educated people who bring the value of the education with them. And their culture. But it also benefits, I think, from the less educated ones, from the general diversity of the people who come. But I just want to draw a distinction for your audience in that I actually don’t believe that it’s appropriate to ask the question of, to ask questions, to ask, you know, whether these people bring value to America, what kind of value they bring to America. You know I know there’s a lot of evidence that shows that they bring the tremendous value, but I don’t think it actually maters. I believe in this radical notion of equality of opportunity and universal human rights. I think that a lot of Americans move, almost all Americans, actually, they really did believe in that same idea, this idea that all people are created equal, that the random circumstances of your birth not limit your potential. It doesn’t guarantee you anything, but it shouldn’t stop you from applying for a job or trying to start a business or whatever; it just shouldn’t matter. Like it used to be that if you were born with dark skin in America, you were automatically a slave for the rest of your life and you could never do anything at all but be a slave. And today, almost no one believes that that’s acceptable. Almost no one believes that you could limit job applicants to a certain race. Like people don’t think that’s fair or just and I just see a huge inconsistency there because if you actually, you truly don’t think  it’s fair or just to allow a company, you know, to only hire people of a certain race, how could you possibly believe that it’s fair to us to arbitrarily say that if you happen to be born on the same side of this line, on the other side of the little river or whatever, you know you don’t get to choose where you weren’t any more than what color were like, you know. You just come into this world, right? How did that determine whether you can apply for a job and get a job or start a company in America? It shouldn’t. It can’t. So, to get back to my original point, yes, the immigrants who come here, bring value into America, and yes, America will be financially better off, economically better off and culturally it better off, really from the diversity if it lets more people in and lets them in easier.

Denzil Mohammed: There was a lot of talk in the past few years about reducing family reunification, which is the cornerstone of our immigration policy, generally in favor of a skills-based system. I imagine I know what your thoughts on that is. Our own research has shown that even for highly skilled professionals, social capital is actually the most important asset that they have in order to climb the ladder and to succeed. How do you feel about this notion of choosing people based on skills?

Semyon Dukach: Well, it would be just like if instead of the last Emancipation Proclamation, Abraham Lincoln, had just said, you know what, let’s free the black people who have particularly good skills and let’s start with them and then maybe we’ll maybe reunify some families, so if they have a sister or brother they have some freedom. I would feel that that’s immoral and wrong. I would feel that you gotta do the right thing. And those aren’t the right questions to ask. So I really don’t care whether you do it based on family ties or skill reunification. I think it’s wrong to prevent people from crossing the border from taking a job. And I think saying, hey, these are our American jobs, they’re not going to share them with someone else, this is wrong and immoral. And the wrong occurs.

Denzil Mohammed: How do you feel about America as the country that took you and your family? How do you feel about America as a home for immigrants and refugees?

Semyon Dukach: Generally, more positive than most of the rest of the world. I think America, has been at the forefront of letting people in, right? And historically has been living ways, and there have been  periods of greater and greater freedom, you know? But generally speaking, Americans take a lot of people in. So has Australia. So has Canada. America is not the only country that’s done that. So has Brazil to some extent, and generally, all of those countries have done well as a result. But America, particularly, owes most of its success to the immigration policies of the last couple 100 years. And, some to the geography, and a lot probably to the original ideas of the founding fathers, which include the ideas that I’m alluding to, maybe not quite to that extent. Tolerance is important here, the freedom of expression, First Amendment stuff. Like there’s a lot of things about America that make it attractive to people come, but then the actual fact that people are allowed to come is also critical to the success. So yeah, I mean, I’m grateful to America for taking in my family for sure. I’m also proud to be in America to the extent that America does these things, but I’m also still disappointed with America like I am with most other countries, in that we’re not yet at the level of acceptance of others that I think is necessary.

Denzil Mohammed: Semyon Dukach, thank you so much for speaking with us on JobMakers. It was really an honor to talk with you.

Semyon Dukach: Thanks very much for having me. Thank you for the work that you do.

Denzil Mohammed: And thank you for the work that you do. JobMakers is a weekly podcast produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. I’m so happy that you joined us with this week’s inspiring story of another immigrant entrepreneur. If you know someone we should talk to, email Denzil. That’s D-E-N-Z-I-L at jobmakerspodcast.org, and please leave us a review. I’m Denzil Mohammed. Join us next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers podcast.

Episode 14: Jo Napolitano

JobMakers podcast logo: Jo Napolitano on the inspiring stories of immigrant childrenJo Napolitano believes that giving immigrant and refugee students access to a good education is both the most moral and the most practical choice. Drawing on her own experiences as an immigrant and her years of reporting, she discusses the unlocked potential of foreign-born students. Tune in to also discover what she learned reporting on students at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and this is JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: The enterprising spirit of immigrants isn’t restricted to starting businesses. If you look deeper at what motivates immigrants and refugees to move to a whole new homeland, what it takes to learn a new language, culture and laws, and how they navigate various barriers, you’ll find that immigrants have a tremendous drive to do better, and this has always been the case throughout the U.S. history of immigration. For Jo Napolitano, journalist, former Spencer fellow at Columbia University and author of the new book, The School I Deserve Six Young Refugees and Their Fight for Equality in America, that enterprising spirit of immigrants and refugees across the nation, even at the U.S.-Mexico border, is something she has seen firsthand, especially among children. She’s seen them fight to go to good schools so that they can fulfill their dreams, learning with donated tablets in tents in Mexico during the pandemic. And she’s seen the outcomes, ambitious young adults who use education and the safety of the United States to thrive. Educating immigrant children, including those who are undocumented, is not only the moral thing to do, but an investment in our collective economic well-being. With better jobs, they can contribute more, and they can make lives better for all Americans, as you’ll hear about in this week’s JobMakers Podcast.

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Denzil Mohammed: Jo Napolitano, thank you for joining us in JobMakers. How are you?

Jo Napolitano: I’m great. Thank you so much for having me.

Denzil Mohammed: So this podcast is about enterprising immigrants and the kinds of things that America allows them to do. Give us your story of how you arrived in the US and where you are today.

Jo Napolitano: So I was actually born in Bogota, Colombia, and unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you feel the story turns out, I think it’s kind of cool. I was abandoned the very next day at a bus stop by my birth mother, and she had walked up to a woman who looked kind of reasonable, and handed me to that woman and said, you know, “Can you hold this baby for a minute? I forgot her blanket at my mother’s house. I’ll be right back.” And she never came back. So that woman stayed with me for hours and eventually I was taken to the police station and eventually the police tracked down my birth mother and she signed adoption papers, and I was placed in an orphanage. So I stayed there for 3.5 months, and not doing particularly well, not being given adequate food at all, in very, very, very bad shape up when I was adopted by a family from Brooklyn, New York. Actually, they were living on Long Island at the time, but they actually flew down to Bogota, got me, and took this kind of like perilous plane ride home. And I survived. And I was fed a lot of Italian food in a blender to make me kind of bulk up, and not, you know, succumb to this like acute-level starvation. And attended a solid public school, which is why I’m so interested in public education, and then went and got a nearly full ride to the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, started writing for The New York Times when I was about 24, 25, stayed there for a couple years, then went to the Chicago Tribune for five year, then Newsday for five years. Then, when I was 40, I won a Spencer Education fellowship to Columbia University so that I could research and write a book on immigrant education, and the first chapter of that book is called “From Colombia to Columbia in Forty Short Years.”

Denzil Mohammed: Wow, that’s an incredible journey in just two minutes. How do you feel immigration has shaped your identity and the kinds of things that you’re interested in now?

Jo Napolitano: So, you know, it took me a while to kind of see myself as an immigrant because I did not intentionally leave Colombia or intentionally come here. But I guess that was kind of fated to have to happen and it has certainly worked out for me. In researching my book, which is called, The School I Deserve, I looked in a little bit on how Colombia is doing and how they were doing when I was born in the 70s. And these are really obviously, you know, we all know a pretty dire picture. As a matter of fact, Colombia, in 2016, had around that time about as many or slightly more internally displaced people than Syria. So that means people were inside their own country, running, you know, trying to find safety inside their own nation, which is a pretty bad situation. It wouldn’t be uncommon or a drug lord to come to your farm or house and say, “You don’t live here anymore. You got to go.” And things that were just really unimaginable here and just kind of like a lawlessness that goes on there. So that was the situation going on in Colombia clearly shaped my very early days.  I believe that kind of like that incredible wealth disparity in the nation created like an upper class, oftentimes with a criminal element, and then just this enormous underclass. And where I was born, which is a place where I was abandoned, is a place called The Pillory. It’s where people would have had like public executions and hangings and really bad stuff happening. And so I kind of feel like, though I didn’t choose to come to Colombia, ’cause I was only 3.5 months old. That’s where I started and this is where I came to Long Island. The family that I was adopted by was very, very Italian-American, changed my name from Teresa to Josephine Napolitano and they had their own immigrant story, which in my experience, and this is kind of, you know, unlike some adoptees. Some adoptees will tell you a different story. But in my opinion, in my lived experience, their family background firstly became my family background. And it became more relevant to my life, as you know, when I looked at what’s going on in the people who are raising me. Like, what’s their backstory, their immigrant story? And that became, you know, if I had to track my family tree, I would track it from my relatives from. Italy, because their children are the ones who raised me. You know, it’s like their descendants had they had the greatest impact on  my life. And so they had their own immigrant story. They had come from Italy. I would want to say, in the 20s, and my grandfather, who I was particularly close with, he was a really amazing guy who was a longshoreman in Brooklyn for 30 years, like working on the waterfront, that kind of classic, Italian blue collar life. And he had he was a smart guy, but he had to quit school in the 8th grade to join his father’s tailoring business, but he was a really a smart young man who didn’t want his education to stop there. And so he went on to his local public library every week and took out another like a classic work of literature and read it until he would have been like high school graduate age. And when I was told that when I was younger, it made an enormous impression on me. I just can’t even imagine quitting my own education in the eighth grade and then, you know, doing this labor type of job and then going to the library every week and checking out a new book and being so diligent about that and kind of making your own school. And I just thought that was really incredibly important and I was really impressed by that. And I loved him to pieces. He was like my favorite human being when I was a little kid.

Denzil Mohammed: That is incredible, that someone would take that on their own initiative to pursue their education as opposed to just, saying, “Let me just work and let me just make money and let me do what is expected of me. And a lot of people might say that that kind of enterprising spirit belongs to a particular era or to a particular place of origin, and that perhaps today immigrants are don’t have that kind of enterprising spirit. Now, this is something that we’ve seen in the research going back to the time of, like, Levi Strauss. Immigrants come here with an enterprising spirit. That’s what drives them to move to a totally unknown place. And perhaps it’s something that enables them to be more entrepreneurial, to start businesses at much higher rates than the U.S.-born. From your experience, both personally and professionally, do you see any sort of disparity between immigrants who came here before the immigrants who are here now, in terms of that enterprising spirit?

Jo Napolitano: Yeah, I’d say they’re more ambitious now. I would say when I was at Columbia University, I sat between two remarkable people who were former Somali refugees, and these were two graduate students at Columbia University. Both of them had come from a war-torn nation fleeing incredible violence in their homeland. Both had come in children. One of them was pursuing a PhD and I’m super proud of her. She rocks it out every day at the University of Texas system and the other one started the Sahan Journal in Minneapolis, covering his community and doing remarkably well and gaining recognition and awards. So, to me for someone to think an immigrant is here only as some sort of like societal leach that’s here to like take. I find that really a stunning categorization. I’ve heard as much said when I was at the Tenement  Museum many years ago. Someone had remarked like, “Oh well, these immigrants back then,” that we were learning about who had come and were living in New York City in the early 1900s, “they’re different than the ones coming today.” And it would took me everything to say, like, “Yeah, by different, do you mean better. Like what exactly do you mean by different?” Now, of course, I thought my grandfather was amazing and my grandparents had their incredible story that I don’t think I’m better than them. But what I’m saying is that if for anyone were to imply that immigrants of an earlier era are somehow superior to who’s coming over today, I think that is just clinically insane. It literally makes no sense. It is refuted by study after study of how ambitious and how certain groups of immigrants make incredible leaps from one generation to another. Remarkably, I mean one of my really good friends, Veronica Calderon, who’s in my book, she’s my age, so mid-forties, and when she was growing up, she was raised by her two loving migrant farmworker parents. And so they would take her and her siblings all across the country to pick certain clock crops at certain times of the year. And that only guide now is an incredibly talented, really gifted ESL teacher with a four year undergraduate degree and master’s degree, and is truly a master of ESL education. And she was picking crops in a farm field for most of her childhood. So to you know to see her parents who were in their station that her getting a master’s degree and being so respected in her field is I think an incredible thing. So no, I wouldn’t say I have no idea if they are how to compare. I don’t know how you would even make it comparison. Part of me thinks of college attendance, but back then not many people went to college in the early 1900s. So it’s like, I don’t know exactly how you would measure that, but I certainly think that the immigrants coming here are no slackers.

Denzil Mohammed: One thing I want to point out is the disparity between the children of immigrants and their parents when it comes to education. And you talk about these sort of leaps and bounds that they’re able to achieve in America. Mexican immigrants, their children, where they reach with, where they reach with education compared to their parents, it’s a massive gap. You know, their parents come here probably with just a high school education or no high school education and their children end up in community college or four year colleges, and that’s the opportunity that America gives them. And I know that education and access to education is really important to you. You are just about to come out with a book on this topic when it comes to refugee youth. Talk a little bit about why you feel access to education is important when it comes to immigrants and what the findings of your book reveal.

Jo Napolitano: So yes, I wrote a book called The School I Deserve, and it’s about six refugees who had to sue their school district in Lancaster, PA, in order to be admitted to that school. So initially all of those kids were turned away from the school. Some of them, you know, heeded the school’s decision and just found work in the community and really struggled. Others pushed back and tried to get their refugee advocates to get them in school, and so the ones who pushed back were ultimately admitted to an alternative school that they felt was just really punitive, high discipline, not teaching them well. And they knew that this was wrong. So eventually the ACLU was alerted and sued the school district to put the kids in the mainstream campus and to stop the practice of either turning away refugees or putting them in a substandard school. And that’s what happened. So I wrote a book about that case and I did that because you know when we think of the term refugee in particular, we think of kind of like this huddled little group of people. They’re just dressed in rags and they have two cents in their pocket and they’re just in this really kind of decrepit state. And yeah, there’s a lot of humility and a lot of impoverishment that that folks may come here with.  But these are people who are with brains, who are ambitious, who are intelligent, who work hard who know how to, or at least find out how to advocate for themselves, who contribute mightily once they’re here. I mean, the girl at the heart of the book is named Khadidja Issa and all she wanted to do was become a nurse. That’s what she wanted to do. And so when the school turned her away, what was unfortunate is they had a really robust nursing program at the mainstream campus, and that’s where she wanted to go. Ultimately, she was allowed in and now she’s in community college, chipping away at a community college degree year after year after year. She’s been in there about two years now. She finally is done with all of her ESL classes at the community college, and is starting to chip away the actual nursing work. And so it’s just like, wow, we created a situation that would deprive us of her and not allow her incredible ambition, intelligence, drive. When she was in high school and she was finally admitted to that nursing program. You know how you as a kid, you pass a quiz, you go okay, I got a 70, an 80, I passed?  She would not stop taking quizzes, particularly on human anatomy, until she scored 100. So she would take it over and over and over and over until she got 100. And so her bookmarks were astoundingly high. And I really, I feel like there’s a lot of potential that we all benefit when we mine that potential using education as our tool, we all gain. You know, I’m terrified of needles, and I cannot wait until Khadidja can take my blood, because I know she’ll do it the right way. And so I just feel like, you know, look what we were going to do this child. We were going to make her be, you know, really deprived her and us of all of her abilities. So she would have either a stay-at-home mom, which is great. Stay-at-home moms are wonderful, but that’s not wonderful if you wanted to do something else or in addition to it. It makes me just so angry to see all of this wasted potential when we tell immigrants they’re not as good and they don’t have the right or maybe they won’t graduate. We gotta keep you out or put this put you on another track. It’s like we’re shooting ourselves in the foot. We’re denying ourselves this incredible intellect, and that’s just, that is completely unacceptable. So, you know, that’s really, I think all the time about all the children born in these nations who don’t have access to a solid education, cannot make their way to a university, cannot share their gifts with the world. And that is like taking a significant portion of the world just throwing it away. You know, we’ll never know those gifts and that’s sickening. I always think how much more advanced would we be with medical science, with human rights, with education, all these great things if we had everybody contributing. But instead we just cut off this massive, massive portion of the world every year through the lack of opportunity and we’re just slowing us down not to have people share all the gifts that they really have.

Denzil Mohammed: So your grandfather took education seriously. You took education seriously. Forced migrants, the refugees that you talk about in your book, take education seriously this year. Generations apart and yet still there’s this common thread. Are you sort of overgeneralizing this idea that immigrants are so enterprising? Is this really what you’ve seen in your work?

Jo Napolitano: Well, I’ll tell you this. I will tell you that I can speak to the importance of education for many immigrants, including unaccompanied minors and refugees. Khadidja’s family, who are the family at the heart of my book, could see mom is named Mariam and they had lived. Khadidja is from Sudan and she fled Sudan on foot to Chad with her family and when she was five years old to escape, unbelievable violence going on in Sudan. So she gets to Chad and she lived in a refugee camp for a dozen years. A dozen years. Like, we often think of people in refugee camps like they’re there for a few months or maybe a year. They were there a dozen years. So finally, years on, Mariam, Khadidja’s mom, learns that not only are they going to move from the refugee camp, but they’re coming to the United States. Now I, as an ethnocentric American, thought that anyone learning they’re coming to the United States is just thrilled beyond belief. That’s like the best possible thing that can happen. For Mariam, it was actually really sad because it meant that she probably would never see her parents again, with whom she lived in the refugee camp, big extended family, lots of brothers and sisters for her, aunts and uncles for the kids.  And so, a move to America meant that a big portion of that life was just over. She knew she wasn’t going to be able to afford to come back or it would potentially not be safe enough to come back and see them. She was saying goodbye to them. And she’s younger than I am. She’s like in her early forties. She was saying goodbye to them for what she believed was forever. And so, she thought about not coming. She actually talked to her own mother and was like, “I might just not go, because I don’t want to be separate from all my family I’ve had all my life.” And then her mother said to her, “If you stay here, your children will have no future. They have to get an education. And they were not getting an education in the refugee camp.” They attended school only three months out of the year, ’cause that’s all that was offered. Khadidja was 18. She had a sixth grade education. You know, they had already lost so much education anyway. And so the grandmother said, “You cannot stay, you have to go and do this for them.” And so really education was the only reason she came. You know, that was the deciding factor. And I feel like you do see that a lot for children, it’s like, I think it’s very easy to understand a parent who has a child, growing up in a really difficult situation, wants to alleviate that, you know, wants to make that better, wants their child to have more choices, and so they’re going to go wherever that is, that opportunity is. And if that means they have to break the law and cross the border and do it, I mean, hell, Lord knows I would do it if I was living in a place that was really struggling. I mean, in my book, it talks about how I believe it was a woman from Harvard that said that some of the kids growing up in the Northern Triangle have a higher, just as bad of a death rate as people growing up in Aleppo. Like, it’s, literally that bad. It’s like in some of those communities, you know, it’s funny, when you and I, or many American people think about a child joining a gang, we always think about it as a decision. Like I’m a kid, I’m a teen, and I’m in a rough neighborhood. A gang may offer me a sense of friendship and family and may be able to look after me so I choose to join a gang. In some communities in the Northern Triangle, you’re born into the gang, like the street you’re born on. That’s the gang that rules this street. There is no choice. And so I think if we can imagine the situation people are coming from, that they will do anything to make that better. I mean, even my birth mother, I’m sure when she handed me to a stranger on that corner, she didn’t think she was making my life worse. She thought she was going to make my life better. Whatever she was living was so bad.  You know, I was in very bad shape when I was born. I mean to be born five pounds, means she wasn’t eating burgers for lunch either every day. You know she was not doing well herself, so she handed me to someone who looks stable, thinking that it would bring me to a better place and I went to Columbia. So, like, I mean the university, so I’m like, it worked. You know like her active desperation worked for me. Like, you know, I’d love to be able to tell her that. Like, I’ve done all the things I was writing for The New York Times I was like 25 years old.  You know, so that, so I feel like people make decisions out of desperation. I mean, if your house was on fire, would you and your kids stay in it or would you leave? You know, the moment my house goes on fire, I’ve taken my cat and my partner would get out of here, so makes sense to me.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m reminded of a graphic novel written by a guy called Jake Halpern who also worked for The New York Times. He won a Pulitzer Prize for it. It’s called Welcome to the New World, where he follows a Syrian refugee family that arrived in the U.S. on Election Day 2016. And some of the things you speak about, you know people think that, oh, I get to go to America. It’s like I won the lottery and I’m still looking forward. They had to leave their grandparents behind in a refugee camp in Jordan where they spent several years, where the children were not able to go to school. It really is a heart wrenching decision to do this and then up on top of that to adapt, to learn a new language, new rules, new culture, new schools, to be able to fight discrimination. They received death threats in their hometown in Connecticut. Bring us to this present moment, and help us understand what is happening at the border with unaccompanied minors. You just spoke about the Northern Triangle, and that to be in a gang is not to make a choice. Oh, I’m going to be in a gang. You’re born into these things. You born into very, very dire circumstances. Death rates are the same as in Aleppo. Help us understand what is happening with unaccompanied minors.

Jo Napolitano: Well, I’ll tell you that there’s a story I did about a school that volunteers created south of the border because children were being held so long, you know, more than a year south of the border waiting for entry because Trump didn’t honor the asylum seeking right that people have. And kind of suspended all the normal norms that we were used to seeing and in the order was suspended and some 60,000 people were waiting south of the border for a very, very long time. I wrote a story about that.

Denzil Mohammed: Is it, is that the remaining Mexico policy?

Jo Napolitano: Yes, and it was. The school is called the Sidewalk School. They’re actually pretty well known. They’ve been written about a lot. There’s ways to give money to them. Pretty remarkable organization and they serve children living south of borders. So I was actually a finalist for an Education Writers Association award for my story about the Sidewalk School because, during the pandemic, the Sidewalk School did a remarkable thing. They went virtual. So you really have to see how enterprising that is. I mean, you have kids living in tents with their families who were not allowed anymore to come to the school gathering grounds because it was too dangerous. And so the people who organized the school are pretty amazing people, raised enough money to buy tablets for the kids. So they were supposed to go like back to their tent and look at the tablet and do this, I mean really just you want to enterprising? Oh my God, it blows my mind. And by the way, the tents not in good shape. This is a very, very dire situation. And also through that school I had learned from another parent. Sometimes parents send their children from their homes. Let’s say the parents and family live in the Northern Triangle. They’ll send their children alone, and these are what are called the unaccompanied kids. They go with a coyote. They go with a human trafficker, I guess however you want to look at a person who takes them on this journey, sometimes these people look out for the kids and help them, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes the kids are raped along the way, so I mean they face an unbelieving. Imagine sending your eight year old, your nine year old boy or 10 year old boy with people you don’t know, who are, in some instances very shady. I mean, I was talking to a teacher and a parent, and the parent had said, like “Even if my child is sexually abused along that trip, it’s still better than what they’re facing here.” That’s jaw-dropping. I mean, when we think about our children where like God, I would do anything to keep them from away from that kind of abuse. But a parent can look you in the face and say, “Even if they suffer that abuse, they have a better outcome and a chance to live, versus staying on this block here in Honduras or El Salvador.” That’s how bad it is. That’s jaw-dropping to me. And that’s a decision parents make for their children. And it’s like, wow, I mean, how bad do things have to be for you to agree to that potential of that kind of harm coming to your child?

Denzil Mohammed: That insight into what is happening at the border and the motivations of people I often see comments online about, you know, how can any parent want to endanger their child in that way? We need to understand how desperate circumstances are in other places and that universal theme among any parent who would just do anything to get their child out of that situation. And, thank you also for speaking as to the potential of these children, and what they can achieve in this country. Jo Napolitano, journalist and writer, thank you so much for joining us in JobMakers and sharing your own experience. We look forward to so much mamore work from you on this topic, and your views, I hope, would really educate our audience as to who immigrants and refugees are, what motivates them and what they can aspire to in this place called America. Thank you.

Jo Napolitano: Thank you so much for having me.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. I’m so happy that you joined us for today’s inspiring story of another enterprising immigrant. If you know someone we should talk to, email Denzil, that’s D-E-N-Z-I-L at jobmakerspodcast.org, and please leave us a review. I’m Denzil Mohammed. Join us next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers podcast

Episode 13: Umesh Bhuju

JobMakers podcast logo: Umesh Bhuju seeks a fair deal for immigrants, farmers & the environmentUmesh Bhuju’s exposure to child labor as a young person in Nepal inspired his current investment in fair trade practices. His coffee shop ensures that their products come from well-paid farmers using environmentally sustainable practices. Listen to discover how Bhuju is combating food insecurity during the pandemic even as his business faces challenges. We also have a full-length video interview here.

Denzil MohammedI’m Denzil Mohammed and this is JobMakers.

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Recent headlines show big business taking a stand on social and political issues. From Macy’s pulling Donald Trump clothing line after his 2015 comments about Mexican immigrants to Coca-Cola rallying up against Georgia restrictive voting law. But what if taking a stand is the basis for your business model? How does that play in the profit-driven world of American business? For Umesh Bhuju, who early on witnessed child labor in his homeland of Nepal, his American dream was inextricably tied to making the world a better place. So he created a business plan that was mission-driven: open a coffeehouse that sold nothing but fair trade products. In so doing, he’d be not only educating Americans about just how far their dollar can go, paying farmers respectable wages, reducing environmental impact, uplifting developing economies, but also showing that businesses can be a real part of social progress. How has that worked out for him? Zumi’s Coffee House is a nearly 20 year institution on the north shore of Massachusetts. And Umesh has taken his activism to fighting for the rights of immigrants, preserving local habitats and combating food insecurity during the pandemic, even as his own business battled the downturn, as we’ll find out in this week’s JobMakers podcast.

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Umesh Bhuju tell us a little bit about Zumi’s in Ipswich, your business?

Umesh BhujuZumi’s was established in 2003 with the idea of, you know, helping in a community with the organic and fair trade coffee, providing organic and fair trade coffee.  And since then, you know, we expanded the space and we have actually added a few more items that, you know, not only coffee but some other organic food that you know people can grab for their snacks and stuff like that. 

Denzil MohammedWhy organic and fair trade? 

Umesh BhujuOrganic, you know, we wanted to have the people consuming the right type of food and a coffee that won’t hurt, that won’t hamper their health in their lifetime. Organic coffee doesn’t mean that, you know, you would have to pay more. So it’s not really big of difference as far as price concern. So we thought we would stay with the organic coffee instead of, you know, not organic coffee. On top of that, you know, we have fair trade and fair labor practice coffee, which is basically, we call them fair trade coffee. Fair trade coffee is basically helping the coffee growers that, you know, we would pay the right price for your product as well as, you know, we would participate in your local projects that would require you to stay healthy. Yeah, such as like a health, such as like a water, school buildings and you know making sure the kids, underage kids won’t work and do forced labor. 

Denzil MohammedAnd why is that important to you and how do you go about educating your customers about this?

Umesh BhujuI grew up in a country that, you know, where I have seen a massive amount of young kids working in a field and some of those kids were my friends when I was growing up. And I didn’t want to see that happening around the world that, you know, where we source our coffee. So forced labor was not like something that I believe or we believe and so and also children that you know we believe in their education and their health so because of that so when we put together our plan and our mission to establish Zumi’s, we said that we would not practice anything but fair trade.

Denzil MohammedAnd how have your customers received this notion of being responsible in their purchases and helping people who are half a world away?

Umesh BhujuWell, you know, at the beginning it wasn’t that easy, that was 17, almost 18 years ago when we started. It was not easy, but I think since then, you know, after years of practicing and advocating about the fair trade and organic coffee, I think they got it. We believe that they have been getting it and also recently you know past few years it’s been a big thing about, you know, the environment and also climate change. So it’s a big factor, you know, when people consume, you know, right thing and practice correctly, you know, so it’s helped our environment. Such as, you know, not using pesticides and not using, you know, an excessive amount of water and all these things in order to do this growing coffee beans. I think that’s a big time, big helpful. I think we believe that our customers recently or now believe that they understand what we’re doing and they believe that environment is another factor for them to believe that it’s good to have a good organic fair trade coffee.

Denzil MohammedYou talk about growing up, seeing children working in the fields and you mentioned climate change. These are some of the things that you would have experienced firsthand growing up in Nepal. Described for us what it was like growing up in Nepal.

Umesh BhujuWell, you know, when I was in villages up to third grade, you know, I would have to walk, you know, 45 minutes just to get to school. And so but in olden days you know, I believe that you know that’s it’s a regular practice, you know, growing up in a country like Nepal and that’s where I’m from. So it was, I believe, it was difficult at that point and now I think of that, but you know, growing up at with that in at that environment, at that time it wasn’t really a big of a change for me, but you know, now I see and where now I visited the same place after, you know, 10, 15 years later or 20 years, 30 years later. So I see the difficulties there. I see a big change there because of it’s environmental factors, because of the not being able to, you know, grow things in the right way because of that. You know, a lot of deforestation, number one. And number two, because of deforestation, there’s a problem with irrigation in the villages, so in landslides and flood. So made a big impact on, you know, locals there. So because that’s something I have seen. So because of that, so I thought, you know, if we start something in a community that we would like to practice that, you know, that would help not only our community but also our world.

Denzil MohammedAnd you grew up in the outdoors a lot and it reached the point where you actually became a Sherpa, a guide, helping tourists to navigate Mount Everest, is that correct? 

Umesh BhujuThat’s correct.

Denzil MohammedThat sounds very exciting. What was that like?

Umesh BhujuYeah, that was fun. Like I said, you know, I can just only imagine now, you know, what I was doing at that time, you know, I was growing up in a village. From there we had to move to a new place where I could go to high school. And after high school, I decided that, you know, I liked the outdoors and I have seen the, you know, people from all around the world come to Nepal. And try to go and climb or hike. So I said to myself that, you know, I wanna enjoy that, you know, hike and climb, you know, why not? And so I decided to go to mountain school in order to be a mountain guide, so after high school, I went to mountain school. Then I got certified and I tried that for three full years of, you know, guiding. And with that capacity, you know, I get to go to a lot of remote villages and mountains and I have gone up to 2426 thousand feet high and I have climbed a few other mountains that, you know, high like 24,000 feet. So it was fun. I enjoyed it and you know.

Denzil MohammedFun is not the part I would use to describe that, more like dangerous. But you were young and enterprising, climbing to 26,000 feet and at some point you decided to come to the U.S. Guide us through what the experience is like, first coming here and then deciding that you wanted to live here.

Umesh BhujuOkay, well, you know, there was a program called, I believe it still exists. I’m not sure because the COVID and all these things happened in the past, you know, a few years. There’s things called, the program called International Camp Counselor Program. The headquarter is based in New York City. So they bring young kids from all around the world. Basically, I believe from 16 to 20 years old kids to be a counselor in a summer camp. 1990, which is almost 31 years ago now, I applied to that program to be in that program so I can come to this country and teach young kids how to rock climb and play soccer. So I was in a program, I applied that program. So out of 500 applicants, I was one of the 25 kids that selected. After that, you know, I went back to Nepal because the first New England Everest expedition was, you know, putting together their plan to go and climb Mount Everest. So they asked me if I could go back with them and I said no problem, so I had to be a guide for them. So I went back, it was a good trip and then I came back to this country again ’cause I wanted to do another program where I could teach rock climbing and soccer again. Then after I decided to go to a university or college. So I started with the community college, then I transferred Boston University, then the rest of the history after that, I met my future wife and then one day I got laid off from my local job I was doing after 9/11, and then I put together a business plan to start that coffeehouse that, you know, I always wanted to open with my wife, future wife.

Denzil MohammedSo you say you always wanted to open this. Was entrepreneurship something that sort of ran in your family or was it a bug that you picked up while you were here in the U.S.? 

Umesh BhujuWell, you know, ran in the family, which in a way it is true, my grandfather and grandparents, they ran our small retail shop in the village. So that’s something they have done, but my father never done anything like that, but, you know, I always wanted to do something, you know. When I was in college and when I was, when I came to this country, I always brought, you know, a bunch of stuff that souvenirs from Nepal and I would do, you know, I would sell that on the street, whenever I can, in between my breaks at school so I have done that and I always like the whole idea of, you know, selling things, you know, whether it’s about, you know, a souvenir or something else, you know.

Denzil MohammedWhat was it in you that made you, you know, go out on the street and sell stuff and find farmers markets and be so enterprising? What was it about you or what was it about the experience of being an immigrant that allowed you to do that? 

Umesh BhujuWell, you know, the one thing I know that I like seeing people. I’m not a desk, behind a desk person. So I always, you know, when I was in Nepal, I always guide, you know, and I was always with people, telling stories, learning from them. And also, you know, when I came to this country, I still want to be with people. So that, you know, helped me out there with people, you know, talking to people and you know, so learning from them and blend in this community that, you know, the world that, you know, I’m experiencing first time at that time. 

Denzil MohammedNow, you once said to the press that you firmly believe in free enterprise and that people should be allowed to run their businesses how they want to and yet your business model is focused a little bit differently. So some people have the perception that businesses in the U.S. are just driven excessively by profit as opposed to what you are doing which is a lot more humanistic and community driven. What would you say to other business owners who are skeptical of your approach to running Zumi’s? 

Umesh BhujuWell, you know, I consider myself, I would say maybe a social enterprise. You know, considering some other businesses where it’s profit oriented and this is more, you can still make a profit, you can still do a good job, good business. So, if for me, being in a community that, you know, serving and also helping, it goes hand in hand, you know, together. So I believe that, you know, if you are, if you want to be in a community and if you want to help community, I think it’s not only you’re looking at the bottom line of your business, you know, you really have to give it, give it back to the community. And that’s something I believe and that’s from something we have been doing and it’s been working out the best. Worked out well for us. In that sense, you know, earlier we talked about, you know, climate change and all these things. Not where one in the area that, you know, where we get our coffee from is having difficulties and difficulties right here. We had drought in Ipswich, you know, not long ago and still we are having a problem with them not being able to use the 100 percent of our water, so we are not getting enough water in the river because of not having enough rainfall. So all these things are matter for us because you know, not only for Zumi’s, you know, we use almost like a 90 plus percent of water in order to, you know, run the business because the coffee you know, made out of water. So it’s not only for that, but you know also for consumption of water. So humanity is bigger than anything else. 

Denzil MohammedNow, over the decades, you’ve been given giving back to your community of Ipswich, as well as, you know, places far-flung, you know, sending food to Zaire and helping people in Nepal, helping people impacted by climate change or natural disaster, responding to the moment, you know, even in COVID times. You’ve been helping out with food insecurity in Ipswich. Your community involvement has extended to several different areas and you mentioned conservative environmentalism being one of them. There was also a movement several years ago to make Ipswich a sanctuary town and to protect the immigrants who lived there. What was that experience like and what role did you play and why was something like this important to you and the rest of the community? More than two-thirds voted for it, right? 

Umesh BhujuRight. Well, you know, I won’t credit, give a credit 100 percent to me, but there was a group of local community members, the local leaders that, you know, they approached me to be in this group and so because of the type of business I run, which is, you know, I see all different groups of people or different people from different background. And I just happen to know immigrants that, you know, immigrant population that who doesn’t carry the paper, proper paper works. And because of that, so, it was easier for me to understand from the immigrants that who doesn’t have a paperwork and I just understand their story. And why they are here without the paperwork, and why it’s important for them, for them to be here and all these factors allowed me to advocate for this cause. And so we went ahead and did what we did in order to have them stay safe in the area. And we also found the places where they could stay safe if it’s needed, if they ever get harassed by, you know, people they don’t want to see. Harassed by people that, you know, who would make it difficult for them to stay around. 

Denzil MohammedIt is, however a difficult issue and we look at it politically and on the national level. A lot of your journey has been talking to people or educating people, not just about fair trade coffee and what that means, but your own story. If there was one thing that you could, you could tell America about immigrants. Something that is important, something that you think is left out of the conversation, what would it be?

Umesh BhujuSo we have a massive amount of people from South America and you know, Latin America come to this country. I think we are so close to these countries and if we build this infrastructure there, I think it would create more jobs there. I think it would be a way to better off, you know, than what we have than what’s happening right now?

Denzil MohammedUmesh, thank you so much for making the time for this. I really enjoyed talking with you.

Umesh BhujuThanks again for your support and thanks for having me.

Denzil MohammedJobMakers is a weekly podcast produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for today’s inspiring story of another immigrant entrepreneur. If you know someone we should talk to, or if you’d like to be a sponsor, email Denzil. That’s D-E-N-Z-I-L @jobmakerspodcast.org. Leave us a review. I’m Denzil Mohammed. Join us next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers podcast.

Episode 12: Babak Movassaghi

JobMakers podcast logo: Dr. Babak Movassaghi on winning football & healthcare innovationNavigating his identity as a German-Iranian-American pursuing the American Dream has given Dr. Babak Movassaghi the flexibility and creativity to reinvent himself several times. Whether he’s obtaining a PhD in Biomedical Engineering, captaining the German NFL football team or founding a company that revolutionizes telehealth, Movassaghi has used an immigrant mindset to thrive. Tune in to find out how his company has kept people safe during the COVID-19 pandemic with its telehealth platform.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and this is JobMakers.

[music playing]

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Every Thursday at noon I talk with risk takers, immigrants who create new jobs, products and services in Massachusetts and across the United States building on the entrepreneurial spirit that led them to America in the first place. When we return, we’ll meet this week’s inspiring entrepreneur. When the world shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, one company was already prepared to offer patients around the world and here in the U.S. expert second opinions from top U.S. medical professionals remotely via telehealth. Dr. Babak Movassaghi founded InfiniteMD in 2016, which connects patients with leading specialists in the United States through second opinion video consultations, thus potentially avoiding unnecessary treatments and guiding patients to better care. It was acquired by a leading clinical advocacy and decision support company, Consumer Medical, last summer. Dr. Movassaghi holds a PhD in biomedical engineering, a masters in theoretical physics and an MBA, and was once captain of the German professional [NFL American] football team. He previously served as VP of innovation and new ventures for Flex, a global leader in design and engineering. There are more than 40 patents in three books to his name, but it is his pivot from physics and football to health care innovation that I find very striking, an extension of his ability to navigate multiple identities as an Iranian German living the American dream. We’ll meet Dr. Babak Movassaghi when we return.

[music playing]

Denzil Mohammed: Dr. Babak Movassaghi, thank you for joining us on JobMakers. Tell us a little bit about your original idea and where it is now.

Babak Movassaghi: Thank you for having me Denzil. Infinite MD is a company that I co-founded with my two co-founders Christopher Lee and Liz Kuo. The whole idea was, over these years I’ve been in health care for quite some long time now and I, due to my previous jobs, etc., was always approached by friends and family and loved ones that had a medical condition that wanted to basically get a confirmation if they’re getting the right treatment, etc. And I brainstormed around this idea with friends of mine during the time that I was at MIT that had the similar experience, that we just happen to know some top, top specialists and friends from all over the world would reach out, be it somebody with a disease in cardiology or a lot of oncologies, a lot of cancer. “Am I getting the right treatment?” etc. So we did help these friends and family members, but not everybody had access to people like us, unfortunately. So we came around to the idea of providing a virtual remote second opinion business, initially focusing on foreign international patients where they could, interestingly enough, this is five years ago, using Zoom … we selected actually Zoom, nobody heard about Zoom before … as the platform to have these virtual consults, where we would go and collect all your medical records, and then provide that in a digital format to the doctors. So we built a whole case management platform for that, where the physicians, the top specialists were able to review medical records and then give you a remote consultation, a second opinion on your existing medical condition. Where the status is right now, we were quite successful I would say. In particular, when the pandemic hit, of course, telehealth took off. We were able to help a lot of people. That, I’m very proud of. Phenomenal team. But we were also able to be, we decided to sell the company to one of our strategic partners Consumer Medical. We are now part of the larger Consumer Medical family.

Denzil Mohammed: What role do you play with Consumer Medical and where do you see InfiniteMD as a part of Consumer Medical growing in the next few years?

Babak Movassaghi: So I transitioned as a CEO from, initially I was the president of Infinity, then became the CEO, focusing heavily on technology and also on pivoting back to the U.S. market. Our objective was always to go to large employers and payers in order to provide this service to them. One way to do that is you built a huge sales team or, sorry, you built a good sales team that goes out there and tries to sell this product to the large employers to be a part of the benefits. That’s how it works in the U.S. And the U.S. markets versus international markets, this is a free service for, let’s say you work for, I’m just making names up, let’s say you work for Amazon or something and you have part of your benefits also a second opinion service. And the payer pays, the employer pays for that. So another way of getting access to those larger [inaudible] is through channel partners that already have established those collaborations and Consumer Medical was one of them. So now I am after acquisition and integration, I’m the chief innovation and the chief product officer at Consumer Medical. And it’s a much more comprehensive product now because what we did, as I mentioned before, if God forbid somebody has cancer, the doctor doesn’t have to necessarily touch you. So they just look at your images, your MRI images, your bloodwork, etc. See if you have a genetic sequencing done. If not, maybe there’s a, you’re lucky and you have a mutation and you can maybe get some immunotherapy, etc. But then what? Now you get a second opinion, which we changed a lot of lives. Our doctors I would say 40 percent of the time would tell our patients internationally, a lot of international, Oh God, no, you should not get chemotherapy. You kind of won the lottery in cancer and are actually eligible to, best candidate to get immunotherapy after this, what I’m seeing at this sequence.

Denzil Mohammed: And I know that you’ve said in the past that a patient navigator is something that people need just to be able to navigate the healthcare system in the U.S., to be able to understand it, the transparency issues. It’s so complex and so daunting. But I want to step back a little bit. Part of your experience in creating this company was brought on by your experiences with various health care systems around the world. And I would argue that perhaps part of your entrepreneurial spirit was developed in part because you yourself and your family had moved several times and you’ve lived in multiple countries and experienced multiple cultures, multiple health care systems, multiple identities along the way. Guide us through from the very beginning a life in Iran and what prompted your parents to decide to move.

Babak Movassaghi: Yes, I was born in Tehran. I left. I cried. I was quite young, almost a baby and where we decided to move to Germany, we, my parents, decided. That was before the revolution. Or after the revolution kind of and we decided to move to Germany in order to see what’s going on there. My father started in Germany in the past, so it was basically a place that he knew very well. And I don’t have that much, I’m recently getting more experience about the health care system in Iran, but I do gain a lot of experience in the health care system in Germany where I went to school and and basically started initially physics, quantum optics, but I did my PhD sponsored by interestingly a Dutch company, Phillips, with the research laboratories in Hamburg, but in collaboration with Utrecht University, Netherlands. So I was kind of all over the place in Europe in order to pursue my PhD which was focused into the medical imaging. My PhD thesis was on the 3D reconstruction of coronary arteries, basically, for the interventional cardiology in the field of interventional cardiology, which is one of the, by the way, one of the largest, most common procedures in the world where you get a stent. So I was able to understand the health care system better. There are a lot of parallels, of course, but there’s also a lot of pros and cons. So it was very interesting, coming back to the initial question, the transition as a child from all these different cultures. You know Iran, Germany. I also lived in the U.S. as a 11-year-old for two and a half years, by the way, in Knoxville, Tennessee, going back to Germany. So all those experiences have kind of opened my eyes that it really depends unfortunately on the location for getting the right access to health care. At the same time you do have top doctors everywhere. So you do have top doctors everywhere. Just accessing them, it’s hard, and navigating through the health care system.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m interested, in terms of your education, how you swung into health care, and why you thought that was of such importance to you and to others.

Babak Movassaghi: Well, I’ve always wanted as a child to help people to be honest and I know that sounds very cheesy, but it’s really something that I always had a desire, helping people. So as you know in my family we have a lot of doctors which is very typical for Iran then. But I did study medicine actually and physics the same time in Germany and after I decided, Wow, it’s a lot of stuff I need to remember. [Laugh] And I was more technolog- oriented, so I was more interested in creating the tools that physicians can use to save lives. And I thought for me it was all about impact and it still is. And it’s not that I just like health care. I like technology, the combination of technology and health care. But those two combinations is what really drives me. So it’s not just healthcare. And I think technology can tremendously, has helped health care to the next level in every Western medicine category there is.

Denzil Mohammed: What would this have been like, starting a company, a startup in Germany?

Babak Movassaghi: I think in countries in Europe, although I have to say they’re getting much, much better now, and especially in cities like Berlin and Munich, etc., they’re much more risk averse. So it would have been harder for me to raise the money that we raised, Series A and the seed funding that we got. It would have been much harder to, over there it’s harder to get funding after a failure. So assuming that my first time it would have been a failure, and then you’re done in Europe pretty much in my opinion. Why should I give you money? You tried, you burned the money versus in the U.S. if you fail investors, VCs actually don’t mind giving you again another shot. Actually they like that because you have more experience. So I think that would be a bit of a major differentiator.

Denzil Mohammed: I want to bring it into this moment of the public health crisis that we’ve all been experiencing. But before I do that a couple of things that you mentioned I wanted to get clarity on. One is talent. Boston is obviously a hub for very educated people from around the world. What has the makeup of the talent that you’ve been seeking looked like over the years? Meaning, where do they come from? What kind of skills do you look for that might be unique?

Babak Movassaghi: One of the toughest things in running a company is, and this is not my words, this is from one of our investors, Chris Carter always said that one of the toughest things is firing people, but even tougher is hiring people. It’s really, really hard. I think that’s one of the most critical items to have, the right talent, especially in a startup environment where you don’t have the luxury of hiring so many people. So they have to really fit. And in the Boston area I do have to say, especially in healthcare and technology is a huge amount of talent. But one thing that we, I always personally strive for is you have to create a culture where top talent is willing to join. We had the luxury of attracting, and I’m including my co-founder Christopher Lee, to join me on this journey by giving them a vision of doing something that is higher than yourself. If you can create that in healthcare it permits you to do that. Then you all of a sudden are able to attract talent that is even willing to to get paid less, but is working with a vision and for a mission that is higher than themselves. I think that is something that is missing with a lot of folks that just build companies or etc. Yes, they can pay you a lot, but I’ve seen people leaving phenomenal jobs, very well paid, going rather to a company where they get less pay potentially, but they really believe what they’re doing has an impact. So I think that’s what it comes down to. And of course you know the resume is important. There’s a minimum of capabilities you need to have but after that it really comes down to the passion, and to people joining your, creating a mission statement that people believe in.

Denzil Mohammed: And there must have been people who inspired you along the way. Did you have any mentors or anyone who stood out to you as someone who you wanted to emulate as an innovator and a business owner?

Babak Movassaghi: Well, there are many of course. Unfortunately I never met my grandfathers, but I heard so many stories about them. From my father’s side he was a true entrepreneur and he started from zero and became very, very wealthy. And he really was a street smart person. And along the way, as a physicist of course I have a lot of folks, former physicists, not just Einstein and the Hawkings, but also the Newtons and Maxwells that I was really looking up to. How they can see things and just understanding how to bring things together to innovate. So the innovation component was huge for me. Anyway, but I don’t have that. I look at scientists and how people have fixed a problem because at the end of the day an entrepreneur, all you do is fixing a problem on a daily basis. You just put out fires. That’s all you do. And you try to make sure you have sufficient funding, depending on the burn rate. So that’s the skill set that you can find in many, many other areas in life, but that’s a unique skill set. And I think the fact that I was living in so many different countries and had to always learn a new language and try in schoolyards to tell somebody, “How do I buy a piece of chocolate somewhere?” And just to navigate your way around has helped me, I think, to become a better entrepreneur.

Denzil Mohammed: So you talk about putting out fires. And last March we had one big fire that started and then just spread and didn’t stop. It was called the COVID-19 pandemic where the telehealth and telemedicine sectors really obviously took off. How has the landscape changed due to COVID? And what role do you see telehealth being played after this pandemic?

Babak Movassaghi: Yeah, that is true. So telehealth, I’ve been involved in telehealth for quite some time now. And I always believed in it. I did believe that the future in certain areas is telehealth and the pandemic just was a time warp. It was just an accelerator. And before you know, everybody knew Zoom. All of a sudden everybody was looking into case management platforms, how to exchange medical records and how to view CT scans on your laptop, etc. So I believe that telehealth is here to stay. It will never replace 100 percent the face-to-face, patient-doctor relationship. But for primary care, for behavioral health and also for specialty care as a follow up it’s a phenomenal tool that is just going to expand and grow, continues to grow. Will we see the same growth you saw last year? No, I think we’re going to go back, but we will never go back to where we were. Telehealth is something people trust now. I compare that with remote working. People, a lot of companies didn’t believe that their employees could work remotely from anywhere. We showed that we can and the same experiences in telehealth now. And we will even expand on that. To your question, where is this going? I think we will expand in the future, even do remote treatment, or at least starting with remote monitoring. So we can remote your many important parameters remotely today. There are a couple pioneers out there that send you the package, so you, as an example, on a daily basis you can measure your heart rate, respiratory, etc., and then a physician can then, or a nurse kick in if things are about to happen. I think predictive outreach is something that we will be seeing more and more. In the future you will be able to get a call from a nurse all of a sudden who says, “Hey, we are worried that you’re about to get a heart attack. We think you should go to ER right now, because the watch you’re wearing is giving us a predictive [inaudible] readings that the chances of getting a heart attack is like 80 percent in the next two hours.” I think that’s coming. So I see U.S. actually being pioneers in this area. The other country that I also worked with, we have an office in Shanghai. So InfiniteMD, we did provide services to many countries. One of them was in China. I have to say Chinese have been also very advanced in telehealth. These two countries are very advanced and I would say a couple countries in South America are catching up like Brazil. But Europe is still far behind.

Denzil Mohammed: I want to put the idea of telehealth and remote care up against the fact that health care in the U.S. is extremely costly compared to many other countries, including developed countries. We pay a lot more for health care. And polls consistently show that the affordability of health care is one of the biggest problems facing families across the U.S. Does telehealth and specifically Infinite MD help address this problem in any way.

Babak Movassaghi: The short answer is yes. In my personal opinion, in particular, being now part of Consumer Medical, Consumer Medical does help tremendously in saving cost. And we do that in various ways. So let me kill off some of the things you said. And I agree with you. So a lot of people always say that the U.S. doesn’t have a good health care system. And you hear that from a lot of critics, right? Is it complicated? Do I believe that we have a good health care system? I think we have some, the U.S. has one of the most innovative healthcare systems there is. So why is it that wealthy people travel to the U.S. to get treated? Why is it that a sheik from Saudi goes to Cleveland Clinic or Johns Hopkins to get treatment? So we do have some of the best innovation there is. I think the government has done a phenomenal job in funding these research activities. And I’m not just talking about bringing out new vaccines out there. But there’s a lot of innovation that comes out of the U.S. And the health care system in my opinion is, you have access to some of the top doctors in the world here because they’re very, very subspecialized. You don’t have just a doctor that is specialized in lung cancer. We have doctors that are specialized in non-small-cell carcinoma only and they’re really good at that. Now there is a problem. I don’t disagree. Access to health care is a different story. And where we try to contribute to reducing costs is to give that person as Consumer Medical joining hands with IMD. The person that lives in this rural area that needs to drive four hours to go to a top team utilizes our services to have a remote consultation. And then identifying a new treatment that they should get and then identifying an hour or half an hour drive to a top specialist that they could go and see. And that’s where we help because we try to, if you catch a patient that is about to go in the wrong trajectory that’s going to create cost. They’re going to have all these wrong medications given to them. They’re going to have all these X-rays and CT scans, and potentially operations and surgeries that they don’t even need. If you catch them early enough, and we do, then we save everybody because it’s the only time I would say it you could ring true, say everybody wins. So the payers pay less. The patient has a better outcome. And as a society we save costs and increase the quality of health care.

Denzil Mohammed: One thing we didn’t get to talk about was your experience playing professional [American] football in Europe. And you were the captain of the German national team taking your team to victory. And is something that you learned, as you mentioned earlier in your two and a half years in the U.S., as a tween learning to play American football.

Babak Movassaghi: Oh my God. Yeah, that was a crazy ride, Yes so …

Denzil Mohammed: How does a physicist and medical scientist end up on the football field?

Babak Movassaghi: Let me rephrase that. How does a Iranian-born, German kid that moved as a ten-year-old to Knoxville, Tennessee, that was groomed to become a professional tennis player start playing pro football one day, right? So look, I …

Denzil Mohammed: Oh, you just made it so much more complicated.

Babak Movassaghi: [Laughs] Yeah, I mean how the heck did I … I was sent to Knoxville Tennessee as a child to a high school exchange program, junior high school exchange program to learn a language. I lived there with my cousin and I had a blast. And in the cool kids world there is football … and I play tennis. But football gave this team feeling which was very different. As a tennis player mainly along with your coach versus any team sport is just a different dynamic and I fell in love with that. And, look, I’m not the fastest. I’m not tall. And so you know it was really, really a lot of hard work. And you asked me earlier, Do I have folks that I look up to in terms of entrepreneurship? I actually got lucky that I got coaches that believed in me, that recruited me later on. You know teams like the [inaudible], the German champion, Hamburg Sea Devils and then later West [inaudible] Pro All Stars. And then I played together with some really top, top players in NFL Europe. It’s going to take too long to explain how I got there, but the seeds were placed in Knoxville. I came back from Knoxville to Germany and my father said, “You want to do what? Play what?” And I said, “Hot diggity damn!” [Laughs] And so that was a journey. But it also taught me how to never give up. If you have a dream, just pursue it. And once you had a lot of injuries, you just go back out there and give your best. And you can really achieve your dreams if you work really hard at it. NFL Europe was phenomenal. Overall I played 18 years, and then four years pro. Seeing through the years Kurt Warner, quarterback, etc. So those guys were just different, different [inaudible] me. But I worked really, really hard to get there, and I had coaches that believed in me. And the experience really helped me to become also a better entrepreneur, I would argue, because I learned what teamwork means, how it is important to have a vision and to try to pursue a joint goal … win a championship, but most importantly not to forget the joy of getting there. I really not just enjoyed winning, and I was of course miserable when we lost, but I also enjoyed every practice. So as an entrepreneur I would say don’t forget the journey which is beautiful in any sport. The journey to achieving something is beautiful. Every practice should be beautiful. If you don’t have that, then it’s just being goal driven, it’s not OK. Just don’t forget to enjoy. No matter your background, you can really fulfill your dreams in this country. So my experiences as an immigrant have been phenomenal, very positive. And I have never felt so, I know we talked about it briefly. So I lived in New York City a couple years, Denver, Colorado, and Boston, those were my years here, especially in New York and Boston, such a multicultural hub, right? I never felt more integrated than anywhere else.

Denzil Mohammed: Well, that’s actually a really powerful thing to say, and I think especially for our viewers, just being able to look at the multiculturalism of this center in the world, Boston, maybe a little bit differently and a little bit more positively. Dr. Babak Movassaghi, thank you so much for joining us on JobMakers. This was really a fascinating interview. I’m glad we were able to get into the football a little bit too.

Babak Movassaghi: Yeah, you’re most welcome. I really enjoyed it. I love your organization and big families you know and happy to help in any way I can.

Denzil Mohammed: Thank you so much. So happy that you joined us for this week’s inspiring story of another immigrant entrepreneur. If there’s someone you think we should talk to, email Denzil, that’s d-e-n-z-i-l, at jobmakerspodcast.org and please leave us a review. I am Denzil Mohammed. Join us next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers podcast.

Episode 11: Jitka Borowick

JobMakers podcast logo: Jitka Borowick on starting a small business during COVIDJitka Borowick, an immigrant entrepreneur from the Czech Republic, initially intended to spend just one year in the United States to learn English. She ended up moving to the United States permanently and founded Cleangreen, a cleaning service committed to environmentally-friendly practices, and Nove Yoga. Listen to learn about her difficulties learning another language and culture, her pathway to entrepreneurship and her courageous decision to open a new business during a pandemic.

Jo Napolitano: I’m Jo Napolitano, guest hosting for Denzel Mohammed. Welcome to JobMakers, a weekly podcast produced by Pioneer Institute and The Immigrant Learning Center. I’m excited to share with you the stories of the risk-taking immigrants who create new products, services and jobs in New England and across the United States. These stories resonate with me because of my own background. All though I was raised in New York I was actually born in Bogota, Colombia, abandoned at a bus stop when I was just a day old and placed in an orphanage. I nearly died of starvation before I was adopted by a family from Long Island and raised by a single parent. Despite all these obstacles, I went on to earn a degree from Medill at Northwestern University, and build a career as an award-winning journalist covering topics for the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Newsday and other outlets writing about education, and crime science. But it was really education that was my own pathway out of poverty. I passionately believed no child’s life should be left to chance. That’s why I wrote a new book, on immigrant youth, called the School I Deserve,Six Young Refugees and their Fight for Equality in America has just been published and is available at Amazon, Target, local booksellers and even Beacon Press itself. Jitka Borowick is the founder of Cleangreen, a Cape Cod-based natural company offering residential, commercial and construction cleaning services. A native of the Czech Republic yet can move from her home country to Cape Cod in 2003. Her initial goal was to become fluent in English and with time, effort, dedication and support from the community. Jitka was able to achieve that goal five years later when she graduated with an associate degree from Cape Cod Community College. That same year, 2008, Jitka embarked on a new dream when she launched Cleangreen. Her vision was to create the most effective saved at affordable eco-friendly cleaning business in Cape Cod. Cleangreen began as a one-person enterprise, but today it employs a staff of nearly 20. From 2012 To 2016 it earned the quote, “Best of Cape Cod from Cape Cod” magazine readers and was named Business of the Year in 2014 from the Hyannis area Chamber of Commerce. In 2011 Jitka earned her bachelor’s degree in public relations at Suffolk University. She is a member of the Cape Cod Young professionals with the Greater Hyannis Area Chamber of Commerce. She is a past president of the Business Network International convergence team. Her personal involvement in the community extends well beyond her company, which supports several nonprofits, and which encourages her employees to find similar ways to give back. When we return, we’ll talk with Jitka Borowick, founder of Cleangreen. Jitka, can you tell us a bit about your background, including where you’re from and what life was like there for you?

Jitka Borowick: Absolutely, thank you so much for having me on today, It’s my honor. So, I came from the Czech Republic. I was born in 1978, during communism, and when I was 11 years old communism was over. So, you know, my first 11 years were quite different and it was a shock after communism was over and then we were able to travel outside of the Czech Republic and visit western countries. Something interesting and that I still have memories of. When I was growing up when my parents were waiting in lines for me, sometimes for hours, and didn’t get anything. Or it was a big deal it was for us to have oranges and bananas for Christmas, something that we take for granted now. I have a daughter who probably will not ever understand how it hard it was when I was growing up, you know. But there were some amazing things about that we were composting, we were recycling and we were growing our own fruits and vegetables. So, I feel that I brought into my older life some important things with me. So, I went to study business. I did a business school. I went to do languages here because since I was a teenager, I was always passionate about studying a language and my dream both to someday live in a country and speak the language, and it was always Germany. But moving forward, it was always Germany, and fast forward I ended up in America. Yeah, so when I was 24 years old after having a pretty intense corporate job in Prague, I felt like I needed a change. I spoke Russian, of course Czech, German, but I didn’t have enough time to improve my English, so I came to the U.S. for one year with the goal to become fluent and I have been here 18 years now.

Jo Napolitano: Well, I was wondering, yes if you can tell me, where did you do your undergraduate studies? Did you do it abroad or did you do that here?

Jitka Borowick: I did it here, so after I was here for one year, I was 24 years. One year seems like such a long time. I thought I will be fluent and then go back to Prague and find a job where I can really use all the languages, but after 10 months I realized that I was not fluent at all. I was surprised when I was supposed to go back and I said no, I want to continue. I really want to be fluent, so I started looking into schools here and I applied at Cape Cod Community College for my studying. I had a student visa so I did Cape Cod Community College. Then at Cape Cod Community College, I heard about doing Suffolk University right at Cape Cod Community College, so after I had my associates degree, I transferred to Suffolk University, and I did my bachelor’s degree at Suffolk while I was from Cape Cod.

Jo Napolitano: Ok, and so when you initially came to the United States, you said you were aged 24?

Jitka Borowick: Correct

Jo Napolitano: And where were you living?

Jitka Borowick: I lived in Harwich on Cape Cod.

Jo Napolitano: Oh ok, wow. And what were you doing out there initially?

Jitka Borowick: So, I came as a nanny for one year.

Jo Napolitano: Yeah, that’s a great entryway, and to get to know people and speak then start speaking the language and hone your language skills. That makes a lot of …

Jitka Borowick: … sense and experiment with the country, the culture. So that was my plan. One year have a, uh, immersion, Learn and go back.

Jo Napolitano: Right, ok. And so, when you did come here, did you find like what were some of the things that you struggled with or that you found maybe surprising about American culture?

Jitka Borowick: So, the most surprising for me was the language. I did take English classes, but when you take one-hour or two-hour classes once a week that really didn’t do it, so coming here was a shock because I could not express myself. I was not able to communicate much and It was very interesting to feel that you’re starting from the beginning again. So learning the language motivated me. I wanted to read books. I didn’t want to hang out with people from the Czech Republic because I knew if I did that I will not learn as fast as I wanted to. But when I came here I was reading Junie B. Jones book. That’s what my daughter was reading two years ago. So, you know, little by little, I was working on the language and what I found very surprising was how helpful the people are. I went to the grocery store, and I was waiting in the deli line and they were asking me a million questions. You want this pastrami? Will this be one that you want? Cut it thin, or thick? I couldn’t. I was so overwhelmed. I had no idea. But people are patient and ask me do you need anything? How can we help you? And this was very, very surprising.

Jo Napolitano: Ok, and I also always say to guests, or whenever I’m talking about American culture, that of course there is no one American culture. There are many different regions of this country, cultures, languages, people with all different experiences of what it’s to be an American or live in America, so even though living in one geographical area you can kind of get a sense of that area, but you know there’s a whole big country to explore outside of there. And so, I’m wondering is there anything else that was, you know, perhaps a major challenge for you. Certainly the language issue was a big challenge was that were there any kind of cultural mores or anything that was unusual for you but that kind of stood out as really different?

Jitka Borowick: I would say not really. I was really surprised when I came here, I felt almost like I was so close to home. It was very similar with the four seasons, with the people, you know, I really felt very comfortable here. What was the biggest surprise for me is that I came in October 2003, I couldn’t go to college because the semester already started, but through Cape Cod Literacy Council I was able to get a tutor who was teaching me English for free. And I could not believe that this is possible that somebody takes the time, and sees you once or twice a week, and helps you, and you don’t have to pay.

Jo Napolitano: Jitka, tell me a little bit about Cleangreen. What made you really home in on that particular business?

Jitka Borowick: So, when I knew I will be staying on Cape Cod. It was time for me to decide. What am I going to do? I knew my English was still not that great and that I would not be able to compete with other people who were fluent for jobs. But I also wanted to have my own company for a long time because my dad is an entrepreneur. So, I thought this was an opportunity to combine my dream of starting my own business, this decision making and starting a company. But the company had to do something positive because I knew someday when I look back, I want to make sure I did something that had a positive impact and I chose a natural cleaning company.

Jo Napolitano: And so, what specifically does Cleangreen do to minimize its impact on the environment?

Jitka Borowick: So Cleangreen is one of eight certified Level 2 business which is a process that is done through the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce and Community Development Partnership for businesses. So that level of certification was completed in 2015, so this program identifies practical strategies for businesses to minimize the impact on the environment by setting up recycling programs, reducing waste, reducing energy consumption, changing buying practices and switching to environmentally friendly products and tools. So we looked at everything in our business because it’s not only the products we use that are natural, but also the tools and the methods and everything. We do business.

Jo Napolitano: Do these practices tend to increase business costs?

Jitka Borowick: No, we did not want this to increase the cost because we didn’t want our clients to see this as a barrier, so our prices are competitive to other companies who were not natural because, we saw there were two audiences, people who really their passionate and wanted companies that were green, but other clients who really didn’t care if we are using natural products or not, they just wanted their homes or offices clean. So we felt that by being competitive with our pricing, the people who don’t really care as much get it as a bonus. So, we did not increase our prices just because we are a natural cleaning company.

Jo Napolitano: Ok, and now if you don’t mind, I’d love to talk to you about the yoga studio that was a pretty brave move to start that company. You started it recently, during the pandemic, right?

Jitka Borowick: That’s correct, I actually was planning to at the end of 2018 in 2019. I have always been passionate about a healthy lifestyle and I’m an athlete, I am a runner, I’m a cyclist and I knew when I started to do more yoga how beneficial It was for me, but also as a business owner. So, I had this passion that I felt that I want to do something about it. So, I started to plan on the opening of health and wellness Studio. But the vision before the pandemic hit was to provide digital content to be online, doing an act and offering yoga health and wellness to everybody in the whole world. Because my dream is to build a global company. Then the pandemic hit.

Jo Napolitano: And so it sounds like though your business was set up for the pandemic in a sense, right? I mean you were primarily trying to have an online business.

Jitka Borowick: We were trying to have an online business, and when we were looking for and auditioning teachers, we were also looking for a space where we can do recordings. We found an amazing location and the location was available and ready for rent. So I started to look into it deeper to see, if perhaps we could open a studio where we can bring our vision to market by first starting on building a local community. So, it went from an online business to an opening studio to first getting known in the community. Start bringing people into the studio with the goal of launching the app online, and then the pandemic hit, and everything flipped, and we had to go online immediately.

Jo Napolitano: And so what were the unique challenges of starting a business during that time?

Jitka Borowick: What was very interesting is that we were planning to open in April 2020. But in March, the pandemic hit, and everything had to shift, but there was never a question of whether we would open or not because we know how important health and wellness is. So we quickly had to adapt. Fortunately, our space was big. We have a 2900 square feet studio. Studio where reversible pseudo yoga was smaller so we had to shift things around so we could possibly do some classes on a limited basis and follow all guidelines. But we were not opening till we had a soft launch end of June. We were able to find an outdoor space and start some classes outside. In the meantime, we were recording our videos because we had all teachers scheduled and confirmed and we didn’t want to let them go and tell them. Now we will not need you. so, we were recording in the studio. We were doing classes outside, building and in our online library. And slowly heading having 14 feet apart between students practicing first without masks, then with masks we were able to hold small class.

Jo Napolitano: It sounds like the pandemic did bring some unique opportunities for you. Were you able to benefit from the availability of federal funding or because of the renewed focus on physical and mental health during the pandemic?

Jitka Borowick: Unfortunately, we were not able to qualify for any grants or any help because we opened during the pandemic. We couldn’t compare and show the loss of income and it was very unfortunate because of starting a business doing normal in parentheses conditions. It’s challenging but starting a business during pandemic brought a whole new set of challenges, and the uncertainty we would open. Could we not open? You know, we didn’t know every day was different things for changing we were constantly adapting, actually a few weeks ago I was part of a virtual rally where we were talking to state officials in Massachusetts to see how there can be some funding available for businesses that opened during year 2020. Because there has been none. The only grant we got was from a local resilience fund. We were able to qualify for one grand because it was local but unfortunate.

Jo Napolitano: And what about your other company Cleangreen was that able to qualify for anything?

Jitka Borowick: Yes, fortunately, we were. We were in business, we opened Cleangreen in 2008 so we were able to get help. We could do PPE and we were able to keep our employees employed and we had a clientele. And our clients were so generous that when the pandemic hit, they were paying for their cleanings so we could pay the staff and have them still continue to work. We also were fortunate because we were considered an essential business. So fortunately, with Cleangreen, we consider ourselves very lucky. With everything that was going on because some businesses are struggling so much while other businesses are booming, so it was really, really interesting.

Jo Napolitano: And I know Cape Cod where your companies are based has a particularly unpredictable economy through the pandemic because it’s so dependent on tourism. Jitka how did you work to mitigate those uncertainties especially with businesses like cleaning services, and a yoga studio that are so dependent on, in-person activity on the Cape?

Jitka Borowick: Yes, it’s true that Cape Cod is dependent on tourism and nearly 60,000 of homes are seasonal. That’s over 36 percent of the housing stock. But we also have a sizable year on population that have grown now even more because a lot of people moved from the cities to Cape Cod to escape the pandemic. While Cleangreen as I mentioned was very fortunate, Nova was not so fortunate. But I always feel that in every negative situation there is an opportunity. And how can we adapt? How can we see it and? Find ways to make it because I don’t like to give up. I see challenges as something that I need to accomplish for myself personally. So, for example, with the defendant I make, we were able to start an employee wellness program and we are offering companies corporate wellness or nonprofits employee wellness programs so they can give health and wellness to their employees. So, with more people in Cape Cod, and more people here now we are very excited to have a busy summer and have the real opening after one year and see what we can do and where we can bring Nova and embrace everything that’s going to happen. Now it’s shifting because as of Saturday, May 29th we have everything at 100 percent capacity. We don’t need to have masks on. People can come into the studio which before people were worried to be practicing yoga. Even with a mask on or you know, people, they’re not comfortable, understandably.

Jo Napolitano: Another question I have for you, Jitka, is that you have a lot of interests, you’ve been involved in education and social services-related charity work in addition to your cleaning business and yoga studio. How do you make the jump from cleaning services to yoga? I know you said that you were an athlete. And I was wondering, is that when you were a child in grade school or at the college level or when did you, when we would you say you’re an athlete?

Jitka Borowick: I never considered myself an athlete because in the Czech Republic it’s not common to have sports at school. You only do sports in a club or after school, so I never experience school sports. So I was always active doing different things with friends in the village. When I came to America. I always liked to ride a bike, I like to do different things, I like to run, I started to slowly find my interests here. And when I turned 40, I started racing cyclocross and got more involved and I felt that I could be an example for other people who never considered athletes for whatever reason. It’s never too late to start something and why not challenge ourselves and try new things? So starting at 40 years old, racing bikes and adding a healthy balance to my lifestyle that’s running a family, business and taking time for myself. I knew I need to add yoga and mindfulness to my life so I have been passionate about that and as I mentioned, I always had a dream to build a big company, so I felt that this is my opportunity to see what I can do it personally and take on this challenge of building a big company. With Nova Health and Wellness, it’s my passion and I am so excited to see where I can bring it.

Jo Napolitano: And so, how long had you been doing yoga before you created this company?

Jitka Borowick: So, I have been doing yoga for maybe five years and I started it to add it to my cycling and life balance and it was interesting because a bit when my daughter was younger, I think she was five years old, I started to look for more yoga classes but paying $20.00 for yoga class plus a babysitter that was not really feasible for me to do on regular basis. So, I found a community yoga in a local library where we would go together. Pay a donation fee $5 or for each and we would do yoga, and I would yoga with my daughter. But after a few weeks, my daughter and I were asked to leave because apparently, we were disturbing the women in the class when my daughter was coloring or when she would come to me and kiss me or whisper to me and I could never let that feeling. I was disappointed. I was frustrated. I was, I just couldn’t describe the feelings. I had and this never happened to me before that this wouldn’t go away. And I kept thinking about it what can I do about it? And I said I want to do something that this doesn’t happen to another woman that she wouldn’t be able to afford to do yoga or come to your community yoga class so, one thing led to the next and to the next and to the next and now here we are with Nova.

Jo Napolitano: And so, the women who come to do yoga with you, can they bring their children if they must, or if they’d like?

Jitka Borowick: That’s a good question. We never thought about it because it was during the pandemic.

Jo Napolitano: Right, right exactly, but you might be facing that soon.

Jitka Borowick: For outdoor classes, yes, they would bring children when they came to outdoor classes. Yes, absolutely.

Jo Napolitano: And it didn’t give you any kind of problem? You didn’t ask them to leave? That’s great, that’s really great, I’m kind of wondering someone so ambitious like yourself do you ever think of creating another company or do you think you’re going to try and manage these two and then set up?

Jitka Borowick: I never say no, because I like the challenges and what is really interesting when I look back at my, you know, what I have done so far with my passion for cycling then I started to take on some cycling challenges, charity rides or long rides. I wrote 400 miles in three days before, from Connecticut to Canada, I rode up Mount Washington on my bike, and these experiences really helped me to look at things. One pedal at a time, one step at a time, really motivate me and help me stay focused. So when then pandemic hit I said this is going to be like Mount Washington. I need to take it slowly, I need to pedal fully, I need to look at the next hill and not look at the top of the mountain because it will be a long ride. So, this really helps me break things down, stay focused, stay motivated and inspired and enjoy the journey because it’s not about when you finish, but it’s about the journey before you go there. So, these experiences really helped me and I am so thankful I had those experiences. I didn’t talk about employee wellness and employee and corporate wellness. That was a benefit per southeast from the pandemic.

Jo Napolitano: That sounds great. I so appreciate it and it was great to meet you and I hope that we will talk again very soon.

Jitka Borowick: Well, thank you.

Jo Napolitano: Thank you for, joining us this week for another episode of JobMakers. If you like what you’ve heard, please subscribe to JobMakers on your favorite podcast app and share this episode on Facebook and Twitter. Join us again next Thursday at noon. I’m Jo Napolitano and thank you again for listening to JobMakers.

Episode 10: Josh Feast

JobMakers podcast logo: Josh Feast Answers the Call With Artificial IntelligenceJosh Feast, an immigrant entrepreneur from New Zealand, has a goal anyone could get behind: make the call center experience better for everyone. In the latest JobMakers episode, he explains how he’s using AI to make it happen and creating over 200 jobs in the process. Listen to discover his perspective on ethics in the AI sector, what inspired him to enter the field and why he thinks “diversity defines America.”

Jo NapolitanoI’m Jo Napolitano, guest hosting for Denzil Mohammed. Welcome to JobMakers, a weekly podcast produced by Pioneer Institute and The Immigrant Learning Center. I’m excited to share with you the stories of risk taking immigrants who create new products, services, and jobs in New England and across the United States. These stories resonate with me, in part because of my own background. I was actually born in Bogota, Colombia and was abandoned at a bus stop when I was just a day old. Placed in an orphanage, I nearly died of starvation before I was adopted by a family from New York and raised by a single mother. Despite all of these obstacles, I went on to earn a degree from Medill at Northwestern University and have built a career as an award winning journalist, covering topics for the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Newsday and other outlets on topics including education, science and crime. And, of course, education was my own pathway out of poverty. I passionately believed no child’s life should be left to chance. That’s why I wrote a new book on immigrant youth called The School I Deserve: Six Young Refugees and Their Fight for Equality in America, that has just been released about a month ago and is available now everywhere, Amazon, Target, from Beacon Press the publisher directly. When we return, we’ll talk to our guest Joshua Feast from Cogito. Joshua is the CEO and co-founder of Cogito. He is a serial entrepreneur and thought leader with a passion for creating innovative technology that helps people live more productive lives. Josh has more than a decade of experience as a senior executive and is regularly quoted in Forbes, Fortune, Wall Street Journal. He holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he was the Platinum Triangle Fulbright Scholar in entrepreneurship and a Bachelor of Technology from Massey University in New Zealand. Cogito provides human aware technology to help professionals elevate their performance. Cogito’s AI, or artificial intelligence, instantly analyzes hundreds of conversational behaviors to provide live in-call guidance combined with a real time measure of customer experience. The technology is augmenting the emotional intelligence of thousands of agents in the world’s most successful enterprises. Improving sales results, delivering world class service and enhancing quality of care, Cogito is a venture backed software company located in Boston, Massachusetts and please learn more at their own website www.cogitocorp.com. Cogito Corporation employs 200 people in Boston, Massachusetts and has been in operation since 2007. So Josh, I’m wondering, can you please help explain exactly what your company does? 

Josh FeastYes, of course. So we provide what we call an AI coaching system, which is an AI that works in tandem with a human in the workplace to help get a better result. In our case we work with large scale enterprise call centers and help enterprise call center agents are being more productive and the way we do that is the technology listens to phone calls as they’re happening, looks at behavior patterns and uses those to understand how well calls are going and then we provide guidance. You can think of them like hints and tips and nudges as our users are speaking on the phone with customers.

Jo NapolitanoOh my goodness. So if you could explain how that might actually work if I’m operating at a call center for, let’s say a major, what if you give me an example of a business that you serve like a credit card company or a medical person or what, what’s the type of company you might serve?

Josh FeastYeah, so we work with large health insurers, life and disability insurers, big technology companies, banks.

Jo NapolitanoAnd so, as these folks are speaking to their clients or customers, they’re getting prompts based on what the customer is saying? 

Josh Feast: Yeah, so yeah, sort of and basically how the two parties are speaking with each other. So the intuition is that people make a decision about whether they’re being well served, by the way they’re spoken to and the fact is, is that jobs and contacts in, as like all caring professions, very challenging jobs. There’s lots of ups and downs, not everybody is perfectly nice all the time and what we found is that if we can provide some feedback into how someone’s coming across and with the customers stressed and distressed, and also help generally understand how well conversation’s going we can get much better results.

Jo NapolitanoWow, that’s pretty remarkable. And does Cogito have one main software tool that markets to different companies, or is it more customizable depending on the needs of the clients? 

Josh FeastWe have one main software tool which we call Pedido Dialogue that is what almost everybody uses. The tool can be customized according to different types of interactions. So we have the customizations available, for example for health coaching calls, general customer service calls, tech support calls, sales calls, claims calls. And each of those different types or models understands the context of the call. In order to figure out how well it’s going and then also has different types of prompting that are provided to the agent. 

Jo NapolitanoOkay. Do the companies that buy Cogito’s projects tend to be telemarketers or just customer service wings of large companies? We’d like to give a sense to listeners of who your clientele might be. 

Josh Feast: Typically the most common use is customer service inside large companies. We don’t tend to work on outbound calling. It’s more when you call them, this is a software product that makes the call experience better.

Jo NapolitanoOkay. And I understand artificial intelligence has a wide variety of applications from healthcare to robotics to e-commerce and advertising. Clearly it’s a very innovative and dynamic field, but are there applications of AI that are relatively untapped where there is great potential for impact and interest from investors? Perhaps not many entrepreneurs willing to take on that role? 

Josh FeastWell, I think the field that we work in is an example of an emerging field which is sometimes referred to as augmented intelligence. So here what you’re trying to do is have the AI work in tandem in the moment with a human who’s performing a task. And that’s challenging for multiple reasons. One, it has to be able to understand what’s going on in the moment. Second, it has to be able to understand humans well enough to be useful, and then third, it has to be able to give responses in the middle of potentially a high cognitive load task in order to generate a better outcome for both the AI and a human to live together. So that’s a field that there’s, you know, a lot of investment in at the moment and is, I think, a good example of a use of AI that may be somewhat surprising to people.

Jo NapolitanoArtificial intelligence has been a somewhat controversial technological innovation because of its potential for automation related job loss, algorithmic bias, privacy violations, etc. Have any of your clients raised any of these concerns? 

Josh FeastYeah, I mean, I think that the way I sort of think about it is if you’re not thinking about those concerns and actively doing something about them, then you probably don’t run an AI company. That sort of intrinsic to the field so, you know, for one is sort of what are societally productive use cases, which is sort of the first question. I think that’s very much the responsibility of the technologist and the inventors to come up with things that are going to be, you know, broadly valuable and valuable to users, to consumers, and to enterprise buyers, or I will say has to be a win-win-win. But second is elements of, you know, we talk about bias or privacy, so we have whole teams that focus on those issues to make sure that we are doing everything we can around that. We were the one the very first to publish research and to gender bias and emotion recognition and voice. And one of the very first to publish, sort of how to deal with it. So it would be very, very important issues and when it comes to AI,

Jo NapolitanoSo I’m wondering if you could tell us a little bit about how do you account for algorithmic bias, privacy violations, or gender based differences that might present themselves kind of unfairly. What are some of the things that you look for and tools you look to root that out? 

Josh FeastSo if we look at bias, one of the great ways, a great way to sort of understand AI and sort of demystify, it is in a lot of ways, it’s kind of, it’s that we could be programming with data. So, you know, a lot of things you know could be done using sort of normal software techniques, but that software can be created a lot more quickly and efficiently and dynamically if you use AI techniques. But to do that you have to supply it with a lot of data so the real heart of the trek when it comes to bias is to make sure you have unbiased data. And so that means very careful collection, very careful labeling. I think, you know, for example, we have a, you know, a sort of an annotation team that spot checks, that comes from a diverse set of backgrounds. We make sure that the data we pull in is representative of, you know, our industry. So I think that those are important and there is also one other thing that I think is worth considering with AI bias that’s maybe less well discussed and that is who gets to build AI. You know, like what use cases we choose, I think, you know, this is sort of an interesting podcast in that respect, you know, because if we’re talking about immigrant entrepreneurship, that’s one particular group that, you know, may or may not get the opportunity to build AI products. And we really ideally do want to have a very diverse set of folk building these types of technologies so that we meet a variety of mates. 

Jo NapolitanoOkay and from what I understand of machine learning, it’s kind of like a computer’s ability to recognize different things, kind of inputted by human being. Or can you differentiate the two and explain how both play a role in the company? 

Josh FeastSo machine learning can be thought of as a set of techniques that give rise to artificial intelligence. 

Jo NapolitanoOh, okay. 

Josh FeastYeah, and really what it is, is that these techniques are, think of it like computational statistical techniques that read data and turn or recognize patterns and then from that provide instructions to computer programs about what to do.

Jo NapolitanoExcellent, okay. And wanted to, do Cogito’s products replace the role that a call center supervisor would have or does it merely take away discretion that the call center agent would otherwise have had?

Josh Feast: I would say it doesn’t do either of those things, so the software from a supervisor side makes the job of coaching a lot easier. So one of the challenges in a large scale context is everybody is incredibly busy, so the opportunity to recognize what’s going on and provide coaching for supervisors is very limited. Maybe they can coach on a call a month. They might be good. Or a couple of calls a month, whereas with official intelligence, you can coach on every call and you can identify which calls are the most interesting. So that would be on the supervisor side. And then on the agent side it’s not a matter of removing discretion, the application is designed to provide awareness. So a good metaphor is like lane departure warnings on a car, so it’s not taking away your discretion of the driver, but it’s giving you awareness of something that’s going on that, you know, that you can find helpful. So for example, things that we might do is help somebody recognize this fear and are talking to us distressed and so that somebody can acquire, they can react with empathy. And because call center work is so intense, when you get tired you can often fail to recognize social signals like that. So the AI is basically adding or augmenting the sort of social sensors of the call center agent.

Jo NapolitanoOkay. And I’m wondering, of course why did you start this particular company?

Josh FeastYeah, so that’s a good question. When I was, before I came to the U.S. I spent a number of years working for the New Zealand Department of Charity for families which is the organization that manages a lot of, you know, mental health issues and justice issues that are there in New Zealand society. One of the things I saw was that it was an incredibly high burnout rate among social workers, so they would, you know, frontline social workers, you know, wouldn’t be atypical for them to survive three to five years only before burnout. And I just felt that larger organizations through no fault of management and everybody wants the best, but they can become bureaucratic and it’s particularly hard on the curing process because there isn’t data that’s what I think of as “human aware.” So what we’ve tried to do at Cogito is bring technology that can help support the caring profession and provide emotional intelligence to large organizations so that they can manage their people more effectively.

Jo NapolitanoWow, okay. Tell me a little bit about your experience working for that incredibly important agency in New Zealand. What exactly were you doing there? 

Josh Feast: I was a technologist, I was helping them build a case management system, so there’s a software that records all the cases of, you know, mental health issues in the country.

Jo NapolitanoWow, that’s a pretty incredible position. So I wanted to ask you now to go back to kind of your personal experience and in terms of if you would so kindly tell me about your background exactly where you’re from in New Zealand, how old were you when you arrived in the United States, what prompted the move? So feel free to pick any of those questions. 

Josh FeastOf course, yeah, so I grew up in the suburbs of New Zealand and I guess in a lot of ways a relatively traditional nuclear family. I had a younger sister, older brother and my father was an engineer and he went into business and my mother still as a registered nurse. So I was always sort of interested in the intersection of technology and care in a lot of ways. After my initial work experience and I was lucky enough to get some international experience, but in Australia, a little bit in Europe. I was given an opportunity to come and study at MIT and learn technology entrepreneurship through the Fulbright program which is an incredible program set up by the U.S. to create the bilateral exchanges of students between the U.S. and a variety of other countries, of which New Zealand one. So I came and I was in my late 20’s and studied at MIT, eventually met my wife at that time. And then when I was at MIT, I encountered a stream of research that was developed by my co-founder, who’s a professor at MIT and he had done about 10 years of basic science and how you can teach a computer to read human behavior in the first psychological state. And I thought that streamer research could be used to help organizations essentially do better securing professions and that was how we got started with Cogito. 

Jo NapolitanoOh wow. And so you met your wife out of MIT. Was she an American or is she an American?

Josh FeastYeah, another immigrant story. She’s originally from France.

Jo NapolitanoOh okay, great. And so tell us, tell me about your journey to the United States or coming, you know, living here. What are some of the struggles or kind of perhaps strange little picadilloes about America were maybe a little bit difficult for someone coming from across the world.

Josh FeastYeah, you know, it’s so interesting coming to America because it’s the culture of it, sort of in some ways so well known because the cultural exports are so strong that, you know, you come thinking you know America when you really don’t at all. So that’s one of the things that are so funny. I think, you know, as well, when you are coming to the U.S. from an English speaking country can be a bit, you can come in a little bit overconfident, I would say because everybody speaks the same language as me, so they must have a similar culture or some other cultural basis, but not isn’t necessarily true at all. So I think that’s always always interesting.

Jo NapolitanoAnd I think too there’s one other thing, I think that people who come from abroad are mistaken and when they talk about kind of one America, one American ideology, one American value, one American feeling on anything, and this is a country of well over 300 million people. You have lots of different ways of living here, and did you kind of, did you have an idea about what America was and did you find people that kind of challenge that notion for you? 

Josh FeastI think, I mean, I think it’s extremely well observed that there’s lots of different Americans and lots of different, I mean the diversity almost defines the country. 

Jo NapolitanoThat’s true. 

Josh FeastIt challenged me and I think there’s some very sort of most like fundamental differences and values between, for example, New Zealand and the U.S. that sort of strike to the core of some basic assumptions. You know, some of these are sort of maybe, you know, like for example, New Zealanders, you know one of the core values of New Zealanders, equality. Right? It’s very very focused on equality, which is one of the core values of the U.S. is freedom, is another good example, right? They’re both very strong and very, very important and, you know, but the differences in those sort of fundamental things, so that means you start from a different, it’s completely different starting point and then how you think about things. 

Jo NapolitanoThat’s so true here, individual freedom, the right of the individual, the motivation of the individual is woven into how the nation was created or so we kind of tell ourselves, right? So now we see that kind of working for and against us. Wonderful attributes of that and then certain things where it creates something that we all are aspiring to change for the better. And so I have, I always ask this of people who come here from another country. What’s the strangest food you encountered here and what’s from home?

Josh FeastStrangest food. Oh gosh. 

Jo NapolitanoWell let me give you a little help I had, I just wrote a book about children who are, well the main child is from Sudan and she said where she grew up in dark war, you do not eat the skin of a chicken. And so when she came to the United States, everything is a fried chicken, it was repulsive to her. Like you just do not do that there. So I thought that was really kind of funny.

Josh FeastYeah that is funny. Yeah I think possibly the New Zealand food situation is maybe maybe reasonably similar to the U.S. and, you know.

Jo NapolitanoAnything you missed but can’t get here? 

Josh FeastWell it’s funny in this. I’ve been here, you know, obviously over a decade and a lot of the things I’ve missed back home are now sort of almost have come here now. A good example, yeah, like a good example is coffee. So Starbucks has a flat white now. As far as I know, that was started in Australia and New Zealand and I missed them for such a long time and now I can just order them on the menu no problem. 

Jo NapolitanoThat is really really neat. Okay, well I think that probably concludes most of our interview. Joshua, thank you so so much for sharing your incredible story with our listeners. We really appreciate your time, we wish you continue success in your business.

Josh FeastThank you very, very much. I appreciated this, thank you.

Jo NapolitanoThank you for joining us this week for another episode of JobMakers. If you like what you’ve heard, please subscribe to JobMakers on your favorite podcast app and share this episode on Facebook and Twitter. Join us again next Thursday at noon. I’m Jo Napolitano and thank you so much for listening to JobMakers.

Episode 9: Mahmud Jafri

JobMakers podcast logo: Mahmud Jafri Builds on a Pakistani Legacy in AmericaWhen Mahmud Jafri first came to the United States from Pakistan, he hit a “concrete ceiling” in the corporate world. He turned to entrepreneurship and started a business selling imported hand-knotted rugs. Through his business, Dover Rugs and Home, Jafri is creating opportunities in Massachusetts and for women artisans abroad. Learn how he believes integrating immigrants can benefit all U.S. residents! We also have a full-length video interview here.

Denzil MohammedI’m Denzil Mohammed and this is JobMakers. JobMakers is a weekly podcast produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and The Immigrant Learning Center, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Every Thursday at noon, I talk with the risk takers, immigrants who create new jobs, products and services in Massachusetts and across the United States, building on the entrepreneurial spirit that led them to America. in the first place. When we return, we’ll meet this week’s inspiring entrepreneur.

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It takes a certain kind of person to leave everything they know behind and start anew in a foreign land. The kinds of qualities immigrants of all backgrounds bring to the U.S. other qualities we ought to demand in our workforce. Perseverance, grit, ambition, adaptability. For Mahmud Jafri, who came to the U.S. to study in the mid 1970s, those qualities enabled him to change course when he encountered what he calls the concrete ceiling in the corporate world for foreigners at the time. So, he built on a legacy started by his grandfather and began importing hand knitted rugs from his native Pakistan, something that economically lifted up women who traditionally couldn’t work outside the home. Today, he has three stores across Massachusetts, including the Back Bay and flourished during the pandemic renovation revolution. Mr. Jafri is very much of the mind that the United States is an extremely welcoming country, but also believes more can be done to integrate immigrants, including undocumented immigrants in Massachusetts for the benefit of everyone, if only for the politics of it all, as you’ll hear about in this week JobMakers.

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Mahmud Jafri, thank you for joining us. Your business, Dover Rug & Home manufacturers and imports hand-knitted rugs as well as provides interior design services and home furnishings. But this idea of weaving and designing and exporting beautiful rugs started generations ago with your family in Pakistan, is that correct? 

Mahmud JafriCorrect, my grandfather was a landowner and it was an interesting philosophy that he had. He also started the first women’s college of higher learning in Pakistan back in the late 1800s and also suggested that, to economically empower women in the rural areas or in an agricultural society is to have them weave rugs, because women can at that time it was difficult for women to be employed outside of their home and to some extent it still is true. So they could stay at home, set up a loom, take care of the family and still not fight the cultural taboos or norms and be a major source of economics to the family. Because agricultural work back in the day was seasonal work, and there were times where men would just sit idle and there weren’t, there would be no work, whereas women could continue to weave rugs 12 months out of the year and be a consistent source of income. And it also became a source of foreign exchange. So what started as a sort of a quasi philanthropic initiative also turned into a bonanza for the country in the foreign exchange.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s incredible and you’ve grown from your garage and living room into three outlets, Burlington, Boston and Natick. But bring us back to your life in Pakistan. What was that like?

Mahmud JafriI grew up in the central part of Pakistan, which is sort of, I was born in the southern part, which is Karachi, the largest city on the Indian Ocean and then, but I grew up in the hall and in the northern part of Islamabad and in that area. And I come from a middle class working family with some of my uncles and relatives who were exporting rugs And I had a very normal upbringing. And in a somewhat of a conservative traditional Muslim family, but very high emphasis on education. And, my father and my grandfather were always strong proponents of education. Not just education in the sense of religious education, but more in technological and business education and that’s why we would encourage too for higher learning and higher education to go to either Europe or come to America. And that’s how I ended up in the U.S.

Denzil MohammedWhat was it like when you first moved here? 

Mahmud JafriIt was, to be perfectly candid, it was a total shock. You know, coming from Pakistan to a liberal, open California society in the early 70’s was a cultural shock. I think it would be a cultural shock for anyone even coming from Alabama. But, in my case it was another country. And I was a young man, I was only 19, 20 years old and, but, you know, my focus was education and as a result, I was insulated from a lot of the pop culture, if you would. I had to stay focused on my education and so frankly did not have that much time to have the pop culture infringe into my life or into my values.

Denzil MohammedI’m sure eventually that eroded a little bit 

Mahmud JafriIt did! 

Denzil MohammedYou had a sort of model coming from your grandparents and their parents when it came to the business. What was it like starting Dover Rug & Home?

Mahmud JafriWell, it was quite a challenge because after I finished my graduate school, I was in the financial world for a few years and I was with Prudential bait and the investment arena. It wasn’t a glass ceiling back in the day, it was a real concrete ceiling that you could see, feel, and touch and after spending a few years, I almost spent about seven to 10 years in that business. And when it became evident that there’s only so far and so much I can go, I was at the mercy of corporate culture and everything that goes with that. I realized that in order for me to go any further, I would have to do something on my own, however small or little it may be. So that’s why my first business venture was in the late 70s, early 80’s. And it started in the real estate business and then I realized that, you know, what we sometimes you don’t acknowledge and appreciate what you have. I realize that what we have is that if we can expand on that and grow that and bring that business into the retail end of things, there’s a natural barrier to entry for the competitors simply because of our manufacturing capabilities that we are able to integrate vertically that our competitors can’t work. You know, they can, but the probability of that is very low. So that was one reason that we thought that this would be a good model to have a stable, reliable supply and capitalize on the growing and emerging U.S. market and having the ability to change and stay with the times because our business has become a very fashion-forward, design-driven industry. And if you don’t have the ability to change quickly, like the rest of our accessories and rest of the industry, such as furniture and fabrics, we would be left behind and today our typical consumer would make the right decision based on so many other factors. So you almost have to be part of the conspiracy and collusion that you are at the table. So we had that ability to do that.

Denzil Mohammed: And you’ve experienced a lot of growth from the garage to a warehouse to now three locations. Guide us through how that all happened. 

Mahmud JafriWell, it was a very organic, classic, self financed growth. We never went to an equity fund or investment banks or conventional banks to do that. There’s a natural aversion that immigrants have to debt because they come from societies where in some cases it’s socially and culturally unacceptable to be under debt. You want to own everything free and clear so that you’re able to say that look, you know, I’m not obligated to anyone, this is mine and so on and so forth, So that’s kind of how we did that instead of taking our revenues and our sales and putting them into our lifestyle. We maintain a very humble lifestyle and continue to reinvest in inventory and in expansion and in advertising and marketing and trying to get more and more of the market share. So it was just a, frankly, just old fashioned, simple debt free kind of growth that we did.

Denzil MohammedYou mentioned earlier about a glass ceiling that you said was basically concrete. Can you describe that a little bit for us? Help us understand that? 

Mohammed JafriYou know a lot of the immigrants, including myself, when we enter into the workforce, we entered into it with, you know, stars in our eyes and a prayer in our heart and we expect it to be a level playing field and frankly, it’s not. Your color of your skin, the lineage, the legacy, all of these factors play into how convenient the road ahead is and how much of the way has been paved for you. While most immigrants don’t have that luxury, especially the first generation immigrants. Maybe the second third, they may because their ancestors or their parents or grandparents paved the way for them, but the first generation pretty much need to figure it out on the fly and when they’re doing that, the society is not very accepting of them for a variety of reasons. You know, some of them I mentioned all the way to the ancestry, the religion and all of that and whether it’s call it discrimination or being marginalized, it’s alive and well. And I’m not condemning the U.S., I mean, I think it’s all over the world. It’s the fear of the unknown, it’s the fear of the immigrants. So when I say a concrete ceiling at least, we refer to barriers to entry for immigrants or for women for that matter, as a glass ceiling that yes, it’s really subtle. Yes, you can rise up to a certain point and then you hit that glass ceiling. Well, back in the day, it wasn’t even a glass, it was concrete. That’s what I said that was there. You could see it and not only see it, but you could see that it would be very difficult to penetrate. And frankly, you know, there have been ethnicities in the U.S. The wave of immigrants that have come through New York and other parts of the country, where they started out as first generation immigrants and figure it out very quickly that their entry into the middle or the upper middle class would be either through education or professions like medicine or law or in some cases starting a business. So that’s why I think there’s a disproportionate amount of immigrants that start businesses.

Denzil MohammedImmigrants are twice as likely to start a business in certain parts of the country and three times as likely to start a business. Immigrants create jobs.

Mahmud JafriRight. Right, and they’re not afraid to hire immigrants also, you know? So, sometimes, they hire a larger percentage of immigrants because they can relate to that story. And I’m not saying that that’s discriminating against the status quo, but that just, it’s a natural, normal comfort zone that that we deal with, that we work with. So in that respect they help the immigrant community.

Denzil MohammedIt’s something that some people struggle to understand, you know, why would a Vietnamese restaurant hire other Vietnamese immigrants? But these are people you want to help uplift, and these are people you can relate to, as you say. It’s a very natural sort of thing to do, and this idea of the fear of the unknown, I think a lot of you’re still in tropic work. It would involve in sports with education and with cultural activities, you even offer rug-making classes to elementary school students. The idea is not simply to empower people, but to connect people, right?

Mahmud JafriRight.

Denzil MohammedThe idea of people learning other cultures, other, you know, where does this accent come from? You know, why do you look the way you do and why do you practice this kind of religion? Guide us through your idea behind your philanthropic work?

Mahmud JafriWell, you know, first of all, it’s something which was instilled in us early on in life. My grandfather and my father and my family has been very philanthropic throughout. You know, that’s an important ’cause that they believe in and then second, the very nature of my product is as such that when someone decides to buy an oriental rug, they’ve made a decision to open up a window of another culture into their home. And they have enough confidence to bring something which is foreign and appreciate it, live with it and not be ashamed of it. So it almost became important for us to be not only just the brand ambassador of our product, but also be the cultural and historical ambassadors of our tradition and our heritage because so much of that plays into the actual designs and colors that you see in our rugs. So it made sense for us to educate and connect with our community. And frankly, there’s no better group to start with than young school age children because they have an open fertile mind and when they see a window of another tradition and another culture, especially when they’re learning about Middle East history, or in some cases the travels of Marco Polo or the Silk Route, their teachers actually bring their children to one of our stores and we do this pro bono at no charge, and we connect with children based on what they’re learning and show them practical examples of what the Silk Road means and how the trade was done, because the rugs have been traded for centuries, along those lines. And in the journey that these rugs took and the stories that came out of that, love stories, war stories, you know, because it’s a form of art for that part of the world. Because of the religious influence, they could not do statues or paintings because that was almost considered idol worshiping. But rugs became the form of expression, an art form to express and then the raw materials was indigenous and were readily available. And humans are creative, you know, they’ll find a way to create something, they’ll find a way to express themselves in form of art. So the oriental rugs became a form of expression from that part of the world and we wanted to bring that message to the western societies by connecting through the art element of it and how it has bound communities together for centuries.

Denzil MohammedAs a former member of the Governor’s Advisory Council on Immigrants and Refugees in Massachusetts, how do you feel Massachusetts has fared when it comes to dealing with immigrant issues? We are well behind certain other states in terms of access to drivers license for undocumented immigrants or in state tuition for undocumented immigrants. Do you think Massachusetts has done enough? 

Mahmud JafriWell, you know, back when I was a member of the Council, you may remember that there was a policy paper which was published to help the governor’s and the legislature called the New American Agenda and it addressed all of these issues and for over two years we worked on that recommendation based on public hearings, meetings, talking to the law enforcement agencies talking to the legislature, talking to the stakeholders in government and in business and in immigrant communities. But what came out loud and clear even from the law enforcement side, is that look, we need to give these people their driver’s license. We need to give immigrants their drivers license, we need to know where they live, we need to know that they are qualified to drive because frankly, you cannot stop them from driving. They have to earn a living, they’re here, they’re going to work and they will go to work. And putting them on the road and not allowing us to know who they are and where they live, it really doesn’t serve any purpose. And if you bring them into the fold they become a lot more connected and lot more productive and a contributing member of the community and that goes across the board with so many other issues, in state tuition and especially the children that came here as underage children. It’s a crime, not not to be able to afford them the same opportunities as being given to the other Americans. And if you look at the contributions that the immigrants make to the society once again is disproportionately higher. They become much better citizens once you give them a clear path to citizenship and they hold a stronger family. They, economically, they become much more viable and contributing members of the community. 

Denzil MohammedI want to bring it back to this moment of a pandemic. And as a businessman, I read that consumer spending on durables, which includes home and office furnishings, actually increased by 19 percent during the pandemic. How did the pandemic affect your business?

Mahmud Jafri: I think we were very fortunate. This pandemic forced people to work from home, spend more time at home, spend more time with their family. So it, all of a sudden, once they were confined into their home, they were able to take inventory and stock of their living conditions and in situations so a lot of the deferred decisions were met saying okay, I need to pay my own to buy a rug, you know, so on and so forth. So fortunately, we were beneficiary of that. Secondly is that the nature of our business is such that we can conduct business with following COVID protocol very easily. In a floating business, there’s never an opportunity that you’re going to be closer than six feet to your clients or to your customers. Third, it’s not a high traffic business and if we have three or four customers coming during the day, that’s a busy day for us. So, keeping all of that in mind and forth, a lot of our work can be done in a customer’s home if they call us with samples or what their requirements are, they can send us the pictures. Their ability to shop at home also helped us tremendously. And then the, this whole renovation revolution that took place that people putting up additions and renovating, new construction, flight back to the suburbs from the city. So all of those things, frankly, drove our business, so, you know, but we had our challenges. I mean, our challenges in their business and pandemic was a supply chain, that’s really where we face the challenges and frankly, you’re only as good as your weakest link. So all the way from manufacturing wasn’t so bad, but ability to get the product to the marketplace, that was a challenge. You know, because of all the shutdowns and lockdowns and the airlines trimming their schedule and so on and so forth. 

Denzil MohammedYou mentioned at the start of the interview that this was something that your grandparents, your grandfather did. But I get the sense that what you’ve been able to do in the U.S. you at that time would not have been able to do in Pakistan. What is it about the U.S.? What are the factors that enable entrepreneurship like your story? 

Mahmud JafriYou know, despite all, you know, all the complaints that people have against U.S. I still think it’s the best place on the face of the Earth. And a good example of that is what Warren Buffett once said, that if he had left me in Bangladesh 50 years ago, I would have been as impoverished as any other Bangladesh citizen. But because I’m in U.S., because I live and work in a society that has a pluralistic society I can enforce my contracts because the court system works. I have a stable banking system, it’s a stable economic system. It’s a system that I can rely and I can bank on and that’s that for starters. Until and unless you have that in a country, you really don’t even have a solid foundation to grow from. So that was one of the main reasons that we felt that for us to grow out of where we are and to expand into bigger markets. 

Denzil MohammedReflecting on your own experience, what do you think about an immigrant makes them entrepreneurial. 

Mahmud JafriI think immigrants, I mean, it really starts right from the beginning. I mean, any immigrant who made the decision to leave their country, their community, their family, their culture, their language and their food and you know the list is very long. They are obviously driven people. They are also risk takers. So I think it’s those qualities in immigrants that help them propel, that drive them to greater heights because, once you make that decision, you have to understand that you really don’t have a safety net. You’re leaving your safety net behind. So here you have to create your own safety net and you, it’s, you have to work twice as hard to make sure that you create a safety net for yourself and continue to propel and continue to grow. So I think it’s that innate ability of immigrants that separates them from, you know, mainstream people. 

Denzil MohammedMahmud Jafri thank you for that very sobering but truthful reminder about who these immigrants are, who people like you are and the kind of qualities that you bring to the U.S. I thank you for coming to the U.S. and making an impact not just as a businessman but as a philanthropist, as a human being. Thank you so much for joining us in JobMakers today.

Mahmud JafriThank you Denzil, it was a pleasure.

Denzil MohammedSo happy that you joined us for this week’s inspiring story of another immigrant entrepreneur. If you or someone we should talk to, email Denzil, that’s [email protected] and please leave us a review. I’m Denzil Mohammed. Join us next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers podcast.

Episode 8: Larry O’Toole

JobMakers podcast logo: Larry O'Toole on Workplace, Culture & Immigration PolicyLarry O’Toole has run his company, Gentle Giants Moving Company, for more than 40 years. He’s determined to ensure that all immigrants have the same opportunities that he did to fully participate in the economy and build something that will endure. That’s why he’s joined a group that promotes state and federal policies that foster complete economic integration of foreign-born talent and sustained prosperity for everyone. Listen to our interview to discover how he overcame the challenges of culture shock and discovered his untraditional path into entrepreneurship.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and this is JobMakers. JobMakers is a weekly podcast produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Every Thursday at noon I talk with risk takers, immigrants who create new jobs, products and services in Massachusetts and across the United States, building on the entrepreneurial spirit that led them to America in the first place. When we return we’ll meet this week’s immigrant entrepreneur.

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Denzil Mohammed: Every immigrant experiences some kind of shock when they move to the United States, no matter their skin color, language, or country of origin. And yet, despite this, they learn to adapt to new laws, new cultures, a new education system and eventually flourish. It takes a special kind of person to have the ability to do that. For Larry O’Toole, founder of the multi-state Gentle Giant Moving Company that started in 1980 right here in the Boston area, yanked from his life in Ireland with only a few weeks notice and plopped in Brookline, Massachusetts. the shock was almost overwhelming. So he understands that for any immigrant, especially those with language, skill and other barriers, the ability to thrive despite those barriers is special. That is why he’s part of the Massachusetts Business Immigration Coalition, a more than 60 member group that advocates for state and federal policies that foster complete economic integration of foreign-born talent and sustained prosperity for everyone, as we hear more about in this week’s JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: You are a legend in the Boston business community for the [inaudible]. And you’ve been around here for the past 40 years with Gentle Giant Moving Company. Briefly tell us a little bit about your company and what you see as your vision going forward.

Larry O’Toole: Well, we’re a company that guarantees our work or your money back. And we want to give consistent service to people where we stand behind our work and if we make a mistake we make good on it. And we want to give value for money. And from … in a larger view of our company even though we’re a moving company moving people’s belongings, we don’t think of ourselves as a moving company. We think of ourselves as a people development company, ’cause we want people who come in our door to be learning how to be successful human beings. And in the moving environment it’s a great place to do that, because every day you’re working with different people. And the customers are often under stress. And some of them are really nice people and some of them aren’t, and some of them are simply under a lot of stress and are maybe behaving badly even though they’re not bad people. So if you can develop the skills to find the key to their heart to really make sure that they end up having a wonderful experience and end up delighted with your service, then you’ve developed a skill which is going to make you successful in life no matter what you do.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s such an interesting view of what people think to be such a straightforward kind of company, a moving company. You know, you just come in, you grab stuff, you put it in the truck, but it’s so much more than that. And I want to talk more about how you view your customers and your employees and how you develop them. What was it like when you first moved here? You were 15. You were plucked out of the place, the only place that you’d ever known. You didn’t have much of a language barrier, but I’m sure that other things surprised you, right?

Larry O’Toole: Yes, culturally. Well, of course I came from a monoculture, like everybody around me was a Catholic. And it was funny because there was a Jewish kid in my school named Zimmerman. But just to show you just how out of it I was I remember saying to him, Zimmerman, what part of Ireland does that name come from? Of course he probably thought I was trying to make fun of him, but I honestly had no idea. So I came from that and I came to the United States and I went to Brookline High School. And I went from a culture where in Ireland kids went to school and they had fun and they learned but nobody really thought about what they were going to do until they saw what their results were on their final exams. You waited, and if your scores were high enough on the leaving certificate then you might say, “Oh, wow, I can go to medical school, you know?” So it was like that. And I came over to America where there was these Jewish kids in Brookline and, of course, I didn’t know they were Jewish or anything. But they’re arguing about whether they’d make more money as an accountant or an attorney down the road, that they were already career focused, but of course that’s Brookline. It’s a little different than a lot of places. But it was a definite culture shock. And then of course it just so happens that in Brookline it was a lot of really brainy, highly accomplished Jewish kids. And the Irish kids were all from a place called Whiskey Point. Their fathers were the police and firemen and janitors and stuff. And they were all sort of relegated to the lower levels in each class, and they’d be mainly football and baseball players who … The baseball in particular, they were, they would hope to get into some kind of … be picked by some baseball team. So it was all about sports for them.

Denzil Mohammed: So you were sort of told what field to go into, engineering, so you’re good at math and you do engineering.

Larry O’Toole: Right, because I was good at math.

Denzil Mohammed: But where was your heart at that time?

Larry O’Toole: I was probably fairly confused to be honest. I mean in hindsight I realized that I would have loved to have gotten into the arts, film or theater, but I didn’t have the confidence to follow into that. But engineering it was. That’s what I went for.

Denzil Mohammed: So a lot of strange turns in your life. A lot of surprising things are happening, including something in 1980 where you decided to start a moving business.

Larry O’Toole: Right.

Denzil Mohammed: How did that come about and what was it like not having a business background and trying to start a business in America.

Larry O’Toole: Well, I think it came from spending a number of years working in the corporate environment. I decided that I wanted … the only way I was going to be able to control my destiny was to start my own business because you don’t want to have a great job and wake up one morning and find out that it’s become a nightmare, and it’s all in the hands of people that are way above you, that you don’t know what the hell is going on and decisions are being made that are absolutely mad, and you have to go along with them. I know you can find good places, but I didn’t want to leave it to chance. I said, “I want to start my own business.” And a friend of mine back in Boston was developing a product and I decided that I would team up with him and we would start our own manufacturing business. But that doesn’t happen overnight and so I didn’t want to just live off my savings. I wanted to get enough work to pay for my living expenses. I found an inexpensive place to live and I started doing little odd jobs here and there in order to pay the rent while we were getting our manufacturing business off the ground. But one of those things was moving. I started doing moving. Actually it was my roommate, his idea. He had said to me, “You know you should do moving because you can be flexible. You need only book work when you want to do it.” But I wasn’t that interested. And then one day there was a party. And I was at this party and I was … All of a sudden his girlfriend came over to me and asked me to dance. So I said, “Okay.” So I’m out dancing with his girlfriend and I said to her, ‘How come you’re dancing with me? How come you’re not dancing with Hugh?” And she said, “I love to dance and you can’t get him on a dance floor.” But I said, “Well, I’ll get him out here dancing with you.” I walked over. He was sitting on a chair talking to somebody. I came up behind him. And I was really in shape and strong at the time, so I just picked him up out of the chair. And I just carried him out onto the dance floor and I started to swing him in both directions. His legs were going up towards the ceiling on both sides, you see. And everyone started this slow clap and he was sort of a good sport and he kind of did these little marionette things, but he was out there. And so the next day we’re at breakfast and he says to me, “You know it wasn’t just that you picked me up, it’s that it was comfortable. It was like I was parasailing, you know that was. I don’t know how you did it, but I …it didn’t feel awkward.” And he said, “You know who you are?” He said, “You’re the gentle giant. That’s the name of your moving company.” And I said, “Nah, forget about it, that’s not happening.” So he literally, without telling me, he called up, now I don’t know if it was the Boston Phoenix or the Real Paper. I can’t remember. But he called up and he bought an ad that just said Gentle Giant with our phone number and he put it in the moving section. And somebody called. And all of a sudden he hands me the phone and he says, “It’s for you.” And I said, “Who is it?” He said, “It’s your first customer for your moving company, you know, Gentle Giant. Remember I told you?” I said, “What are you talking about? I don’t even have a truck.” And he said, “You can borrow my van.” And I said, “Well, I don’t know what to charge.” And he said, “Why don’t you charge 13 bucks an hour and then you can give me three for the van?” So next thing you know I’m talking to this young woman, arranged to meet her on a Saturday to move her. And I ended up moving her. Anyway, that was my first customer and I’ve moved her seven times. And the last time was 2012 and the bill was $12,500. So before you know it, I’m doing these little moving jobs and it was only supposed to be a sideline to get a little cash. But what I found out more and more was people did not act like I had moved them. They acted like as if I had saved their child from drowning, and I’m not exaggerating. People were so appreciative it was almost ridiculous or comical, like all I did was move their crap from A to B and they’re acting like, “Oooo, thanks, you saved my life.” Well, what I came to realize was the main reason people were so thrilled was because they had had bad experiences with movers in the past and now they were getting somebody that was giving it their heart and soul and really committed to doing an absolutely great job and keeping them happy while I was doing it, like having fun with them, having jokes and fun, a good time. And lo and behold they’re moved, and there’s no stress and everything is exactly where it should be. And I’ve made some really good suggestions. I started interviewing owners of moving companies just to get some insight. And they were all nice people. But they all had the same complaint, that they couldn’t find good help. And one thing I was sure of, and that was that I could find good people. So I decided that, You know what? I’m going to start a moving company. And you know what? I’m only going to hire really great people. And I’ll see where that brings me.

Denzil Mohammed: So 41 years later, you’re still going stronger than ever in a sense.

Larry O’Toole: Yes.

Denzil Mohammed: You’ve hired thousands of people over the years.

Larry O’Toole: Right.

Denzil Mohammed: In normal times you probably have a workforce of about 500.

Larry O’Toole: Right.

Denzil Mohammed: And they’re not only in the Boston area, they’re scattered across cities across the U.S.

Larry O’Toole: Right.

Denzil Mohammed: So Seattle, San Francisco.

Larry O’Toole: Right.

Denzil Mohammed: New York City, Washington, D.C. And you have many initiatives in your workplace to keep developing both physically and mentally. Your employees are running up and down the stairs of the stadium.

Larry O’Toole: Right.

Denzil Mohammed: And you have probably a hundred videos on YouTube showcasing this. What kind of activities do you do there and what is the purpose?

Larry O’Toole: Well, you want to help everybody to become self aware. And you want everybody to be secure in their identity because people have to be comfortable in their own skin so that they are open to feedback and don’t become defensive if they are receiving feedback. How do you give somebody feedback in a way that respects them but lets them … ‘Cause I mean most people don’t show up perfect, where they get feedback and they say, “Thank you, that was really helpful.” A lot of people, and the way our society is made, people are made to feel like they’re failures a lot and people are criticized. And you don’t know what kind of a home environment they’ve come out of, that’s another problem. People can invent … I mean a lot of parents are abusing their children without knowing it. They’re just giving ’em a hard time about everything and so people are so afraid of failure. They’re so afraid of making mistakes. And then when they do they feel like they’re embarrassin’. They feel like if … when in fact everybody should be comfortable that you can make a mistake and learn from it and help other people not repeat it. So a lot of this is very, it’s actually very difficult. You know, all kinds of human interaction … Because people are kind of wired to be a little bit dysfunctional. So how do you get people to be fine? Like somebody tells you that you’re not very good at something. That should be fine with you, because how are you expecting to be any better? I remember somebody asking me after working with me, “So what would you, what kind of grade would you give me for my work today?” And I said, “Well, you want the truth?” And he said, “Yeah, yeah, give me the truth. What would my grade be?” I said, “Well, it will be a D.” I said, Well … It looked like he was ready to start to cry. And I said, “Yeah, you’re a D, but you know something, you keep putting in the effort that you did today and you will be an A.” Don’t expect to walk into somethin’ and be an A on day one. It takes hard work and applying yourself seriously for a length of time before you can become a C and then a B and then an A. And if you wanna be an A, you’re goin’ to be an A.

Denzil Mohammed: You started expanding outside of Boston in the mid ’90s. Now you have locations across the U.S. How is, how have you been able to manage that growth?

Larry O’Toole: Well, for us, I mean every company is different, but for us the culture is important. And you need to have people running these other offices who are totally committed to your culture and who will only, will have the same approach to people and will hire the same kind of people and deliver the same thing to their customers. Now there are people who do it by just going into cities and putting ads in the wherever you put ads and finding people … opening for a manager of a whatever it is. And that’s so … you’re going to end up with a lot of inconsistencies. If it’s just McDonald’s then you can send everybody to McDonald’s University and it’s all hamburgers and you can get people to … everybody does the same. But with moving, it’s all about people and you can’t just turn them out like cookie cutters. You need to have people … and if you have people who understand the culture and they’re going to adhere to it then that’s what it takes.

Denzil Mohammed: Every year the moving business is not the same throughout the year. You have this big surge, especially in a place like Boston.

Larry O’Toole: Right.

Denzil Mohammed: August 31st when everyone’s moving.

Larry O’Toole: Right.

Denzil Mohammed: You don’t just get labor from here, you have to look outside of the U.S. in normal times, correct?

Larry O’Toole: Well, yes, I mean, that’s the way we did it for many years, but of course with Trump that got cut off and Biden hasn’t done much to improve that situation because the unions in this country, even though unions are necessary and they do a lot of good, they have this nonsensical idea that these workers take away American jobs. And, of course, Biden has put Marty Walsh in charge of the Department of Labor, which … I’m not quite sure what his qualifications are. I do know that Robert Reich was qualified. I mean, Marty Walsh, you worry about him because his only perspective is union. I mean, he’s lived and died union since the day he was born. So when you get people in the union saying that we’re not going to bring in any foreign workers until every American is hired and we have zero unemployment, you’re talking to an idiot. I mean, well, not an idiot, but somebody who doesn’t really understand the facts because the jobs we’re talking about here are seasonal jobs. And when you hire seasonally … Most Americans if they want a job they want it year round, to actually be a supervisor, to be put in charge of an $80,000 truck, quarter million on average value of a shipment and then you have to deal with supervising a crew of people some of whom may be less experienced than others. You need years of experience yourself. And an experienced seasonal worker, a highly competent, experienced seasonal worker who’s American doesn’t exist. Why would they want to stop working when it slows down? So we keep our American workers working year round. And bringing in foreign workers that have been coming in for many years gives you chance to bring in highly competent people who can supervise crews. So for everyone you bring in you can hire three, four, five Americans. So you can actually hire more people. Now we did bring in J-1 students as well, but the reason for that was that American students do tend to go back to college in August. So you have six more weeks of the busy season where you can have European students who are willing to work through those weeks before they go back to school in Europe.

Denzil Mohammed: And I know that you’re part of a coalition of business owners and advocates who are … would like state government to pursue sensible policies when it comes to immigrants, and also at the federal level. How has that been going?

Larry O’Toole: It’s very frustrating. It’s almost impossible. That is so frustrating ’cause so much needs to get done and undone from the last four years of horror that it’s frustrating right now for the people who are trying to accomplish something.

Denzil Mohammed: We need to remember that, first of all, it’s about lives. These are people we’re talking about. Immigrants are not just numbers. And secondly, they add to our economy. As you said, you are able to hire more Americans as a result. When certain immigrant heavy Industries grow satellite industries downstream industries expand.

Larry O’Toole: Right.

Denzil Mohammed: The economy is not a finite thing. I mean, it is a huge problem. And the Boston Business Journal recently published an editorial showing that Massachusetts did not lose congressional seats only because our immigrant population grew. And the immigrant share of the labor force in 1990 was 10 percent in Massachusetts, and now it’s 20.5 percent. I mean that certainly says something, that they are powering our economy.

Larry O’Toole: They’re necessary, yes.

Denzil Mohammed: Larry O’Toole, this is a fascinating conversation.

Larry O’Toole: Oh, thank you.

Denzil Mohammed: It has really been a pleasure talking to you and learning more about your journey, your business, your ethos in particular. So thank you for joining us on JobMakers.

Larry O’Toole: Oh, it was a real pleasure Thank you. It was great talking to you, thanks.

Denzil Mohammed: So happy that you joined us for this week’s inspiring story of another immigrant entrepreneur. If you know someone we should talk to, email Denzil, that’s d-e-n-z-i-l, at jobmakerspodcast.org. I’m Denzil Mohammed. Join us next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers podcast.

Episode 7: Amar Sawhney

JobMakers logo: Amar Sawhney on Sikhs, STEM & COVIDAmar Sawhney turned his initial struggles to find work after immigrating to the United States from India into motivation to pursue a PhD and become a serial entrepreneur. He has started eight companies, creating more than 4,000 jobs and $2 billion in revenue. Listen to our interview to discover how he overcame obstacles along the way, his perspective on the COVID-19 pandemic and what he wants people to know about Sikh Americans. We also have a full-length video interview from earlier in his entrepreneurship journey here.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and this is JobMakers. JobMakers is a new podcast launched in March, produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Every Thursday at noon I talk with risk takers. Immigrants who create new jobs, products and services in Massachusetts and across the United States, building on the entrepreneurial spirit that led them to America in the first place. When we return, we’ll meet this week’s immigrant entrepreneur.

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Denzil Mohammed: The entrepreneurial spirit among immigrants and refugees allows them the flexibility to pursue unexpected courses of action, adapt, accept risk and make the most of opportunities they didn’t even know of before. For Dr. Amar Sawhney from India that started at the University of Texas at Austin with 30 job rejections out of 30 applications. But he set on a path that would see him go in directions hitherto unknown. Getting a Ph.D., helping found a company journeying to Boston and starting a string of new companies, using his chemical engineering background to save lives through remarkable local therapy innovations. To date, he has founded eight companies, accounting for 4,000 jobs at more than $2 billion in revenue. He’s been named a Champion of Change by the White House, one of the five most innovative medical device CEOs by Mass Device, the EY Regional Entrepreneur of the Year, even The Immigrant Learning Center’s own Immigrant Entrepreneur Award for Life Science Business. But his influence extends well beyond that space into environmental conservationism, safeguarding refugees, mentoring and promoting STEM education, and building public understanding of America’s Sikhs as you’ll hear in this week’s episode of JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: Dr. Sawhney, thank you for joining us on JobMakers. I would ask you, typically, to describe your business, but for you I think I would want to ask you to describe the vision for your businesses and what kind of impact did you think your businesses would have.

Amar Sawhney: So the vision from my businesses is to be able to deliver local therapies that can make an impact in patients’ lives or meaningful impact in patients’ lives. What I mean by local therapies is often manifestation of disease that takes place at a fairly local site. And to be able to treat that with a local therapy is better than to treat it with a systemic therapy meaning giving it, for example, giving a pill that goes everywhere in your body versus what we have now created. For example, at one of my last companies, Ocular Theraputix, little inserts smaller than a rice grain that goes into your tear duct that replaces the entire course of eye drops after surgery. Similarly, we’ve done things where we have created spacers that go between the prostate and the rectum so that in another company, Augmenix which is now part of Boston Scientific, where we were able to minimize any radiation side effects so also that radiation which would otherwise cause complications for the patient for a lifetime. By use of this, it spares the rectum and the side effects that might come from it. So these are types of local therapies that we are creating, where now in my latest company Instylla, have a way to fill tumors with a liquid material that solidifies almost instantly and shuts down the blood supply thus shrinking them. So local therapies are using sometimes these types of materials, hydrogels that I have created for uses inside the body are basically a unifying theme.

Denzil Mohammed: And your journey toward this goal started through rejection, right? You were rejected from 30 jobs at the University of Texas. Describe what that was like and what led you to this path.

Amar Sawhney: Yeah, me, I had come from India to do my masters and PhD at the University of Texas. And in India had access to good jobs, higher education, etc. I actually rarely encountered failure. Generally most things had come fairly easily to me. So coming to the United States, I did my master’s degree, and I had gotten a scholarship for it. And I did what most people would do: Apply to all the campus jobs I could find. But since I did not have a green card, I did not have an H1 visa and at that time, this was back in ‘89, most of the U.S. companies were not as familiar with providing the paperwork and stuff needed for an immigrant. And as a result I applied to 30 jobs thinking that I just need one. I don’t need all of them to be successful. But since most of them didn’t understand what paperwork would be involved, they summarily rejected me, which was quite devastating. Now, I’d never had this type of rejection before and I wondered what had happened. I’d come to this new country, and was there something wrong with me? It’s a lot of introspection went into that. But rather than blame the system and complain about it, I think it’s important to be sort of positive, action oriented. I spoke to my advisor, Dr. Jeffrey Hubbell, who’s just a stellar individual himself. He advised me that you may want to consider doing a PhD. And to think about it, that would have been somewhat counterintuitive because you would think you just got rejected after doing a master’s. Do you really want to double up and do a PhD? But I did that and in that way did some really exciting, interesting work where we did chemistries inside the body that would kind of be, allow you to make … so 3D printing is all the rage right now. Back in ’89, ’90 we were doing this type of 3D printing, so to speak, or making materials inside the body using light and polymerizing them in very, very fast ways for forming implants in the body. And that created a couple of companies and that created my first job. So I moved to the Boston area as a result of that new company being founded, a company called Focal.

Denzil Mohammed: And I remember you talking to me about your journey into entrepreneurship and raising money and just the fascinating concept of you being a foreign individual in the U.S., admittedly looking different, sounding different. And yet people were willing to give you money for your ideas. Guide us through what that particular experience was like at first.

Amar Sawhney: Sure thing. Yeah, so I’ve always felt that being a Sikh obviously I look different. I wear a turban. Also, people look at you, they have so far almost a bipolar response, where on one hand they would view you as being foreign and different and things, but in this community of entrepreneurship and science and stuff, when people see somebody different, they actually may feel that you’ve been able to cross over difficulties and make your own path. So there may be something special about this person, whether there is or isn’t. I’m not saying that there’s anything special about me. But people’s perception, actually it can work in your favor as opposed to work against you if you have the self confidence to believe in yourself. If you don’t see yourself as being disadvantaged or somehow you’ve got a chip on your shoulder, or something of that sort. If you come across as being a person who is just, should be judged for what they do and not how they look, now soon people just look past it and it just, it becomes transparent. If you yourself feel that you are different all the time, then it comes across in how you walk, how you talk, and I think then it starts adding up.

Denzil Mohammed: Guide us through what it was like forming your first business, especially not having an MBA, not having that business experience. And what were the qualities you think reflecting back on that time that enabled you to be successful? Was it like a bug that bit you that you wanted to just sort of continue founding companies? Or was it something bigger?

Amar Sawhney: So I think you look at what you want to get out of life, right? Meaning there’s a few things people may want to get out of life. Certainly, economic outcomes are one aspect of it. So I will not say that that was not something that influenced my thinking, but beyond that, it’s a question of if you have the tools to make a difference and build products that will really help improve medical care, you would almost be negligent not to do that. You would be negligent if you’ve been given the opportunity and the privilege to have access to those technologies and you know how to do it. You’re not missing anything. Why would you not actually go out and create those products? So that was important for me because from a legacy standpoint, eventually you want to see how many lives did you touch? How many and what improvements were you able to create in care delivery? So that is what sort of keeps me going at that point in time. And it’s the economic outcome, while not zero, is definitely less of a factor relative to other things, so that’s what has kept me going.

Denzil Mohammed: And you talk about legacy and impacting lives. It’s at least 5,000,000 patients have benefited from your technologies, right?

Amar Sawhney: Definitely. We’re in fact over a million patients every year now are impacted by some of the products that we’ve been creating.

Denzil Mohammed: And what are some of the companies and projects you’re currently involved in?

Amar Sawhney: So currently I’m involved with one of my companies. Instylla is creating a liquid embolic product. A liquid embolic basically is a liquid material that can be delivered into flowing blood and can almost instantly shut down the flow of blood. Sometimes blood flows to undesirable locations such as tumors or a hemorrhage that might be taking place after a car accident, or there may be fistulas of some sort. So there are a number of reasons why blocking blood flow to certain sites is important. If you try right now, people try to put down little plastic balls and stuff like that, little beads to try to do that, or put coils then hope that the blood will clot around it, a little fuzzy hairball type of coils. But liquids will penetrate much deeper, and if they have water-based liquids with which to react almost instantly, we can cast out the tumor down to the capillary level and hopefully much more effectively treat. So that is something that Instylla is doing. We are in the midst of U.S. pivotal clinical trial in 25 sites and doing it in the midst of a pandemic is an interesting exercise, but we’re making good progress over there, so that’s one company. The other company is a company called Rejoni where we are creating materials that are for just inside the uterus. Lots of procedures are done for women inside the uterus, such as removal of fibroids or septae or polyps and things. When they’re cut out for people who are infertile and they need to be treated for this infertility or some other problem. But that resection can create scar and make them infertile further. It can fail. So we are developing systems material which would be administered inside the uterus [to] sort of serve as a bandage and a separator of the uterine walls for a couple of weeks and then allowed safely to absorb. Now women who get ablations done for severe menstrual bleeding, the ablations can cause severe scarring and lead to other complications, so hopefully this is a way for people who have late stage abortions, their uteruses are scraped up quite a bit and can cause scarring. So there were one and a half million women every year who have problems related to scarring from these so we hope to be able to prevent that. So that’s another thing that we’re doing. And the third thing that we’re doing is from my holding company. Pramon has been creating a hemostatic patch, something to stop severe bleeding from, say, the liver or spleen so you would within 30 seconds, you just hold this down. It’s a completely absorbable material. Within three days it could absorb, but at that point in time it almost within 30 seconds stops any kind of bleeding, no matter how strong. There’s nothing like it right now. There are products that J&J has which are, use body’s clotting kind of cascade materials, but this is completely synthetic, doesn’t cause any clotting issues, can be used with patients who are completely anticoagulated, so would be a big step forward in managing hemorrhage. So those are three projects I’m involved with. I’m on the board of several companies. One of the companies is developing clot retrieval systems, a company called Imperative Care, where we go deep inside the brain to pull clots out, meaning every day we’re getting stories of people who are, essentially would have been dead for life, a vegetable and we pull the clot out, and they wake up on on the table and they are able to talk again and and walk again and do the things.

Denzil Mohammed: As a serial entrepreneur, I think you’re in a really good place to talk about the biggest impediments for a successful business like the ones that you founded. And I’m thinking particularly about issues like finding talent, issues like regulation. And how is Massachusetts in a better position than other places to run these kinds of businesses?

Amar Sawhney: I think the regulations are what they are. And, yes, there are barriers but I think they are barriers that ensure good quality of products and its degree of professionalism that may be absent in some other parts of the world. So I think while we all have our moments where we curse the FDA, I think the FDA is a force for good and it helps protect consumers for making sure that the therapies and products that emerge from the medical device or the pharmaceutical industry truly have solid science. And with regards to Massachusetts being a good place, I think it definitely is, especially the Boston area meaning their talent availability, which, incidentally, as you pointed out, is one of the big bottlenecks in scaling businesses, in starting businesses. When you’re starting a business, you know it’s really hard to attract talent because people don’t know whether the business is going to be successful or not, or you’re in the early stages and you really want to hitch your wagon to something which could just be a dream. So getting talent at the initial stages is not hard for us, but at the later stages it becomes harder because now you’ve got many more people you need and you can’t just reach out to your own network. You’ve got to go out and find people just the way any other company finds people, through recruiters and referrals and whatnot. So what I would say is that if you treat people well, you treat people fairly, and that word gets around, people will come back and want to work with you again. So we’ve benefited a lot from that, that anytime I want somebody to come work with us, all we have to say is, mention that to them and they will drop anything that they’re doing and come and work for us. So we are fortunate because we’ve treated them well. Now when companies scale, it can be a challenge because the fight for talent in the Boston area is ferocious. There’s a lot of companies, and the pharma companies and biotech companies have a lot more money than my tech does, and their pay’s way better. So it can be a challenge to try to attract talent as we scale forward.

Denzil Mohammed: And so leaning into the issue of the, how attractive STEM is to students in the U.S. What are your thoughts on just how STEM is perceived or how attractive it is to young people and is the U.S. doing enough to really foster an environment where students would be interested in these fields?

Amar Sawhney: Yeah, you’re putting your finger on something very important, meaning I sometimes go to graduations, for example, meaning I have gone to my alma mater, University of Texas’ graduation. And I remember sitting on the stage, looking at the people crossing the podium. They are receiving their degrees. And I would say more than half were not first generation, at least Americans. So there were so many of them who were of Chinese origin, Indian origin, Korean origin, etc. And I looked at that message, not that that’s a bad thing, but why are not more mainstream Americans pursuing science? But I know that this is something that is near and dear to both my wife Deepika who’s big on the education side of things. And our whole family, meaning we’ve tried to do it from my kids actually helping with mentor children. My son is the captain of his robotics team. My daughter is the captain of the National [inaudible] Lexington High School, and she mentored as many kids as possible to be able to ensure that STEM is not perceived as something that is either hard or foreign or not an attractive career or just difficult, especially with girls after middle school, making sure that those seeds are planted early on, that they continue. So I do feel that we are not doing enough to make it attractive as a choice and it may be perceived as being formidable for whatever reason. It isn’t. It’s not hard. Don’t dream small is what I would say to anybody. What’s the point of dreaming small? If you’re going to dream, you might as well dream big.

Denzil Mohammed: Oh, that is such, such a lovely thing to say. It’s excellent advice. You’ve impacted millions of lives and created over $1.5 billion dollars in revenue. But your heart and the impact and legacy that you want to have extends beyond just your businesses. Through your foundation, you have approached issues that are probably out of the mainstream lens. Can you talk a little bit about those issues?

Amar Sawhney: I came to the conclusion that the trillions of dollars that we are spending as the world and country to try to tackle this pandemic, we’re trying to put out a fire. We’re not asking the question, where did the fire start and why did the fire start in the first place? Why do these zoonotic organisms migrate out from deep forests and end up creating these pandemics? Why does that happen? Why do they cross species? Why do they go from bats to humans? And if you sit and analyze that, you come to the conclusion that it is because of depredation of the forests and environment and of man-animal conflict through wildlife trafficking, where bats that were living quietly in a cave are now being grabbed by nets and sold in markets where they harbor these pathogens. Those drip onto civet cats and to pangolins that are being exploited and coming from far away nations, being slaughtered in the Chinese market for example. And that contaminated product, either somebody touches their nose while they’re in the midst of that process, and suddenly it transfers from the bat to the pangolin to the human, and then that person goes and spreads it, and the pandemics originate. So what’s the solution to this? It’s not to be able to come up with only new vaccines, although we need to do that to control this and that is what is needed, but we gotta prevent the fires from starting. We cannot keep spending trillions of dollars putting fires out. And there are probably 500,000 more of these types of viruses out there in the wild waiting to get out if we keep encroaching upon that habitat and we keep exploiting these species. So I’ve been spending a lot of my energy, time, money, on preventing wildlife trafficking. And to be able to not only save species like rhinos and elephant ivory and all those types of things, but also trafficking of a number of other types of [inaudible] animals. And smugglers, these are the same gangs that either traffic humans, traffic animals, they traffic drugs, that they launder money, so it’s that same network. And to be able to go after these folks and prevent this from happening and to be able to put solid worldwide type of regulations, that country is gonna rally together and put in place. Otherwise it’s like a balloon. You squeeze one side, they go to another side. We try to work with the Thai authorities, they’ll go through Laos. But you know the demand has to be shut down and demand comes from China. It comes from U.S. U.S. is the second largest demand point for wildlife products. China is the first. So to be able to do this so that we not only have a legacy where we can continue to enjoy environments which are unpolluted and wildlife species that still exist, but it’s also self preservation now. This is some of the big picture that I want to spend. We do a number of other things which are related to education and human welfare, etc., now, but I think those are all more to alleviate my own conscience than to actually make a real impact. To make a real impact, I think it’s the preventing wildlife trafficking and having species conservation, wildlife conservation, environmental conservation is what we all need to act upon.

Denzil Mohammed: That intersection of public health and environmentalism, we need to be able to spread that message more and just how these issues of public health or environmentalism are not isolated issues. Similarly, immigration is not an isolated issue, it impacts our entire economy and entire society and I keep mentioning it. Without immigrants we probably would not have the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines because they both have immigrant co-founders. You’ve had a very terrific experience as an entrepreneur. But as a member of the Sikh community, how do you feel and what is your message to Americans when they are tempted to feel some sort of xenophobia in reaction, a very strong reaction to terrorist attacks but also political rhetoric?

Amar Sawhney: So you know it’s important to understand who the Sikhs are and why they look the way they look. Sikhs were created as soldier saints. They were supposed to be people who would adhere to the three pillars of Sikhism, which was to remember a higher power, to work with the honest sweat of their brow and to share what they had with others. So these are the three pillars of Sikhism and Sikhs were created when there was an oppressive environment prevailing in India of mass conversions and the majority of people didn’t have anywhere else to turn, so they were created as a group to protect others. And they were given certain edicts, to not be under the influence of drugs and alcohol, to have a weapon which was to be used in defense and not in offense at all times. There were a number of things that helped them control how they acted and part of that was they were to be given a distinctive uniform so that they could stand out and not merge in. So if you think about a terrorist, so terrorist doesn’t want to stand out, they want to merge in. So why would you put on a turban, have an unshorn beard and show up in public if you were a terrorist. That is not what people would do. People or terrorist wants to merge in, a Sikh wants to stand out. Unfortunately, images on TV that show somebody out in Afghanistan, where the trouble can be construed as being the same individual who is out over here and people don’t understand the difference. The way around it is education and one of the unfortunate but potentially saving grace type of side effects of these shootings, whether they are the FedEx facility a couple of weeks ago or the temple shooting in Milwaukee or or many such things that have happened, unfortunate incidents of violence against Sikhs at least help further the conversation and raise the awareness as to who these people really are and that they mean you no harm. In fact, they were created with the explicit purpose for people to go seek help from them.

Denzil Mohammed: Despite this, America has allowed you to create a legacy that you are still creating and still fashioning. And it is a home for immigrants regardless who, wherever they come from, you know they’re allowed to be American. They don’t have to shed their past identities just to be here. They don’t need a long lineage in order to succeed in business or in life.

Amar Sawhney: Look, America I think there is no parallel to what this country is. This country has given me a chance, given me an opportunity to do all the things that I would. I don’t think I could even have done these things in my own native India. It would have been hard for me to achieve this. So I think we’re quick to take sides and blame the system and blame others. But America is unparalleled, there are no parallels, meaning it is an amazing country. Social media has ended up creating a frenzy which attempts to highlight the exceptions and the silent majority gets ignored. I think that the American silent majority is very welcoming, very warm and has given me and most of the Sikh people that I know a great avenue to succeed. And they have worked hard and even the folks who were shot in the FedEx facility, they were 66 years old but they were working the midnight shift, the night shifts, just to make sure that they’re not a burden on the system. So the work ethos is deeply ingrained, sort of making sure you’re not a burden on anybody, making sure that you work hard. And those values, Sikh values are American values. American values are Sikh values. I think there’s a congruence in that.

Denzil Mohammed: The decimation of the refugee resettlement program of immigration in the past few years, those things are being turned around, and those will ultimately benefit America because immigrants who come here, people who choose to come here, people who leave everything behind, people are forced to come here have a certain ethos, as you said, of determination, resilience, not wanting to be a burden, wanting to succeed, wanting their children to have better than they did. Dr. Amarpreet Sawhney, thank you so much for making the time to be interviewed today for JobMakers. I really appreciate it and I hope that these messages continue to reverberate out there.

Amar Sawhney: Thank you, Denzil. It was my pleasure.

Denzil Mohammed: So happy that you joined us for this week’s inspiring story of another immigrant entrepreneur. If you know someone we should talk to, email Denzil, that’s D-E-N-Z-I-L, [email protected]. I’m Denzil Mohammed. Join us next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers podcast.

Episode 6: Max Faingezicht

Podcast logo; "Max Faingezicht on the future of work"Max Faingezicht’s Costa Rican background has helped him build a successful business connecting United States companies with remote software engineers in Latin America. His work has helped foster entrepreneurship in Costa Rica, bring valuable talent to U.S.-based companies and reshape the future of work at a time when remote work is booming. Learn what inspired his journey! We also have a full-length video interview here.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and this is JobMakers. JobMakers launched in March in a time that mixed open vaccines to counter COVID-19, a new federal administration and a continuation of one of the most difficult years for businesses. It is a weekly podcast produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. I’m Denzil Mohammed, and every Thursday at noon I talk with risk takers. Immigrants who create new jobs, products and services in Massachusetts and across the United States, building on the entrepreneurial spirit that led them to America in the first place. When we return, we’ll meet this week’s outstanding immigrant entrepreneur. As uncertain as these times have been, certain concepts are becoming clear, that remote working is a viable option for some, that place-based collaboration is no longer always needed, that ideas can thrive even in the most dire of circumstances, and America’s a place where those ideas can be brought to life. For Max Faingezicht, an immigrant who founded ThriveHive, a marketing software company for small businesses, and Telescoped, which uses remote software engineering to connect Latin American engineers with U.S. companies in need of their skills, the entrepreneurial ecosystem of Boston and Cambridge allowed him to achieve dreams he didn’t even know he had when he arrived. In so doing, he can now foster entrepreneurship in his home country of Costa Rica by bringing much needed talent to U.S. companies, all the while determining what the future for it will look like. His fascinating immigration story that extends from Poland and Germany to Bolivia and Costa Rica, as well as his ideas on where workers go next, on this week’s JobMakers podcast. So Max, who are you and what are you doing here?

Max Faingezicht: Alright, well, my name is Max Faingezicht, which probably doesn’t give away the fact that I come from Costa Rica and I’m an entrepreneur who lives in Boston, immigrant and son of immigrants. And I love innovating and I love using technology to help positively impact people’s lives. And I’m here to hopefully tell some of my story and inspire your audience.

Denzil Mohammed: What kind of technology do you generally play with as an entrepreneur?

Max Faingezicht: Yeah, so for the last 10 years or so I’ve been very focused on software and software engineering. I built my first company in the marketing automation space so we had a subscription product to help small business owners. And now I’m working with remote software engineers in Latin America and helping them match with U.S. technology startups and companies that are building all of the tools that we use online, especially now in the new COVID world.

Denzil Mohammed: So you talk about engineers in Latin America, and I want to dive into that a lot more. But that idea of across the continent reach, your journey to the U.S. actually started in Poland, right?

Max Faingezicht: Now that’s right, yeah. So my grandparents (I mentioned I’m a family of immigrants), they came from Poland on one side and Poland and Germany on the other side and some of them came before the war kind of exploded, the Second World War, into Latin America seeking opportunities, finding a better situation for them and their families. And in one of the other sides they actually came escaping the war, and so both of my grandparents, they were both entrepreneurs. And they started companies in small businesses, which they grew through a lot of hard work and trying to be creative and innovative. And that was the example that they set for my father, who was also an entrepreneur. And that was kind of my family. You know dinner table conversation was all about the business, and what they were doing. And I got involved with that business early on as well.

Denzil Mohammed: So one side of the family was seeking opportunity, the other one had to flee.

Max Faingezicht: Yeah, that’s right. So the one that was seeking opportunity came to Costa Rica. Costa Rica still had their borders open back then so they could actually come in, become residents, and establish a small Jewish community there. They were there in the ’30s and brought a lot of people over the years and actually through the war time. And then on the other side, from the Germany side, my grandmother left right as Kristallnacht … she was in Berlin with the German side and she kind of escaped and ended up in Bolivia actually. So my grandparents on my mother’s side emigrated first through Bolivia, where they established themselves, and were there for maybe 20 years, and then they moved to Costa Rica at a very old age and started all over again, started from scratch. So very resilient people, very much thinking about hard work and education as the core of progress and just succeeding in life. So that’s the background.

Denzil Mohammed: And what kind of businesses did they start?

Max Faingezicht: Very traditional businesses. So on one side, my grandfather who came to Costa Rica, he went to the United States and actually in New York and other places, where he connected with other Jewish immigrants and he was able to import fabrics and set up a small fabric distribution shop, which supplied most of the different retailers. And he was a prime supplier for fabrics, and that was a company that he started from nothing and ultimately built into a very large small business. And then on my mom’s side, my grandfather was actually importing carpets, so similar story, very traditional businesses and all kind of based on this network of immigrants that they could help each other out.

Denzil Mohammed: It’s fascinating that it was such a long time ago yet they were able to find these connections and networks outside of the country, thousands of miles away in New York. That’s pretty incredible. I’m trying to picture what it was like for you, for them, and for you growing up in Costa Rica. How were you all as immigrants (you said that Costa Rica had a sort of open border policy at the time), were they received and welcomed?

Max Faingezicht: Yeah, I mean they were received, and welcomed to a certain extent. I think the country realized that immigrants bring some positive economic impact, but they were still outsiders, right? They didn’t speak the language, they looked different. It was a different tradition ’cause they were Jewish and obviously the country, it’s a very Catholic-Spanish influenced country, and so there was a little bit of a culture clash I think on both sides. But ultimately I think that they recognized that they came with good intentions, trying to do good work and to improve everyone’s livelihood around them, and so they stayed pretty close as a community, and I think that’s kind of what has happened even to today. So it’s a pretty close knit community.

Denzil Mohammed: So I’m wondering if you’ve ever felt like an outsider growing up.

Max Faingezicht: That’s a great question and I have, I will admit that I have. I feel like, well, first just the background being, feeling like an immigrant regardless of whether I was born in Costa Rica or not. But also just the idea of your heritage and being a small community inside a larger place. But also when I came to the U.S. and I came for school. So I mean I was as blessed as you can be in a program at M.I.T. with 50 percent international students. But the Mexicans had 10, 12 people, the Venezuelans had six, eight people. I was the one Costa Rican. So it’s, there’s always, you’re always a minority in a strange way. And then you got this strange last name growing up in a country like Costa Rica, so it’s not a very Latin American name. So yeah, I definitely feel like an outsider even to today, but I think it might all be more mental than anything else.

Denzil Mohammed: Yeah, I’m surprised you didn’t change your last name to Garcia or something.

Max Faingezicht: Yeah, that’s funny. I thought of it. Never actually did it, but I definitely thought of it.

Denzil Mohammed: At least we can all pronounce it.

Max Faingezicht: Yes, well, we were going to shorten it to like Fain, f-a-i-n. So a little easier.

Denzil Mohammed: So even before you got to the United States, you said entrepreneurship ran in your family. It is obviously not uncommon for people who move to another country to start a business. For various reasons, your grandparents are probably, in a sense, forced to, because language barriers, not tied into networks there. But they really use their ingenuity well to build up a small business into larger ones. And you were bitten with that bug early on, and actually started a spinoff business from your father’s company, right? And it, that started in China.

Max Faingezicht: That’s right, yeah.

Denzil Mohammed: Talk about making connections.

Max Faingezicht: Yeah, I mentioned my parents were both entrepreneurs so my mom actually started a small programming school at home. So we had like my room was no longer my room. I went to sleep with my brother and there was six computers and she was teaching young people in the 80s, and, first time into programming and spreadsheets. So I really knew I wanted to start something since very, very young. I think that was the example they set for me, but then I had joined my family’s business and we were in a … you know we did a bunch of trips to trade shows in China, Shanghai, and Guangzhou and some other places. And this is before China really exploded, so it was still like a pretty interesting place. And one of the suppliers told us that the product we were using for sign-making was actually mostly used for construction and for renovating commercial spaces. And so we started learning a little bit more and I decided to jump into a completely new industry, learn everything from the ground up. And I think that’s what really makes an entrepreneur, somebody who’s not afraid to learn and who sees these challenges as not only opportunities but also like an interesting problem to solve. I’m not a problem solver at heart, and so I think that that’s kind of what drew me to it. And so I started this company in the construction industry, which is actually still running. My brother oversees the operation back at home. And from nothing we became a pretty large company that ended up doing some large government bids and work. And you know every time I go back, I still see some of the buildings.

Denzil Mohammed: So even when you moved to the U.S. to study at M.I.T. you had this idea of being an entrepreneur. But you didn’t know about networking. You didn’t know about the systems in the U.S. You didn’t know about raising millions of dollars, did you?

Max Faingezicht: Oh no, absolutely not. I feel like all of the education that I’ve had has really taught me how to learn. Obviously, you know there’s the foundations and some important things that you learn along the way, but you really learn how to learn. And I came to the U.S., I had no idea what venture capital meant. I remember having to take a note and look it up after the first time I heard it and the same goes for private equity. I had no idea. I was completely blown away by the ecosystem in Boston and everything around M.I.T., and lucky in a way, right? ‘Cause you mentioned networks and definitely the program started that process. You know it jump started a lot of my career into the high-tech space. Otherwise it would have been a little bit of a different story. But I definitely think that learning and being willing to tackle new challenges … At the moment you think you know it all, you’re probably already losing ground to a new innovator who’s somewhere else doing interesting stuff.

Denzil Mohammed: Entrepreneurship sort of found you, right? You didn’t, you weren’t in your basement trying to start a hedge fund or start a new business. How did ThriveHive, your first business in the U.S., come about?

Max Faingezicht: I started with an idea at M.I.T. and that idea failed. And that’s another thing I learned, by the way. I should mention that failing is part of the process and it’s a healthy part of the process. So when that idea failed, I was still in school, and I had learned to tell all my friends what I wanted and to share my ideas and what my interests were. And so a classmate from M.I.T. connected me with an M.I.T. alum by the name of Sundar Subramaniam. And him and his partner, business partner [inaudible] had started a very successful company in the 90s. They IPOed that company and I got in a meeting with them. They were literally across the street from M.I.T. at 1 Main St. So we met and they pitched me this idea of a company that wasn’t doing very well and they wanted to kind of re-factor that company and rethink what it could become. And they had an analytics engine, and so that’s the core and the basis of what became ThriveHive, this marketing automation company. So it really came through networking, working with other immigrant entrepreneurs, and really being open to sharing your ideas and letting the world know what you’re looking for. Because I always thought if I want to be an entrepreneur, I have to have to come up with an idea and then start it. But actually a lot of ideas don’t start from just that. Sometimes you join another team, sometimes there’s two teams that join and end up building a third idea. So there’s a million different ways in which you can get into the entrepreneurial ecosystem. I think there isn’t just one recipe.

Denzil Mohammed: So at least 30 people have to thank you for giving them jobs at ThriveHive. Tell us about running that business in the U.S. What was that experience like?

Max Faingezicht: Yeah, I mean I think it was the time of my life. Back then, like I said, I came in 2009 not knowing what venture capital was and there I was in 2012, just a few years later, raising multimillion dollar rounds, hiring people, growing a business. We went to an accelerator in Techstars, which was also pretty critical in our history. And another immigrant, Semyon Dukach, who was the managing director, had a pretty big influence on me, and in what we were doing at ThriveHive. Just setting the right values, making sure that we were managing the business around the right metrics, but also caring for our people. And that’s also something that we always put front and center, people, meaning our customers, our team, our investors. In the end you can build the coolest technology, but if you don’t put the customer first, if you don’t care for your team, if you don’t keep your investors happy, then things don’t click. So it was just a wonderful time. We were really innovating and building what I think back then was one of the most powerful solutions to help small business owners like what my family had back at home. And I was just thinking of the thousands of people that we could help by putting these powerful tools in their hands. So that was the real driver behind that, the mission that we were after.

Denzil Mohammed: And you describe that this relationship that you have continuing with Costa Rica. I see a sort of humanitarian angle to this. But in terms of a business, tell us about Telescoped and what makes it so interesting?

Max Faingezicht: Absolutely, yeah. So after I left ThriveHive … I stayed with the company that acquired us for about three years and then I took some time off to think about what came next. And one of the things that really resonated with me is that with ThriveHive our mission was the most important thing. I knew that we were having positive impact in the world through small business owners. And I wanted my next thing to have as much if not more impact. And so we saw the movement of remote work, and that’s kind of where we saw an opportunity and our mission, our core purpose, that Telescoped is the pursuit of autonomy, opportunity and purpose for the talented people of the world. So we’re really thinking of, I think you were saying this earlier, but the people that I hired, the people that were our customers, however many people you can impact in your lifetime, I think that’s a good measure of success in my book. It’s not about dollars, it’s about who you can help. And so with Telescoped, we’re connecting software engineers in Latin America with companies in the U.S., but our model is pretty unique in the sense that we think about it as a new model of employment. So this is not outsourcing, it’s actually something different.

Denzil Mohammed: Tell us about this distinction. This audience really wants to make sure that it’s not outsourcing.

Max Faingezicht: Absolutely, yeah. So I think that the biggest insight we had is that outsourcing, while it has been great for many countries, Costa Rica included, it definitely limits the growth of the most talented people in the country. You’ve got amazing engineers who go from one outsourcing firm to the next. And basically, all of their work is, there’s always an intermediary that blocks them from continuing to grow their careers and their paths. And the reason for that is that the model is based on an arbitrage model. If I can pay an engineer like a mid-level job, but then someone as a major or senior then I make X amounts of dollars per engineer. And then that career path is dictated by the outsourcing firm. People that go to outsourcing companies, they’re looking to cut costs, ’cause obviously you would think that abroad the costs are lower. And some of the worst projects get outsourced, right? It’s the ones nobody wants, nobody wants to do them here. And so what we realized is that remote work breaks through that model, and it allows for the engineers in countries like Costa Rica or Latin America or anywhere in the world to be first-class citizens within their companies for the first time. And the growth of that person is going to be managed by the company that is dictating the work and everything in between, whether that’s the type of business, the technology, the learning, the mentoring, which goes both ways, it’s going to be directed directly between the engineer and the company. And Telescoped does not act as a barrier between the two, but actually it’s an enabler. So we’re doing the matching. So we find the people, we certify them, and then we also understand where they want to go with their careers. Do they wanna really go deep into the tech and become an R&D expert for machine learning, or do they want to grow as a tech leader, eventually a CTO? They never have that opportunity with an outsourcing firm. They just get a project handed and this is what you have to work on. With us we look at their profile and then we match them with the opportunity that makes the most sense for them. So in a way we are kind of like a sports agent would be for a superstar. We’re doing that for engineers abroad and then companies here benefit from the fact that we are able to find some of the most talented people that will be obviously very loyal ’cause they’re getting incredible opportunities to grow. They’re working on the most interesting challenges side by side with the smartest and most [experienced] people, and so they’re super loyal, super pumped about what they’re building. And that’s where we want to enable 100,000 times over.

Denzil Mohammed: And they’re getting benefits too, right?

Max Faingezicht: Oh, of course. I mean, but part of what we offer, and this is kind of this new model of employment, is we take care of all of the payroll stuff, but we also not only offer like the standard benefits, we also realized that for this to work we need to add some new things, which might not have existed before in the model of just straight-up contract work. We give them unemployment insurance and other things that we can pool by having more people in as part of the network.

Denzil Mohammed: But now tell me, what was it like launching this business just before a global health crisis?

Max Faingezicht: We never saw that coming, right? Well, I think we were lucky, right? First technology in general obviously to a certain extent got scared. But more than that, let’s just be 100 percent transparent here, when COVID started to become a real threat around March, April, everything stopped and hiring freezes everywhere. So all of our sales, all of the pipeline fell through and that was tough as a business. I mean, we were thankfully well funded so we could focus our energy on the other side of the network, which was recruiting engineers. So people were very uneasy and people were nervous and they were more than willing to put in the time to find opportunities to make sure they have a safety card up their sleeve in case something happened with their jobs. And so we were able to grow that side of the network quite extensively. And then as people moved from colocated to work from home, companies’ mindsets changed, and so all of our prospects and potential clients all of a sudden, that pool became much, much larger. So we’re kind of running with those tailwinds now and we’re seeing really, really interesting growth, and I think you know, in the long term it’s going to be the year that changed everything for remote work. We kind of had 10 years of change in a single year.

Denzil Mohammed: You say that, and even on your website you have a blog post saying that location will soon be irrelevant for companies that employ knowledgeable workers. What do you mean by that? Just a few years ago, admittedly pre-pandemic, there was a huge sweepstakes to determine a new home of Amazon and its second headquarters. Has COVID really changed that much about business decisions or is the idea that location will be irrelevant just reflective of long-term trends?

Max Faingezicht: It’s a great question and I think, well, first, let me tell you what I mean by location will be irrelevant. I think, and bear with me ’cause this is going to go like a little meta … So the first thing is I think there’s going to be a change towards giving more power to the person, to the employee, to the engineer, in my case. And this is going to come from the fact that the moment that you’ve broken the thinking and people are not constrained by how many people are in their city or in their state or in their country. But now you’re talking about a global pool of talent. All of a sudden you’re going to have marketplaces like what I’m building for software engineers, but I think that’s going to happen in many other industries. And the moment that you’ve got a marketplace with liquidity, so you’ve got enough companies, enough talent on the other side, then you can make those matches happen seamlessly. All of a sudden the power dynamics shift. So when you work for a company, the company calls the shots on everything. They dictate everything, and then you just abide. The companies are good. They give you good benefits and perks and whatnot. But many times people get stuck and they can’t leave that system. When you have a liquid marketplace, you can decide to work for the best company that best aligns to your interests, and that’s part of our core mission. If you remember being aligned with purpose, I’m really passionate about health care and making sure people live healthy lives. Or maybe I’m incredibly excited about finance. I mean, some people are like, there’s all sorts of passions, right? But now that you’ve got a liquid marketplace, you can choose to work where you want to work, and so when that happens you actually have people that can choose their destiny in a way. Now when you have people that are choosing where they work, and I might want to live in Costa Rica, ’cause that’s where I want to be and the company allows me to work remotely, instead of having to set up a second office in Costa Rica, Amazon can hire me directly from wherever they are located. So now all of that compensation, all of that benefit that I’m getting is going to get spent in my local economy because it’s coming directly to me instead of through an entity that has to be set up somewhere, and I think that’s going to change the dynamic of power, because now people will decide where they want to work. I don’t know if any of this made any sense. But I can …

Denzil Mohammed: It does. And I think everyone wants a sort of crystal ball to determine, well, exactly what is the future of work going to look like? I want to focus in a little bit more on this relationship you have with engineers in Costa Rica and your relationship with Costa Rica in general. I know that you said Techstars helped your company and now you are a mentor with Techstars as well. Are you also mentoring young budding entrepreneurs in Costa Rica?

Max Faingezicht: Yes, I mean I think a lot of what I’ve wanted to do is giving back. And that’s actually like Techstars. The core thing of Techstars is give back. And so I’ve been teaching a class at the local university where I studied, University of Costa Rica, around entrepreneurship but we open sourced it so it’s all available online so that anybody can learn from that. And I mean in reality my dream is to have a new wave of entrepreneurship spawn in Costa Rica. Part of that is through teaching, part of that is even through what I’m doing with Telescoped. I hope that some of these engineers are wildly successful in their jobs, and some of them are getting equity from these startups. Hopefully they’ll have a nice financial exit and they can become the next CEOs and CTOs for a new generation of companies that will thrive inside of Latin America.

Denzil Mohammed: Wow, that’s pretty incredible. What is next for you? Obviously you’re still in a startup, but what is next for you beyond Telescoped?

Max Faingezicht: Well, I think that …

Denzil Mohammed: My prediction, we’re back into construction.

Max Faingezicht: Yeah, I’m not sure about that. No, I really think that my dream, coming to Boston, I actually looked back at my application essay to M.I.T. and it’s to become a bridge between Latin America, my region, and the U.S. I also think using technology to impact people’s lives has always been important to me. So I definitely think teaching and mentoring will always be something that I spend some of my time on. I also think that through Telescoped hopefully we’ll be able to set up certain structures for teaching at scale, so not necessarily like me teaching everything, but also just bringing some of the the people that I’ve met running events in Costa Rica that are open I mean not just to the Telescoped network, but to anyone. So if you can have some of that cross pollination, I think that’s incredibly powerful. And then ultimately starting some sort of fund to help young entrepreneurs with ideas, with energy, with innovation develop those things into viable products that can help people. So that’s what it all comes down to for me … being a driving force of entrepreneurship around the world.

Denzil Mohammed: Ah, that is incredible. You clearly feel strongly, Max, and positively about your native Costa Rica. And your immigrant story extends to different continents, five countries: Poland, Germany, Bolivia, Costa Rica, the United States. Your children are growing up in the U.S. and I know you want them to know about and appreciate where their stories began. But we live in a country and a time where, for instance, it’s OK for flags or T shirts of certain origin countries to fly in front yards or be worn in public, certain festivals from origin countries, but not so for others, at least for some Americans. And that has been the case throughout U.S. history. What to you does an American’s identity really mean? Do we need to just shed our past identities once we land at Logan?

Max Faingezicht: No, of course not. I think that’s the beauty of it, right? You embrace the new culture. You bring what you have, your own heritage and you make it into a new thing that is more powerful than the sum of its parts. But that’s everyone, right? Like we’re all playing all these different roles in life, whether it’s as a spouse, as a patient if you’re in the hospital, as a boss, as an employee, some neighbor. You have all of these different roles and you know your identity kind of crosses through all of those. But each one of those relationships, each one of those interactions, also change and modify and make you evolve. But that’s what’s beautiful about life, right? Like you’re not a static thing. It’s not like you land and then you erase everything that happened before. I think it’s the opposite. You build upon it.

Denzil Mohammed: Thank you so much, Max. That was very, very beautifully said. I really appreciate taking the time to talk to us today on JobMakers. You’ve had, your families just had a fascinating journey, and it’s good to remind people that we can have a complex identity. We can embrace many different things, and it’s OK because America allows you to do that.

Max Faingezicht: Absolutely. I think if there’s one place in the world where you know you can be yourself and you can take where you come from and mesh it with your current reality and turn into something that has the potential of just becoming something unique, America is the place to do that. So I couldn’t agree more.

Denzil Mohammed: Last question. What food do you miss most from Costa Rica?

Max Faingezicht: Oh, that’s easy. So our national food is gallo pinto. It’s super straightforward. It’s basically rice and beans, but it’s, I don’t know, when you have your gallo pinto dish, which is rice and beans with some fried eggs and fresh plantain and cheese, that’s just wonderful. I wish we had that here.

Denzil Mohammed: I wish you luck in finding that.

Max Faingezicht: Thank you.

Denzil Mohammed: Alright, thank you so much, Max. I really appreciate it. If you know an outstanding immigrant entrepreneur we should talk to let us know by emailing Denzil, that’s d-e-n-z-i-l, [email protected]. So happy that you joined us with this week’s inspiring story of another immigrant entrepreneur. Join us again next Thursday at noon. I’m Denzil Mohammed, and thank you for joining us for JobMakers.

Episode 5: Hilda Torres

Hilda Torres podcast logoWhen she immigrated from Mexico, Hilda Torres found that making a living in the United States would be more difficult than she had been told. She rallied and started a multilingual daycare that quickly became one of the most successful businesses in her city. Learn how she used grit and education to make her mark! We also have a full-length video interview here.

Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and this is JobMakers.

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Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and The Immigrant Learning Center, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Every Thursday at noon, we explore the world of risk taking immigrants who create new jobs, products and services in Massachusetts and across the United States.

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Denzil Mohammed: The idea of the American Dream is alive and well. Especially outside of the United States, people around the world of every age consider this the land of opportunity. Once you get here, everything will be alright. But there are obstacles in the way. Immigration status, discrimination, access to money and resources, having your communities to support you, learning English, to name a few. For Hilda Torres, an immigrant from Mexico now living in the Boston area, she was promised the world of riches in the U.S. The land of opportunity. What she experienced, though, was not quite nice. Nonetheless, she used the tools of education and her own grit and determination to power through. And now she runs My Little Best Friend’s Early Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts. One of the most successful businesses in the city. This experience is not unique. But immigrants and refugees have that defining quality of grit, determination and resilience, as you will hear about in this week’s JobMakers Podcast.

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Denzil Mohammed: Hilda Torres, welcome to JobMakers. So glad that you have taken time to speak with us. Tell us a little bit about the business that you run.

Hilda Torres: I run a business called My Little Best Friend’s Early Learning Center and we are in 3D for Main Street and Malden. My Little Best Friend’s Early Learning Center is a family-oriented facility where we care for infants from two months old all the way to five years old and our center has a very big diversity of teachers and kids as well. And we are in the center of Malden and we have families from all over the world coming to our facility to bring their little ones.

Denzil Mohammed: Malden is actually the second most immigrant heavy city in Massachusetts after Chelsea and before the pandemic you had over 100 students from more than 25 different countries, right?

Hilda Torres: That’s correct, yes. And we were really proud about that and also very proud that we had teachers that were bilingual and we were able to communicate with most of these families due to the factors that we have over here. And it just makes it so easy for the transition, when you come from your country and you don’t know what to expect and have someone that is able to speak the same language that you speak back home, it just makes you feel so much better.

Denzil Mohammed: So The Immigrant Learning Center, also through our English language program, we have students from all over the world in the classroom and it’s amazing to see just the diversity that exists in one classroom and how they get along. It’s really a lesson on integration and assimilation and learning other cultures and being prepared to be an American, so I think the idea of all these children and parents and teachers learning from each other, being able to speak other languages is really pretty awesome. And I know you said that being able to be bilingual is an asset and you teach children in your center, what is it? Five different languages?

Hilda Torres: Yes, we teach the kids English, Spanish, sign language and Mandarin. We teach them four different languages. And they keep saying they master the other three languages but they speak more English than anything else. But when you have a child and you are able to teach this child different languages, what you are doing is you are putting all this information in the child’s brain and the child’s brain is gonna be able to accept all the different information and all these different languages. And one of these childs goes to public school and is going to have the opportunity to communicate with other kids. You know what I mean? So it’s just very important, it’s very important for us, the parents, to be able to get our kids exposed to not only two different languages but the diversity of people. Because you are just opening this window of opportunities for these families, which that’s why we are here, because we want our kids to be successful in everything that they want to do and be able to get our kids exposed to different languages. That’s just the greatest tool that nobody is going to be able to take away. Ever.

Denzil Mohammed: That is so brilliantly said that we’ll never be able to take that away from them and I love the idea of growing up with a lot of other languages and wanting to learn other languages. And we think of this very globalized world where we’re interacting with people from everywhere for different reasons. And having an understanding of other cultures, other countries is really, really important. But your journey to the U.S., it really started all the way back in 1965. Tell our listeners first of all, what life was like for you in Mexico … most people in America probably don’t have a sense of what that is like … and your journey to the U.S.

Hilda Torres: My dad, he emigrated to U.S. in 1965. And my dad was a really hard worker as compared to other members of our family who came over here. He usually spend that money every month to be able to support us in Mexico. My dad was alone taking care of seven kids. Sending seven kids to school and everything, I don’t say that it was difficult because definitely other families were in a worse situation than us. But not having a parent around you is an impact that created us to become the person that we wanted to become. So my dad usually come to Mexico once a year for Christmas or for the school vacation. And he stayed in Mexico for about two to three months. At the time, my dad didn’t have a legal status over here in America. So he has to pay for his whole journey to bring him from Mexico over here. And the stories that he tells us about everything that he had to pass through, every year that he had to come back out to Los Angeles, to California; it was just really difficult. Like even right now, to think about it, I think that was the most cruelest thing that you can do to a person. When you have a helicopter flying on top of you and you are so extremely sad the air from the helicopter makes you go around and around. It was just really difficult. And everything that they have to pass. They have to pass the border from different places because they don’t want to get caught. So every time that they go through the adventure, it was rude and it was fear and it was all these different emotions. But then at the same time it was the hope that we’re gonna be able to come in work for nine to 10 months and be able to provide shelter and food for their family back home. So my dad helped us, my dad was able to give us education. We were able to go to school and everything. But as soon as my brother started to become a little bit older, my father went and bring my first two brothers. When they came to America, they were about 14 to 16 years old and they didn’t have papers at the time, so they also have to cross the border with my father or with another member of our family to come over here to America. Luckily, my dad was able to get the green card because he was on something that is called [unclear]. He was in [unclear] but before that they were working in California, collecting the fruits and everything. And once he got the legal status, my dad bring my mom and then they start bringing other people from my family. Myself and my older sister, we stayed in Mexico because at the time we were married and we were not able to qualify for the same status as my other siblings. Because once you are married, you belong to a different status. So we have to stay there for a little bit longer. Back in Mexico, I was a beautician. I have a little place where I cut hair and I do people’s haircuts and colors and all this kind of beauty. And one day my mom came to visit me because she said that I have a large amount of clients and I noticed that she was really tired, very centered on her thoughts and after I finished with my day, she told me if I had an idea how much money I can make if I was doing haircut right here in Boston. At the time, she was living in Boston. And when she did the math, my eyes were like those coin machines when you go to play bingo. In my eyes, I couldn’t imagine the math. If I can make 20 haircuts one day and every haircut cost $10, just imagine the money that I can be making! In Mexico, I charged about $0.25 and other times, I did my haircut for free because a lot of times people don’t have the money to pay for haircut. So once my mom put all the stuff on me, I start talking to my husband and my mother-in-law and thinking, “How can we make this transition and how can we make it happen so we can go to Boston?” We only wanted to come for a year. We only come to make a big amount of money to be able to go back to Mexico and open a salon instead of doing it in my mother’s house, to be able to have a location! A real big salon with employees and everything. So, what we did is we start out working with the papers, so that way we can get our passport, additional visa. And then we sell everything that we own because in one year I gonna be able to come back to Mexico and I can buy everything anew with all the amounts of money that I’m gonna be making. In one year, I’ll be able to come back, buy a bigger house and buy better furniture and better clothing and everything there.

Denzil Mohammed: Hilda Torres packed up suitcases and with her two young children and her husband moved to Boston. But it was not the American dream that was waiting for them. Instead it was a much harsher reality. It was a tiny property in East Boston where her parents and other siblings already were living. They cleared out a closet and put a bed in there and that’s where she and her family slept. And she also had to deal with immigration issues. Being just on a tourist visa, she couldn’t work. She had to regularize her status. She had to find employment. And that’s where the real trials and tribulations for her began.

Hilda Torres: We couldn’t find a job. I couldn’t find who watches my kids because everybody in my household was working and obviously nobody is going to leave their jobs so that they can take care of my kids so I can go to work and nobody wanted to give me the opportunity because in order for you to be able to be a hairdresser or to have any other profession that you mastered in your country, when you come over here to America, you need to have the license and the certification from the place that you come. You know what I mean? All my license and my certificates and everything was worth nothing, nothing over here.

Denzil Mohammed: You have to do everything all over again from doctors and surgeons all the way down to beauticians, right?

Hilda Torres: Everybody, everybody! And in order for me to be able to go to school, I need to learn the language. If I don’t speak English, I’m not gonna be able to go to school and learn the theory of any career! It was just really, really difficult and every time that I found a door that closes for me, I always think if this was the right decision. Putting my family in this situation, if this is the right decision. To be able to come in and put my family in a certain situation because you don’t know when your immigration papers, they’re gonna come out. You may send the application today but for a lot of people, it takes months or years. You know what I mean? And then to learn the language, Denzil! Every time that I was in school, I was sitting down in the classroom and I’m thinking, “Who’s watching my kids? What time am I going to go home to cook? What am I going to put my kids to bed?” It’s just so difficult when you are older, to learn a different language, you know what I mean? It’s just really hard. But it passes. I went to school, I learned the language, I’m going to my first beauty salon that I want to apply in and they say, “We don’t give opportunities to work back. We don’t give opportunities to wetbacks. You need to go back where you came from.” They were in Spanish as well, but they called me a wetback and they didn’t want to do that and I told them, “Give me a week.”

Denzil Mohammed: They were Hispanic as well, you said?

Hilda Torres: Yes.

Denzil Mohammed: And where exactly was this?

Hilda Torres: That was in Chelsea as well.

Denzil Mohammed: For people today to think about Chelsea and East Boston, the way you’re describing it is really, really hard to digest, right?

Hilda Torres: Yeah, it was. I told the owner to let me work for a week for free. I just wanted to show her what I was capable to do. I was already going to school but I didn’t have my license yet because in order for you to have your license you have to get experience. And in order for you to have experience, you need someone to give you the opportunity to be able to bring that experience over here in the USA. I had the experience back home but that was not enough. And she told me to go back home. She didn’t want to give me the opportunity. From there I feel really deflated and humiliated and I didn’t want to go back and ask another person for a job but I was really lucky. A couple days after, I went to a different salon. And in this salon they were from Columbia and the lady who gave me the opportunity, I told her that I have two kids, that I have no job, that I was living with my parents. I explained to her the whole situation and she gave me the opportunity. She gave me the week that I was asking for to show her what I was capable to do because back home, when you go to school they show you the whole entire enchilada. It’s not like you only gonna learn how to cut hair or how to do nails. When you go to school back home they teach you everything around. So I was able to show the owner of the salon that I was capable to develop any work that was coming to the place. And she gave me the opportunity and we come to be one of the most successful parlor shops in Chelsea, back in the days. Like, we have so many customers, we work every single day and it was a business that then all of a sudden just bloomed. Not only for me. I was able to get other girls that were going to school at the same time, to tell them that this place, they can give you the opportunity for you to come in and take your experience and we were able to do really, really good. I was working in that beauty salon for about nine to 10 years but while I was working in the salon, I noticed that most of my money was going to childcare because I still have four kids. When this happened I already have four kids, two older ones that were going to school and two little ones. And in order for me to be successful in the beauty salon and to work long shifts, I need to be able to take my kids to a place where they were able to take care of my kids. So most of my money was going to childcare and it wasn’t making any sense because I was working long hours, leaving my home for long hours, not taking really good care of my kids or my family because I was at work. But my money was going to childcare. So, the owner of the center, which was my sister’s friend (because my sister was the vector of the center), they told me that if I come to work in this center, I can get a discount on my kids and education and even if I only work part time I can always have a discount. So I just started working in this daycare only part-time. Because my language was really bad, I didn’t speak very good English, I was not familiar with early education. Which, a lot of people think that if you are a nanny, there is such a big difference. When you are working at an early education center, you need to be able to teach others stuff. So I went there and I just started only doing diapers and cleaning. That was my only job. I was not allowed to talk to the parents, not allowed to do anything in writing or to do any teaching because I didn’t know. And I just started working in this center little by little. The owner of the center, her name is Stacy. She gave me the opportunity to go to school. So I was working at a beauty salon, going to Bunker Hill to be able to learn more English and to be able to learn early education in working a part time at the other daycare.

Denzil Mohammed: What was it that made you want to get into this kind of business? So, you went from the beauty salon to the daycare, you were learning English, you decided to pursue an associates degree in early childhood education and Bunker Hill but it was not just about the love, it was about being able to support your family. This was a business decision, right?

Hilda Torres: Right.

Denzil Mohammed: So then your cousin came into the picture.

Hilda Torres: Yes, my cousin came into the picture. He was working in construction at the time and he has some money saved and he wanted to invest in something that makes a difference. So, we talk about it. I tell him about my dreams and my goals and what I wanted to be able to make a difference in life and he really liked what I aspired to do. I wanted to be able to cover a facility where, first of all, we are bilingual. So then we can teach our generation of kids Spanish, that way our kids, they are able to communicate with their families back home. You know what I mean? But also we wanted to create a facility that was affordable to middle class families. Wanted to create a facility where we know everyone by name and then we are able to offer the family environment that you don’t see in a chain facility. Because in a chain facility you see a director and the restaurant sometimes is not even there! We wanted to create a family environment. But we also wanted to be able to create a place where we can offer opportunities to working moms like me, to be able to better their life by having a job and at the same time that they’re still taking care of their kids at home or their husbands. It was not something that was easy. Most people when that came had a business plan and that was playing like a dream, the same way I explained to you. Most people, they love all that. First of all, because we were Spanish, our English is not the greatest and I do have other experience in education, however I don’t have experience in my young business. My cousin, he didn’t have that experience as well, so most people, they told us that this dream that we had is gonna turn into a nightmare because there is no money in early education. There is no money in this industry. Early education is an industry where there’s really not much that you can grab. It was really difficult. I cannot count how many banks deny us the opportunity to give us a loan for us to be able to open the business because we are aspirers! In most banks they don’t let you borrow money. You need to be established in their demands in order for you to get a loan. It was just really hard for us to  make someone believe that the dream that we had was something tangible. It was something that people were looking for.

Denzil Mohammed: How were you able to finally get it off the ground, and why did you choose Malden?

Hilda Torres: We chose Malden, it was because every time that I was going to work, it was a sign that was on my way that said that Malden is a great place for your kids to grow. For some reason, me seeing that sign every single day was a sign that Malden is going to be my home. Thankfully, we found a bank that was able to believe in us and they were able to give us the money that we needed to be able to afford such a beautiful facility like the facility we are in now. It was a couple times that we were outside of City Hall, thinking if this was the right decision because it was just so many times that we get the doors closed right on our face but one thing that immigrants have is that we don’t take no for an answer. Every time that someone says no to us, we go again. It just takes us so much to get where we are that we are not willing to fight without really, really getting into it. We were open for a couple months and we have no business. I always tell this story where we need to pretty much rent a couple kids so that way we can have the Mayor come in with a book because we need to have a minimum of seven kids and we only have three or four kids. So, we tell our employees, “Bring your kids for free to the daycare, so that way we can have a small group of kids.” So this way the mayor can come in and read a book to the kids. Back in the day, we had four to five students but before the pandemic, we have 170! Every day! We were at fullest capacity.

Denzil Mohammed: Very briefly, how has the pandemic affected your business?

Hilda Torres: Well, as you know, childcare is an industry that has been suffering even before the pandemic. Through the year, childcare is one of the industries that is a problem, but nobody wants to recognize that there is a problem. And so even before the pandemic, a lot of childcares were in a struggle. Now with the pandemic, there is another sentence that they close their doors forever because they were not able to afford to stay open. My Little Best Friends is lucky to have a community that supports us and we are able to still stay in business, but definitely, pandemic affected My Little Best Friends a lot because we are now back to our full capacity. Before the pandemic, we were open from 7:00 o’clock in the morning to 6:00, now we are only open from 8:00 to 4:00 and this is a huge inconvenience for working parents because they need extended hours in order for them to be able to go back to work. And we can only have our capacity right now, 71. Because the Department of Education changed our ratio. So before we used to have 36 square feet per child, now we have 42. Before the pandemic, we had 30+ employees. Right now we have only one.

Denzil Mohammed: I want you to reflect a little bit as we wind down the interview about your father and the decision that he made and where your family is now versus where they would have been if he had never decided to hire Coyote and take him across the border to start working in California. What do you think of that decision on his part and how do you feel about your family? The majority of them living and working and getting educated in the U.S. now?

Hilda Torres: My father, he made the greatest decision to sacrifice himself to be away from his family to come to this country, to better his family. My dad, he is a very hard working man that taught us to work. And when we were back home, we had to work no matter what. And I remember my first job I have to put my knees on top of a chair to be able to wash the dishes because I was too small to be able to wash the dishes. But that was a work and I was able to help out my mom. I think one of the greatest things that my dad did for us was to teach us how to work. I have my business as you can see. So, my other two brothers. I have a brother that owns a trucking company. I have a brother that he owns three racetracks. I would say that all my brothers, they are very successful in what they do. But the greatest heritage that we can give to our kids is, “Don’t be afraid because you are English.” “Don’t be afraid because you don’t have a legal status in this country.” “Don’t be afraid just because you don’t speak the language.” What you need to do is you need to work. You need to work hard. You need to show them that you are not here to steal memories. Show that you are not here because you are a killer back home. That you are not here because you are a bad person that comes to this country to steal from somebody else. Immigrants have jobs to be able to show people their really true image of Barbara in what we are doing here and we are just are very hard working people.

Denzil Mohammed: My last question to you was going to be sort of like, “What message in this particular climate do you have for Americans when it comes to immigrants?” But I think you just answered my question for me right there. Immigrants come here to work. They want a better life for their children. They come with real intention to get something done, no matter how long it takes, no matter what avenue that is. Someone got a PhD from India driving a cab. That is a really truthful and a really powerful message to send to the rest of America about who immigrants are and what they can do and their inherent value. We all, everyone, U.S.-born or foreign-born want the same things; we want healthy children, we want them to do better than we did, we want successful families. It’s all the same. Hilda Torres, I wanted to say thank you so much for making the time to be interviewed today on JobMakers. I really appreciate it. You have such a powerful story and thank you so much for all that you do for Malden and beyond.

Hilda Torres: Thank you so much to The Immigrant Learning Center to give me the opportunity and especially to Denzil. You are one of the greatest person that I know and you are always willing to help people in need. That’s a matter from one country that you always lend a hand to us and then I really appreciate the opportunity to be able to share my story.

[music playing]

Denzil Mohammed: If you like what you’re hearing and want to hear more of it, become a JobMakers sponsor. Or if you have an outstanding individual entrepreneur, let us know by emailing Denzil that’s D E N Z I L at jobmakerspodcast.org. Hilda’s story was certainly inspiring and we’re so happy that she joined us for this week’s episode of JobMakers. Join us again next Thursday at noon. I am Denzil Mohammed. Thank you for listening to JobMakers.

Episode 4: Hong Tran

As a child fleeing Vietnam, Tran lost much of his family in a pirate attack. He rebuilt his life in the United States and founded a series of businesses, including a chain of laundromats, a liquor store, a real estate business and a law firm. Learn about how he overcame extraordinary adversity and what he thinks about the surge in anti-AAPI (Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders) hate during the pandemic. We also have a full-length video interview here.

Denzil Mohammed: I am Denzil Mohammed and this is JobMakers. JobMakers is a weekly podcast produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center, a not-for-profit giving immigrants a voice. Every Thursday at noon we explore the world of risk taking immigrants who create new jobs, products, and services in Massachusetts and across the United States.

Immigrants have higher rates of entrepreneurship than the U.S.-born, at 11.5 percent compared to 9 percent. But there’s one group with even higher rates of business generation: refugees. Refugees have a 13 percent rate of entrepreneurship. They are good for our economy. But we also save lives by accepting them. There are at least 79.5 million people worldwide forced to flee their homes. For some perspective, that’s less than 1 percent of the world’s population and yet last year the U.S. settled an astonishingly low 11,800 refugees.

For Hong Tran of Worcester, Massachusetts, his early life in Vietnam and even the journey to seek safety in the U.S. was filled with tragedy. He was orphaned while fleeing and lost his baby sister to the pirates in the ocean. Thankfully, the U.S. gave him and his remaining family refuge. And they have given back. They have excelled at entrepreneurship with his aunt and uncle launching three businesses in Worcester while he grew up. And today Hong has a diner, a laundromat, liquor store, real estate company and a law firm under his belt, creating more than 50 jobs in the process. Hong knows what it’s like to have nothing. And even with the rise in anti-Asian bigotry, he is determined to use his influence to help other immigrants and refugees get a leg up in their new homeland.

So Hong, in 30 seconds tell us a little bit about your current businesses.

Hong Tran: So currently I own and operate two companies, a real estate company and a law firm. And they work hand in hand. The real estate company, obviously, given the market right now, it’s a boom in the industry. And the law firm, we do primarily real estate closings. We close for 46 different lenders, commercial and residential. A real estate closing firm.

Denzil Mohammed: But these aren’t your first businesses, you’ve had several businesses before. Could you just briefly give us a rundown of the businesses that you’ve started and when?

Hong Tran: Oh yeah, there were many trial and errors, many failures and some are OK, I wouldn’t call them super successful. I’ve owned a diner for a few years. I have had a chain of laundromats spanning from Massachusetts to Connecticut. I owned and operated a liquor store out in Springfield, MA. The real estate company, currently still operating. Then in 2010 I became an attorney and I just opened up the law firm, sold all of the other businesses, kept the real estate company. Now just the real estate company and the law firm.

Denzil Mohammed: Help me understand, what was the bug that made you start all these businesses? Why did you want to be a business owner? What prompted that?

Hong Tran: So, I think it was instilled in me by my aunt and uncle and my cousins who I grew up with. They have always done businesses and I remember the family starting one of the first Vietnamese grocery stores here in Worcester. I remember being 9-10 years old stocking the shelves and bringing in cases of goods to stock the shelves and carrying rice bags to do all of these things. They also had a restaurant. I remember peeling … in the kitchen peeling garlic until your fingers are burning. And my cousin also had a hair salon at the time. So back then there weren’t many Vietnamese businesses but my aunt’s family who I grew up with had three of those. So it’s instilled in us to do business.

Denzil Mohammed: And you talk about your aunt which brings me to your own personal story of coming to the U.S. It was not an easy journey. It was in fact extremely traumatic. Can you describe for our listeners who really have no sense of what Vietnamese refugees went through? Guide us through the experience of leaving Vietnam and coming to the U.S. and tell us what that was like.

Hong Tran: OK, with a caveat: everything that I’m telling you is a compilation of stories that have been told to me by people who were on the boat, some people who were not on the boat because they were captured by the Communists and jailed … I’m saying caveat because I don’t remember it. I was only seven years old and I have some kind of amnesia and therefore it’s … there’s no memory of the actual trip. In 1985 my parents wanted a future for us so they risk everything and try to put us on a fishing boat with a lot of others. My father did not make it on the boat, he was caught by the guards and he was put back in jail. And from there we took off into the international waters. And on the boat was my mother, my older brother, me, my younger brother and my sister. So we were all two years apart; my brother was nine, I was seven, my younger brother was five and my baby sister was three. We encountered the communist guards in the water and obviously we had all of our possessions and belongings. So we used everything that we had to bribe them and they let us go. They even gave us water for the rest of the trip and they let us. Well, a few days later, we encountered Thai pirates and they wanted the same thing. And not having those, it must’ve angered them. They had six of their boats, they hopped onto our boat. They searched and killed a lot of people on the boat. They did things that are just … grabbed, raped and killed. I mean stuff that pirates do. And with those killed was my mother and my baby sister. And then they took six of their boats after doing what they needed to do. They started crashing into our boat so that our boat would sink. But then there was an oil driller that saw what was happening, and it started coming towards us and when it came towards us the pirates saw that so they scattered and the oil driller netted whoever it is that was in the water onto their boat and then the rest of us who was on the boat that hasn’t sunk yet went on to the oil drilling ship. And I heard that my older brother was hanging on to a board that broke off from the boat in the water trying to stay afloat. I mean, he’s alive and still kicking, but my mother and my baby sister didn’t make it. So the three of us became orphans and my aunt who was also on the boat, my paternal aunt, she had children of her own, and she also had a niece and a nephew and she took the three of us in. Then we went to a refugee camp in Indonesia, Galang Island, I think since then it has been closed down. But we were at Galang Island for a few months, and I think because my aunt had a lot of children who are under her guardianship, that’s why we were able to get accepted into the United States and leave earlier than the rest. There were many others who stayed for years and some had to be returned back to Vietnam and then just the lucky ones get accepted into different countries. But so we went to Salt Lake City, UT.

Denzil Mohammed: And what was life like for you as a seven year old in Utah.

Hong Tran: So we were helped by many churches and in Utah predominantly, I guess the Mormon church, and they helped us. And I remember that I was baptized as a Mormon and we didn’t know what it was, it was just people telling us … these are the people who are helping us right? So obviously anything and everything that they’re doing to us and for us must be good, so we were all baptized Mormons. So that was in 1985. And then in 1986 when we heard (we meaning my aunt and uncle) heard that there were mill work that did not require education, that did not require a degree, where they would just come over here and be able to start work right away in Worcester, Massachusetts. That’s when the family rented a big van and I remember coming from Utah to here, we drove. And the family had $20.00 left with everyone in the van and then the next day because of the work that’s here, the people who were old enough were able to go to work right away.

Denzil Mohammed: And I imagine obviously as refugees when you first settled you received some sort of government assistance. Did you ever have government assistance after that, or was your family able to survive without any assistance?

Hong Tran: So when we first came here obviously the government helped out in the start of everything because we didn’t have anything, so we resorted to government assistance. But then later on, when the family started doing businesses and start performing, we weaned off of that little by little. But I think with me and my brothers, because we are orphans under the guardianship of our aunt and uncle we had some more assistance and when I went to college I had further assistance just because of my status, maybe.

Denzil Mohammed: Got it. We interviewed a woman called Christina Qi who founded a company called Domeyard and then another company called Databento who recalled living in northern Utah actually as well, when her parents first came. And you know, having some government assistance throughout her childhood which actually did help her to stay in school and helped to be healthy, and then she went on to found businesses, hire people, give back. Describe the experience you’ve had of being a minority business owner in Worcester and why did you decide to be a part of Asian business coalitions?

Hong Tran: So any kind of business owner has their own difficulty starting up and doing everything that a regular entrepreneur would would have, but with immigrants I think we have a larger hurdle. At first when I started the law firm, 99 percent of our clients were mainly Vietnamese because of my natural market, right? So the hardest thing for us is trying to expand and go into the the general market. But not only the law firm, with all the other businesses that I’ve started up … I’ve had as well, I think the biggest hurdle is the knowledge of how to operate the business in an organizational manner. How … where are to get financing? What are the different types of financing that are for minority business owners, if any? Yeah, the government says that it’s out there, but if there’s no connection between what the government puts out there to the people in need, we need some kind of liaison to say, “Hey, local minority market, this is what the government has.” I just didn’t have that knowledge. I didn’t have the know how. The organizational skill. I guess it’s … I just operated the business based on what I learned from what my aunt and uncle did, and that’s all that I knew. Obviously. operating in terms of the day-to-day operation that’s how you do, but I can’t communicate how I’m doing it until I got my MBA.

When I was taking my MBA I kept on looking back at the stuff that I did and I say, “Oh, that’s what I did. This is what it’s called! That’s how I organize it, this is what it’s called!” So later on in life I got to connect these things when I got the formal education.

And I think to answer your second question how I got involved in the Southeast Asian coalition, my goal is honestly to give back. And the Southeast Asian Coalition was established and founded by a few philanthropical mentors of mine here in the area. I remember Dohta Passi and Koh Minh and her husband. Minh is one of those who came from Vietnam before 1975 and her uncle … I call uncle Bob, but her husband.

They started this in wanting to give back to the community and wanting to help immigrants. So during that time it was called the Southeast Asian Coalition because during that time that’s … the Southeast Asian people are the people that are in need and they were coming into here. So the Southeast Asian coalition was established to help … would it be bad to say help assimilate? And get people … to give them a headstart, right? To find assistance for them, to find homes for them, to teach them the basics of the English language while they’re struggling for the older people who can’t go to school, the parents, the grandparents.

So that’s what we did. Well, that’s what they did during that time. About seven or eight years ago when I joined, me and a group of others, we expanded the Southeast Asian Coalition to servicing people outside of the Southeast Asia because the needs from different parts of the world entering the United States are different now. It’s not the Southeast Asians anymore, we actually housed the Irans, Iraqis and Afghanistani groups. There are many different ethnicities in our main centers. When I left, we were servicing 10 to 11,000 applicants or immigrants a year.

Denzil Mohammed: Wow, that’s kind of incredible. So you served as president of the Southeast Asian Coalition and now you are part of the Vietnamese Business Coalition, is that correct?

Hong Tran: Yeah, the Vietnamese Business Association was established over 20 years ago. And it was established by a group of businessmen out in the Boston area, Dorchester is where all the Vietnamese businesses are and that’s where everything started. And they got together and formed not an organized coalition, but just them all together getting to see how they can help out with each other. And that’s how everything started. And I joined them as a member, I want to say while I was with the Southeast Asian Coalition about seven to eight years ago. And I liked their vision and I liked what they were doing but times were changing things were changing quite a bit, so the structure that was from back then didn’t work anymore because the needs are different. And we are in the process of getting a lot of the younger minds and the younger visions to see how we can help with the Vietnamese businesses and how we can get more resources into our community to help our community strive. The business community as well.

Denzil Mohammed: So as president of this association, what are some of the concrete things that you all have been doing? Particularly during the pandemic.

Hong Tran: Just last week alone, we had a joint venture with the SBA doing … in Vietnamese … I think it’s going to be on YouTube by next week … of the PPP programs of the disaster relief and all of the stuff that President Biden has been starting. And from there we did it in Vietnamese just so that if there’s anybody with questions out there, just like from when I was younger, not knowing where to get the information. Well, we have all this information here and if there’s any information that is further needed, they can call one of us in order to further help with the process.

Denzil Mohammed: That is excellent. And speaking of the pandemic, you, as all of us would have noticed, but there was a rise in anti-Asian sentiment perpetuated by a lot of misinformation and political rhetoric. What is your response to America when it comes to this kind of sentiment?

Hong Tran: I didn’t understand racism the way that I understand it today. I know that some existed, but I just didn’t know that you can see it in the actions of your next door neighbors. I think the pandemic and the rhetoric that has been going about has fueled or has made racism OK for certain people to express, and that’s why it’s getting to the way that it is right now. And it needs to stop because America is built on immigrants and any one group against another group is detrimental to our fundamental existence. Not only America but humans, right? So any racism is not good. But with things being pinpointed towards the Asians right now from associating the Asians with the virus or any Asians as saying, “Hey, you’re Asian, you must be Chinese, and because you’re Chinese you started this virus.” It’s very wrong and it needs to stop.

Denzil Mohammed: America gave you refuge. We saw in the past few years a dramatic decrease in the number of refugees that the U.S. has accepted. That is in the process of changing but refugee resettlement as a sector was really decimated. Personally, for you and for your family, looking back, I know you were only seven at the time, but looking back and having this perspective, seeing where you came from and where you are now, what do you think it means for America to be that beacon for refugees that home that will accept people who are in the most dire of situations?

Hong Tran: Look at all the stuff that … look at the economy, look at the businesses that’s been here. It’s the immigrants who start a lot of these businesses as well. And from my personal perspective, of course I don’t have a lot of things to compare to, but I thank America for giving me the platform, the education, the opportunity that it has. And from that opportunity, I seized the opportunity and this is what I’m doing now because of that opportunity. So thank you to America and like any adoptive parent, America is my adoptive parent and has given me everything that my biological country or parent could not or did not give. So I think, America, in order to continue to be innovative, in order to continue to be the economic strength that it has, it needs to continue to build these paths for people that are in these dire need, not only from the humanitarian perspective, but from the economics within this country.

Denzil Mohammed: I could not have said it better myself. Is there anything else you wanted to add as pertains to your story or your journey? I really want to find out what your ambitions for the future are. You’re inherently entrepreneurial, you’ve proven that time and time again with successes, with some failures. Where do you see yourself going forward?

Hong Tran: So of course, yes, I have hopes and visions, but I also have fears. I came here not knowing anything and I just did what I needed to do in order to survive. And seeing my three children growing up in America today, I’m very nervous for them. I’m very nervous for them for being Asian, for looking Asian, for looking different from what some people will consider Americans. They were born here. They are Americans. But they’re not going to be looked upon that way. So that’s my fear for them growing up.

But my visions and hopes for the stuff that I can do or I need to do for the people around me, I’m going to continue in this business. I’m going to continue to help and give opportunities that I have been given. I think it’s time to give back not only in finance, but in time, in education, in the volunteers and the stuff that we can do. If all together, if everyone can join hands to do these things, I think we would have such a better America than what we have today.

Denzil Mohammed: I think that’s the absolute perfect way to end the podcast.

Hong Tran: Denzil, as always thank you so much for the opportunity.

Denzil Mohammed: Thank you so much, Hong, for all that you do and continue to do and for your vision for Worcester and the people in your community. The fact that you’ve stayed in Worcester in and of itself says quite a lot and we want to wish you the absolute best of luck going forward.

Hong Tran: Thank you so much.

Denzil Mohammed: If you like what you’re hearing and want more of it, become a JobMakers sponsor. And if you know an outstanding immigrant entrepreneur, let us know by emailing Denzil, that’s D-E-N-Z-I-L at jobmakerspodcast.org. So happy that you joined us for this week’s inspiring story of another immigrant entrepreneur. Join us again next Thursday at noon. I am Denzil Mohammed and thank you for listening to JobMakers.

Episode 3: Sandro Catanzaro

Catanzaro came to the United States from Peru planning to become an engineer, but he dreamed of starting his own business. In the end he did both, founding DataXu and developing technology that helped send NASA to Mars, among many other applications. Discover how he has navigated the world of tech as an immigrant entrepreneur. We also have a full-length video interview here.

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Denzil Mohammed: Welcome back to JobMakers, podcast of Pioneer Institute and The Immigrant Learning Center; and I’m your host Denzil Mohammed. The ingenuity of immigrants is boundless, and Americans throughout history have a lot to be grateful for when it comes to people who move here and develop innovative ideas. From Levi Strauss’s idea for using metal rivets positioned at the points of strain in the pants he invented for minors, what today we call 501s, to Helen Grenier, who wants to manufacture robots anyone could afford and co-design the first version of the room vacuum cleaner, immigrant entrepreneurs improve our lives with their ingenuity. Sandro Catanzaro started several businesses in his native Peru, but had no idea he’d end up helping NASA go to Mars or that he’d use that same technology to plan and buy video ad campaigns. Now head of publishers services strategy for Roku, which acquired the company he founded, DataXu, in 2019, Mr. Catanzaro is an emblem of ingenuity and inventiveness. His demand side platform, device graph technology and analytics platform help accelerate Roku’s ad tech road map and ability to [inaudible] advertisers, but he’s not done yet.

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Denzil Mohammed: Welcome, Sandro Catanzaro! Tell us a little bit about what you’re doing right now.

Sandro Catanzaro: So I’m Sandro Catanzaro. I run a strategy for the advertising services team at Roku, and about Roku, our company provides consumers with access to the best entertainment, news, educational content from nearly an infinite selection of content available and that goes directly to your home through streaming TV. And about the approach, I personally work with content owners and people like Warner Media, NBC, CBS to help them reach more consumers but making their content ad supported. Also, we provide consumers with a great TV experience in ensuring that the ad load is limited, they don’t see that many ads. And finally advertisers who want to reach those consumers can reach only the consumers they want to reach without creating waste and showing up to people who are not in the target population. So now I’m on to the specifics of what we did at DataXu. We created technology at MIT to contain the decisions very fast. And that technology was applied to select which ad to show which consumer. So that technology initially was applied to advertising on the web. Eventually we expanded to advertising mobile devices and video ads and eventually we went into TV advertisements. Within TV advertisements, we can select exactly which ad is to be shown to every consumer in real time and that was the underlying pieces which drove the decision by my company, DataXu by Roku.

Denzil Mohammed: I want to talk a lot more about DataXu and what that experience was like but I first want to get to know you. So you grew up in Peru. And once you moved to the U.S., you had quite a journey, I would say. But most Americans don’t know what it’s like growing up in Peru, so tell us what that experience was like.

Sandro Catanzaro: Well, we were in the coast and so right now we are in summer so people are going to the beach. We kind of probably go to the beach almost every weekend, and when I was a kid, sometimes daily, I went to school. It was a religious school, there were French Catholic priests. So it was a very interesting environment. It was a mix of the Catholic content but on the other hand, a lot of social understanding of what’s happening around you and what is the impact of what you are doing. And then you should do things that are actually good for society in general. So many people from my school are even in politics or have made social entrepreneurs as well. And yeah, that was a really new environment. I’ve learned quite a lot there.

Denzil Mohammed: And so you went straight to university after high school. What was your parents’ attitude towards education?

Sandro Catanzaro: Well, very much in favor. So it was expected in my household to do well in school. However, it wasn’t a pressure cooker environment. Due to my father’s business, I grew up around machinery and he liked that a lot. So that was a good inspiration for me and I eventually became a mechanical engineer.

Denzil Mohammed: So you said your father was an entrepreneur.

Sandro Catanzaro: Yes, he was.

Denzil Mohammed: Did that run in your family and what impact did that have on you as an entrepreneur?

Sandro Catanzaro: Well, yes, it does run in the family. I liked not only the freedom but also the creativity aspect of it, that we can actually think what to do or how should it be done and move forward. And we needed to change the world. We really needed to make something out of nothing. I think losing the fear to be in a situation that is not what we expected and losing the fear of making decisions, that’s probably the encouragement we got as kids.

Denzil Mohammed: So you also took a risk by moving to another country. You said you moved to Argentina first and then eventually you moved to the U.S. Why did you come here? And tell us in very real terms, not just as a student or a business owner. Just as a person, what was it like moving here?

Sandro Catanzaro: After coming back from Argentina, I wasn’t in the partnership in Peru for a number of years. I owned a company making steamers and owned a company making industry machinery.

Denzil Mohammed: You also owned a bar, isn’t that right?

Sandro Catanzaro: That is true and the virus still exists. By training I am a mechanical engineer and I think I’m a good one. And I did not have the same knowledge about how to launch a business as I did about how to work with steel and structures. So I wanted to get that more formal education in business and I applied to schools and I was lucky to go into MIT. So initially it was expected to be an MBA. And I came to Sloan here in Boston and as I was doing that, taking extra courses in astronautics on aeronautics and they became operative and one became two and eventually it so happened that there was a project that might be participated in and NASA was reporting this project and this was in the year 2004, 2005. The new project would send people to Mars. So I was involved in that project and then ended up getting a second masters. And that was great. So I got a second masters in aeronautics besides the business degree. And the other benefit was that MIT is great in this way. My second masters paid for the whole career, that was really, really great. And so our project that we did for NASA ended up being the seal for the company that eventually started here in Boston.

Denzil Mohammed: I remember you telling me about being in Back Bay and asking for direction and someone actually gave you a map, right?

Sandro Catanzaro: Exactly! That was super fun. So we are arriving in Boston, my wife and I. And we have our suitcases. And we’re trying to find our way to this hotel where we have to go and waiting in Back Bay and I stopped in one of these newspaper little kiosks, and I asked for directions and the guy says, “Well, the place you’re going is like this way and that way,” and she opens a map and he says, “Well, here is the place, you are going. You have to walk this way and that way.” And back in that day there were no GPS’s, right? So I take the map and he says, “Yes, take it!” I’m thinking at this point that this guy may have these maps and he gives him away. And then I look at the back. I think it wasn’t a lot of money, it was like $8.00. But he took $8.00 from his business and gave a map to me. That was quite an impression for us. At that point we knew everything was going to be okay.

Denzil Mohammed: How did you go from NASA to high tech in the Seaport district?

Sandro Catanzaro: So initially we made this project for NASA, as I mentioned, and this was an interesting project. Typically NASA works with the aerospace conglomerates, the Northrop, the Boeing. At MIT my professor had the foresight of pitching NASA that they actually should hire MIT as if it were one of these aerospace conglomerates for this stage of mediation and operation of the stations for how to auto merge. NASA at the beginning wasn’t receptive, but then one thing was that this guy was really good at explaining how to do things and actually he said, “You are not only investing in getting ideas and we are not linked to any type of hard work, so we have no inclination to work here so why not explore all the options in a very rational way? But you are also investing in who are going to be the operators of these systems down the road. These students who you are supporting with the money will eventually work for NASA or one of these aerospace companies. So it’s actually a great thing that you are doing,” and actually that was well received and we got the money. With funding we developed the project, and as a difference to any of the other companies that were pitching the one or two ideas they had based on the hardware that had developed, being the MIT team, what we developed and we created was a way to discover all the ways that were available to go to Mars. So we discovered that there are 11,052 ways to go to Mars. That’s all the ways that are. You cannot find more ways. Trying to go in a different way will have an orbit that is not possible or a rocket that is not powerful enough or you may not have the time to make the fuel in Mars that needs to be made. And one of them is the one that is in the movie The Martian. That was one of the ways to go to Mars that we had. So that was great and NASA locked the project and many of our ideas were incorporated in what eventually became the dimension from Mars that we’re doing today. And at that point, I graduated. I went to work for another company, doing consulting. But I was always coming back to my team to find out whether we were doing something about this software we created and these ideas we have for Mars exploration and exploring combinations of objects. So eventually we decided, “Well, let’s try to think if there is an application that can be a commercial application.” And we decided to start a company. And the first year of the company was exploring different markets. What can we do with this technology? Where should we apply this technology? And it was a lot of trials and we explored markets like, “How to rearrange the schedule of an airline?” The scale is obstructed by storm, like a snowstorm. How to arrange furniture in a room? How to deal with algorithmic execution in the stock market? But eventually, we saw that finding applications on the Internet was … and this was in 2007, 2008, so it was very early … going to be very, very interesting. So we started looking for possibilities and we discovered that targeting ads in the Internet and doing that in a very efficient and fast way wasn’t a small problem. So we created software to do that selection very quick and we pitched it to, back in the day, the leaders in the market work. Yahoo was in the market and Google.

Denzil Mohammed: Both founded by immigrants!

Sandro Catanzaro: Both founded by immigrants and surprising to us. These were still, probably at this point, six or eight people. We were able to convince both to open a market to create auctions in real time for us. And that point that didn’t exist before eight months later opens the real time exchange for ads that was launched by Google.

Denzil Mohammed: Your company eventually actualized itself and had such a wide reaching impact. What was that like and what was it like when Roku approached you?

Sandro Catanzaro: Since we started the company we always thought TV was the most interesting market. It’s at the end of the day the market where consumers spend quite a bit of time watching TV. It is very persuasive. But initially, obviously everybody was laughing at us, right? For us to even get to show banner ads on websites was even a success at that point. So as the company continued being successful and expanding, we were able to get closer and closer to these TV ads. And the other trend that happened is also TV became closer and closer to digital. So as everybody knows, near TV with the Bunny ears, antenna and broadcast was the way TV was consumed before, but now the future of TV is streaming. And streaming is basically an Internet access to TV where ads are selected in real time and our technology is very useful. So as much as we wanted to go in the direction of TV, TV also wanted to come in the direction of digital. If you think about the TV market and streaming, obviously the leader is Roku. So for us as we started talking with work we saw so many areas of alignment and so many areas where we were thinking along the same lines of what to do and how to face. That was a very easy decision; to decide to join Roku and work together in developing advertising for the future. It was almost natural for us to expand from one way to another way to another way to show us. As these different ways to show us became digital, there was an adapter on the outside but internally, the engine is the same engine we created in 2009.

Denzil Mohammed: Now this is all about big data. You’re looking at a lot of data and it’s helping to shape what you’re doing. Some of Boston’s largest employers in advertising like Digitas are also known for their very data heavy approach to marketing. Can you talk a little bit about how big data is shaping the industry?

Sandro Catanzaro: One of the big issues was the right data center. And we don’t have the money. So what we did is we used building new technology at the time. There was this company, Amazon, and they had this very early thing that was called AWS. And there was an experiment they were making, to make available resources for rent. You could rent a computer for an hour. And we said, “Let’s rent computers because we cannot buy them.” AWS had like six months and it was an experiment, pretty much, they didn’t know if it was going to continue but for us it was a way to continue moving forward. And that’s how we started with big data. So there were computers and those computers could be arranged in a cluster. So for us bigger and bigger datasets were never a problem, so big reveal locks with more and more automated machine learning, which at that point I don’t really think was called machine learning. We were using map reduce and eventually we used high and it always was the same idea. We’d get a data, automatically clean it and train algorithms to select which is the best one and then use those to buy ads in real time. The fact that you can extract a nugget of insight from a lot of data and we cost efficiently that. I think has changed, not only advertising or marketing but has changed many industries. What we do as big data is to guess that you may be interested in that BMW, because for example, you have been looking over Italian recipes. And why Italian recipes and BMW have any relationship, we don’t know. That’s something machine found that people who eat Italian food and are cooking in their house may want to buy a car like that. And that’s okay. And that’s what the machine finds and it may be a very weak inference but the machine is patient enough to find it, and even though it’s not actually something that you will find that may be intuitive. It may not be something that is obvious.

Denzil Mohammed: And give me some more insight into these trends in marketing. I noted that employment in marketing in Massachusetts actually spiked by over 40 percent since the Great Recession. Do you have any idea what’s driving that trend?

Sandro Catanzaro: Boston is in a really interesting position geographically, so we’re close enough to New York that we have access to that market, which is kind of one of the places where most of the advertising is purchased and sold, but we’re far enough that we can come back and think about the problem. So in some ways provides us with enough understanding of the problem through talking with a client who may be the advertiser, or may be the ad agency. And also enough separation and closeness to great talent through many, many universities that are in town to dissect the problem, think hard about it and do something about how to address that problem.

Denzil Mohammed: Boston is obviously a hub for young, bright people who are ambitious and who have a lot of drive and talent. But that talent for you has not always been easy to find. During your time at DataXu, what was it like finding the right kind of skill set and where did you find them?

Sandro Catanzaro: I remember since we started the company, I think we probably have an average of between five and 10 open positions almost all the time throughout and we were always looking to hire either somebody from the engineering team, somebody from the data science team, somebody who can talk with our clients the right way and ask them what their problems are, how to implement those in the platform.

Denzil Mohammed: So you were looking for team members from abroad.

Sandro Catanzaro: Looking for members anywhere, anywhere! The position was open. People who come and if we certainly try to help people, and we have many people from abroad coming to work in the company and it always was the case that different people bring different perspectives. At some point I was running in data science team and he was in United Nations, right? People from all the different nationalities and everyone has a different perspective and bring some different point of view.

Denzil Mohammed: But do restrictive immigration policies hinder that kind of development of companies?

Sandro Catanzaro: In two different ways. So first I want to speak about myself. So when I graduated, initially the plan was to come here to study for a couple years and then go back. Frankly, I felt that wasn’t ideal. Think of it. NASA is paying for my studies. I got an MBA. I wouldn’t say for free but I got an MBA for a very low cost and MIT also was a bridge, supporting me very well. So I felt I owed something. I should pay back somehow. It was the right thing to do. So I looked for work. The first place for me to look for work was NASA. And I went to NASA and I have an internship with NASA. They liked what I was doing. Then the internship ends and I say, “Well, can I work full time?” and they told me, ‘No, you can’t. You’re not a U.S. citizen and you cannot work here.” Okay. So I started looking for work. I wanted to stay at least a couple years to pay back some of what I had received and he was hurt. Very few companies were able to support me with an H1B visa. So I was lucky. And I applied to also work as a consultant and I really like what Bain & Company was doing and I started working with them. But that was one of the few jobs that had the H1B sponsorship at the time. And then as we were about to start a company, this is a startup, right? How startup can support a student? Or whether H1B visa as a father? So it was also quite nerve wracking at the beginning, whether my startup would be able to sponsor for my visa H1B and also at the same time, this is step up, right? Step ups are risky. I’m staying in the country so my startup not going belly up for we should be independent of me doing a good or bad job of running the company. But eventually, obviously the company did well and my sponsor worked and I stayed. I say two ways. The second way is we did hire a member, a great candidate for the data science team and this was a lady. She was a German national. I think she was a PhD graduate in Germany. She was great. And she not only understood statistics, machine learning and data in general but also she was smart and she knew how to apply in advertising. We sent her the position and she accepted and whatnot and she applied for the H1B visa. And she was in the lottery. She was not selected. So we lost the candidate and we lost a great talent.

Denzil Mohammed: We see it with, for instance, farmworkers where they’ve adjusted the numbers and yet for great needs like this, several years ago, needing data scientists are not being able to have that.

Sandro Catanzaro: To me it’s almost crazy. We are shooting ourselves in our own foot by not having the right policies to allow people who are interested in coming to work to just come and work and in many cases, people who are already here and working.

Denzil Mohammed: And as you say, already building a life.

Sandro Catanzaro: Building a life. In my case, within a company. Given employment to many people. So I think we should think not what is expedient politically but what is the way we want to create a country for the next 30 years.

Denzil Mohammed: Ah, Sandro Catanzaro, it was really, really wonderful talking to you and I think you’re just such an interesting person overall and I can’t wait to see what you do next as you continue with your entrepreneurial spirit here in America.

Sandro Catanzaro: It’s going to be a great adventure, that I can say.

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Denzil Mohammed: If you like what you’re hearing and want more of it, become a JobMakers sponsor. Learn more by reaching out to me at [email protected]. That’s D-E-N-Z-I-L. So happy that you joined us for this week’s inspiring story of another immigrant entrepreneur. Join us again next Thursday at noon. I am Denzil Mohammed and thank you for listening to JobMakers.

Episode 2: Christina Qi

Receiving government benefits gave Qi’s Chinese American family the stability she needed as a child to eventually make it to MIT. While in college, a bad Wall Street internship experience inspired her to start her own hedge fund out of her dorm room. Learn more about how Qi paved her own path in an industry that’s often inhospitable to women of color.

Denzil Mohammed: This is JobMakers and I’m your host, Denzil Mohammed.

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Denzil Mohammed: Immigrants and refugees are a net economic benefit to the United States. Research has consistently shown that they create jobs, fill key gaps in the labor market and add an important dynamism to our economy. This is the case even when there’s initial investment on behalf of the state through education, English classes or welfare. Immigrants pay more into the system when they get out. For Christina Qi, who started a hedge fund at just 22, the welfare she was on in her early years in Utah after moving from China helped stabilize her youth and paved the way for her to attend MIT. She went on to co-found Domeyard, a quantitative trading firm, in 2013, which is among the longest running high frequency trading hedge funds in the world and she was trading up to seven billion dollars a day. In 2019, she founded Databento, an on-demand data platform for asset managers and quantitative analysts. Being an immigrant, Asian and a woman in the cutthroat world of Wall Street didn’t deter her, nor did she forget those who helped get her where she is today. As you’ll soon learn in this week’s JobMakers podcast.

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Denzil Mohammed: Alright! Welcome, Christina. Tell us a little bit about your company.

Christina Qi: I started my first company when I was still a student in college, about almost nine or 10 years ago now and I was in my dorm room. I worked on Wall Street and decided I might as well start a hedge fund ’cause I didn’t get a return offer actually. So I didn’t know what to do, I started trading on my own and eventually realized that this could be my own thing. Then we grew this fund and maybe eight or nine years later, we were trading seven billion dollars a day. We were in a controversial industry that was high frequency trading, which has been in the news again a lot recently, but we never did payment for already controversial things you know described in that book. Mainly the only thing we did was just use technology to do trades. But you know what happened? We started a second company, mainly because at the first company, I spent a lot of my time dealing with data vendors and data-related problems in general and realized that instead of manually dealing with these data things, which takes us sometimes 10 months to a year to get the datasets we need, we might as well try to streamline the entire data licensing process and make data more accessible, more available to everyone out there and to folks like us who were just starting up and we desperately needed datasets but we didn’t have the budget to pay for all the expensive bulk services out there, and so decided to start a more friendly and more bottom up data related service. So, it’s called Databento, it’s my second company. We literally just started it, like one or one and a half years ago now. And yeah, I guess it’s still technically pre-launched, but we did just raise the series C round last week, so I’m really excited to be moving on to something a little bit more meaningful than the high frequency trading firm. And hopefully will help to give people more access to market data and alternative data as well.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s excellent and we’re definitely going to dive into this much more, but I want to learn more about you. And so, perhaps tell us a little bit about where you grew up and what that experience was like. I imagine you don’t have a lot of memories of China since you moved at age three, but growing up with your family in Utah, that must have been such a culture shock, such a change, yeah?

Christina Qi: I barely remember anything about China, but I do remember feeling the shock of moving to America. I grew up in northern Utah, in Logan, actually, which is where my parents were going to school at the time. They were in grad school. But I do remember suddenly just not knowing the language and being shocked because I didn’t know what it meant to move to another country. When you’re three years old you don’t really know that there’s other countries or anything like that. So I think the biggest thing for me is just losing a sense of identity from the very beginning. And suddenly everything is different. I do remember those Asian lunchbox moments, which a lot of my friends talk about as well. My parents would make dumplings and really awesome stir fry and pack it for lunch for preschool, but then all the students would be like, “Gross! That smells so bad. Icky.” And then going home I would dump it in the trash and then go home and demand my mom make me chicken nuggets and French fries. I’ve had  core memories like that, unfortunately. Growing up, I was one of the few Asians in my hometown at the time and I think it’s a familiar story for people who grow up in smaller towns or towns when there’s not a lot of minorities or people who look like you. So you do get a lot of questions and people might look at you a little funny sometimes. But I think the biggest thing I wanted to do when I was a kid was try to be American. When I became a teenager, the first thing I did, I dyed my hair. I had a overall good childhood. I’ve learned to appreciate my identity as well as my parents’, who barely speak English.

Denzil Mohammed: That’s actually what I wanted to get into. What was the move like for your parents?

Christina Qi: Oh, for them it was the American dream. The most amazing thing that’s ever happened to them was coming to the United States. I’m just being honest with you guys. Like, when I came over, for me it was traumatizing, it was an identity crisis, it was like “I want to fit in ’cause I’m a rebellious teenager.” But for my parents, they’ve had it so much worse and when they were growing up, they’ve seen things. Even just with the One Child Policy in China, not to get political or anything, they’ve always wanted me to have a sibling and when they came to America finally, they’re like, “Oh, we can finally give you a sibling!” Just having that freedom for them was just incredible. And seeing how friendly people were welcoming to them. So I think they viewed it a lot more differently than how I viewed it. They’re just grateful to be alive and to be in a country where they can pursue a higher education and where they can get an amazing job so easily outside of college. Well, at least back then. Nowadays it’s a little different, during COVID. Back in the day, it, for them, felt so incredible to see this. And also the fact that we were on welfare for some time, but the fact that the government could subsidize my education in their public school, which is amazing, and also pay for my dentist appointments, my doctor’s appointments. I didn’t even know that this was all free or subsidized by the government, but my parents, to be able to have that support and assistance with the government, that was also a dream come true. I wish I could say I was just inspired by an experience, inspired by someone or something, but to be honest, the real answer is just dumb. I started my company out of a series of failures in my life, a series of rejection and failures and bad experiences, to be honest. And in college in America you get internships every summer. At least at MIT, there’s so much pressure that everything just feels like the pressure of getting into an internship even if you don’t qualify. So, I got an internship. We added three internships in finance and the final internship I did was my junior summer where I was a bad intern and I realized I just wasn’t a good fit for the culture and the team and the company that I was in at the time. Being a terrible intern, I didn’t get a return offer, came back and felt very dejected and didn’t know what I wanted to do because you’d have to find full time jobs. The easiest route is you get an internship, you get a full time offer, right? And then you’re all set, but I didn’t get one, and so I came back to campus, didn’t know what to do and started, as a hobby, trading a little bit on my own here and there and this was before the time when Robin Hood came around and made it easy for everyone to start trading. So, we were just trading here and there with other brokers. And I realized, this is really fun! And then just started doing that. And what happened was someone who became my co-founder eventually, his roommate, came from a wealthy family in Europe and they gave us, I think, $100,000, which isn’t a lot of money, but they just pretty much gave us about 100,000 to trade at the time. I think by the end of the semesters, we had made, maybe around $40,000 from that. And I was like, “Holy crap!” I was $40,000 in debt at the time, college loans and everything. If I can pay off my college loans with this, this is a sign that I can do this on my own! So it’s just really empowering to realize. And it wasn’t like we could make a lot of money or anything, but just more like, hey, I could maybe just make a living doing this on my own if I’m not a good fit for the culture of Wall Street at the time, with that company. At least I can do my own company. So yeah, that’s how we started, with just a string of rejections and failures that led into this.

Denzil Mohammed: Women in your field, that’s not entirely common, especially when you started. And so, you really stand out in that regard. Talk about being a minority, being a woman in your field.

Christina Qi: Oh man, I always start with telling this story. I was about to give the keynote talk on stage at a conference, I think it was at the Schwarzman Library in New York. There’s all these data tables, there’s dinner, big gala and everyone was sitting around and we had fun. I was walking up to the stage and a guy there was like, “Excuse me, can you clear our plates? We’re done with our dinner.” And I turn around and he was clearly looking at me and earnestly motioning to his table and the plates and I froze and I was like, “Oh my god, he’s talking to me.” And so I just said something like, “I’ll take your plates as soon as I give my keynote speech up on stage, okay? So just give me 30 minutes. I’ll be back down to take your plates back to the kitchen.” And the whole table, they actually sold it. They laughed and were like, “I can’t believe you just did that.” And afterwards he came up to me and he was like, “I’m so sorry that was not my intention at all. Totally my mistake, mistaking you as a waitress.” And I was like, “Yo, it’s okay, right? It happens.” And he was like, “I promise I’ll never do that again, is there anything I can do, treat you to dinner or whatever you want?” And I was like, “Oh, don’t worry about it. Just next time, if someone in your company wants to speak, try to promote a woman or have a woman up on stage.” Because it’s pattern recognition, right? If we don’t see any woman up on stage in this industry, then the first time you do, something feels wrong.  And so I think that’s what it is, just pattern recognition of making sure the more you give people opportunities, women, POC, minority, people who don’t look like you, to go up on stage and to speak and have their voice be heard, not only is it inspiring to the younger generation, but also, it becomes normal for you and and you stop mistaking them as waitresses when they’re walking up on stage and stuff like that. So anyway, I just told him, “Be helpful to the women on your team and this is stuff that they go through all the time, right?” And he’s like, “Yeah!” And I ended up becoming friends with him. And that’s the thing I realized. It’s a lesson for me because I learned that I could have yelled at him. I could have been rude to him. I could have totally been offended. I was a little bit, but still, right? I used a little bit of humor to reply to that first and then he realized his mistake by himself. People realize their own mistakes, right? And people don’t have bad intentions, right? No one wants to be called a racist. No one wants to say that. People want to improve. And so he realized that he really wanted to improve and I used it as an opportunity to learn for both of us. And I think that was something that was really important. So yeah, that’s in a nutshell what it’s like to be, you know. In the hedge fund space there’s not a lot of women. But also in high-frequency trading there’s not a lot of women who are at the top of this industry as well, and so for me, I did feel lonely at times and there were times when I wish I could have reached out to another woman for help with certain things here and there, but I have a good group of friends and usually what I do when I desperately need help … sometimes people send me very verbally abusive messages or all my emails for instance, or call me different names that only women can get called. And so I’ll just send it over to friends and I’ll be like, “What do you recommend? What should I say?” I have a bunch of friends who are amazing and they’ll come in and be like, “Oh, you should just ignore it,” or “report it,” or whatever it is, but yeah, I think I’m still very lucky to have a support network, to have a group of people who I can rely on whenever I feel down.

Denzil Mohammed: Databento is not your first venture. Your first venture was Domeyard. So, talk us through the process of starting that business and what that was like and give us maybe some of the nuts and bolts so we can learn how to do it ourselves.

Christina Qi: I don’t know how to begin. We started it from a dorm room. We obviously didn’t have any connections or money or much to begin with. And by all statistics, by all textbook means, we should have failed, right? Like if you look at stats on hedge fund success rate, it’s already pretty small amongst established veterans who are starting funds. But then for college-age kids, it’s almost nonexistent. There’s not a lot of college-age students who successfully started a fund or managed to run it for so many number of years before leaving and maybe doing something else, whatever it is. I’ll start with a couple of things. I think the first thing is, there’s a book called Principles by Ray Dalio and it’s a famous book within our industry and also outside of our industry these days. But he writes about all the principles at Bridgewater. He’s this billionaire guy who started one of the most well-known hedge funds in the world called Bridgewater, and so he writes about all the principles that they have and how well it worked for them and how amazing these principles are. And so, when I started my hedge fund, I was a naïve, brash millennial. We wrote a set of principles like that we wanted for our hedge fund. And so, I’ll just give you a list of examples, like we wanted a flat structure, for instance, because we wanted the culture to look more like a Google when you walk into the office. With the free food and I don’t know what else Google has, but we just imagine it would be like yoga mats and ping pong tables and more Silicon Valley style rather than the cold Wall Street cubicles and that culture. And a flatter structure, meaning we hire people maybe three times my age and so just wanted to make sure that there was a culture where people felt welcomed and so we made everyone partner in the company. That was the title of everybody. Anyway, long story short, almost all the principles that we created turned out to be 100 percent wrong in the end. That’s why I’m writing a book about it. It’s because the principles that we thought, like, “Flat structure sounds cool!” and “Who doesn’t want unlimited vacation? Who doesn’t want ping pong tables and foosball and yoga mats and soccer games and book clubs?” All the cool stuff, right? That sounds great, but then we quickly realize like people don’t stay at companies because of the perks like the free food and stuff. People don’t stay because of the yoga mats and the puppies. I would stay because of puppies, but most of my colleagues wouldn’t stay because of puppies. And so then I realized that people stay at companies because their voice is being heard. Because their contributions are being valued. Because they find meaning in their job and they love working with their team and they’re making progress on their learning. And so people stay because of the work itself, ultimately. Not because of the free food and all the perks and things like that. And so we learned that the hard way because people were leaving us in droves! That was part of our origin story.

Denzil Mohammed: You’ve worked at high frequency trading, which some people consider controversial. It’s supposed to make the climate better for amateurs, for retail, but critics say it favors large institutions that have access to big data at the expense of smaller institutions and individuals. And at the same time, you are really passionate about increasing financial literacy among the masses and giving back to underprivileged people. Walk me through this.

Christina Qi: There is sort of a cognitive dissonance. I felt that everything’s callous to be honest. Like even going one step back. In college, my professors, my peers, even my parents were like, “Go out there and do good for this world. Make a difference out there. You’re privileged going to MIT. Go out there and do something better for society.” And then you look at the stats out of MIT. Nearly half the people out of MIT go into consulting and finance and Wall Street or even working for companies like Facebook or Google. One of my co-founders interned at one of these Wall Street firms and was in charge of taking user data and creating ads based on that data. Even that kind of stuff, right? Are you doing good for society, yes or no? Or, is finance doing good for society, yes or no? There’s a lot of gray areas. A lot of cognitive dissonance, I think a lot of students face. And the other thing is that as soon as my friends got a job at McKinsey or BP or Nestle or Apple, Google or Goldman Sachs. Whatever it was, we would celebrate with them. We would bake them cakes and celebrate and of course, everyone would feel that cognitive dissonance of “Oh, my whole life, I wanted to go into nonprofit or make a difference out there on the field somewhere, but I ended up getting an internship at Goldman Sachs or somewhere. So, how do I deal with that?” I think this is some of the justifications I put myself in at the time and I’m not saying this is right or wrong, but to help people understand what millennials go through and what younger people go through in college today, what I told myself was, “It’s a competitive job environment, right?” I was already at one of the easiest majors at MIT and I struggled to get a job. Actually, I got rejected from dozens of internships and finally I got one … and it was, by total coincidence by the way, with Goldman Sachs. And of course I’m going to accept it because it’s a high paying internship, I’m $40,000 in debt. I really need to pay off my loans and so there’s a competitive job environment. I’m just going to get whatever I can do and then the goal is, a lot of millennials will say, “Okay, I’ll work there for a few years and then go off and make it.” And that is true. That happens a lot where people do work for a few years, maybe make enough money or open enough doors that they can go off and work in a more interesting startup or a non profit or something else. That is a pattern I’ve seen a lot more.

Denzil Mohammed: And I wanted to ask about talent. I feel as though you’re so uniquely positioned. Have you had a lot of issues finding talent in terms of your staff in the past?

Christina Qi: Every every startup has trouble finding staff and at the very beginning because no one knows who you are. Surprisingly, it got easier for the most random reason and this is always a shock to people. When Flash Boys came out, Michael Lewis’ famous book, the famous author behind Moneyball and The Big Short, a bunch of movies that have come out were inspired by his books. But anyway, he wrote a book called Flash Boys about high-frequency trading and it pretty much is disparaging the industry and revealing a lot of the sketchy practices like order flow and stuff like that. Thankfully things that we don’t do, but anyway, it did destroy the reputation of the entire industry. And so what happened was, I was at conferences right after Flash Boys came out and I just remember there was someone in the audience from Bank of America and he raised his hand and he was like, “I hate everything you’re doing, you’re evil.” Stuff like, “You should be in jail, you’re front runners.” And he called me a bunch of things and I was like “Whoa,” and then had to learn how to deal with PR and handle crazy going on, that’s all fine, I get it. It happens to every company. But I relay into this story because then what happened was every high-frequency trading firm pretty much got rid of “high-frequency trading” like that terminology, on their websites. They started calling it “electronic market making” or “quantitative trading” or they just got rid of their website altogether because they didn’t want to be part of the PR crisis that was going on in our industry at that time. And so, I decided, “You know what? Let’s just face this head on.” And so, on our website, in big, bold letters, it says “high-frequency trading.” Like 10 times on the website all over the place it said “high-frequency trading.” So what ended up happening was we ended up getting 30,000 job applications in a year all of a sudden because it’s like the, what do you call that effect? Streisand? I don’t know. There’s an effect where people who read this book become interested in high-frequency trading, even though that’s not what you’re supposed to do. You’re supposed to read it and hate our industry, right? But people would read the book and then they were fascinated by this topic. And they’re like, “Wow! I want to learn more. I’m going to work in this space.” I don’t know why, but people got interested in it and so when they Googled high-frequency trading, we were number one on Google search for some time. We won the SEO games because all the other companies eliminated from their websites. That’s how we ended up getting really lucky and ended up getting a lot of applicants, had a huge pool of candidates to choose from. And another thing that helped by the way, another one of the principles we got right in our company, was treating your competitors well. We never disparage another company, right? That’s just cruel. That’s not how I want to live my life. Crapping on another industry, whether it’s high-frequency trading or hedge fund or whatever, I don’t do that. But anyway, we treated other companies very well, including other high-frequency trading funds. We’ve had instances where other funds have shut their doors for whatever reason, right? Liquidated, for whatever reason, and so whenever that happens, candidates will be like, “Where do I want to apply?” You apply to companies that treated us well, right? To people who fairly treated us, back when we were enemies. And so yeah, we get a lot of applicants from other companies’ space as well, which is quite nice. And of course, we’re not for everybody, and that’s great. We don’t expect everyone to apply or anything like that, never implying that, but just saying that. It did help us a lot to just be nice and to have that philosophy in mind that why spend your time hating on everybody else when you can just live your life and do what’s best for you, and do things you love.

Denzil Mohammed: So with your own adaptability, with your own striving for equity and fairness, what are your visions for the future? You’re not even 30 yet. You have your whole life ahead of you. There’s so much impact that you can still have.

Christina Qi: I want to do more. I want to make a bigger impact. I think even today, what we’re doing now, it’s awesome. I love it. I love that it’s closely related to my industry and helping to solve a problem that’s within the financial industry, which is great and giving people access to financial data, but I think in the future I want to do more than that. Maybe that means going out and doing more nonprofit work or helping my community in one way or another. Maybe building a school one day? I always wanted to build a school and to help the education system in various countries ’cause it sucks that people don’t have access to education and things like that, but these are spaces that I don’t have a lot of experience in and so I need to continue reading, learning, listening to people and really trying my best to see if there’s other ways to give back. I think that’s what means a lot to me. And it also took me a lot of years to realize that, but for me, what makes me happy is seeing other people happy and seeing like that I’ve done something to inspire someone or even just getting an email or getting a message saying, “Hey, you’ve been inspirational to me in my career path,” or “You’ve inspired me to go into finance.” That to me is awesome and I’m really happy that I’ve been able to hopefully inspire more women or more minorities to go into the space and to pursue whatever they want to or start a new company and stuff like that. So yeah, I think that’s all. I just want to do better for this world somehow. It’s hard though, because there’s a lot of things that could go wrong, but it’s just something that I hope I can do more of one day.

Denzil Mohammed: And finally, if you had to give one bit of advice to budding entrepreneurs out there, given your unique experiences, what do you think that would be?

Christina Qi: That would be to normalize rejection. As an entrepreneur, on a daily basis, I continue to be rejected, whether it’s by investors, by potential business partners, by potential candidates we want to hire, rejections happen to everybody. And the sooner you can normalize that in your career, meaning like, “Look, it happens. Yes, it still hurts me every time, but I put it on a mountain of rejection called Mountain of Rejections. I just pile it onto this Mountain of Rejections and I move on to the next candidate, the next opportunity, the next investor.” And the sooner you can learn to do that, the more you can learn to move on and to continue efficiently with your job and with your work.

Denzil Mohammed: Oh my goodness, Christina, thank you so much. This was such a lovely conversation. I really enjoyed talking with you and I hope that people are inspired by your story and we look forward to so many more things from you.

Christina Qi: Thanks Denzil, thank you for this fantastic opportunity and thank you everyone for listening.

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Denzil Mohammed: Know an outstanding immigrant entrepreneur or have suggestions for future programs? Please, let me know at [email protected]. That’s D-E-N-Z-I-L. So happy that you joined us for this week’s inspiring story of another immigrant entrepreneur. Join us again next Thursday at noon. I am Denzil Mohammed and thank you for listening to JobMakers.

Episode 1: Herby Duverné

Duverné struggled when he first came to the United States from Haiti while speaking little English. He always had an entrepreneurial spirit and a desire to keep others safe. Learn how he combined these impulses into Windwalker Group, a cybersecurity company that employs more than 100 people. We also have a full-length video interview here.

Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast produced by Pioneer Institute and The Immigrant Learning Center. I’m Denzil Mohammed, and I’ll be talking with risk takers, immigrants who create new products, services, and jobs in New England and across the United States, building on the entrepreneurial spirit that led them to America in the first place. Join us every Thursday at noon. The United States is a land of opportunity. No matter where in the world you come from, there’s opportunity for better here. It’s what continues to draw brave young risk takers from every since immigrants want a shot in life. The growth of their experience here would be exponentially greater than if they weren’t. This is the case for Herby Duverné, Principal and CEO of Windwalker. Windwalker is a physical and cybersecurity firm that offers training and professional services headquartered in Boston with offices in Tysons Corner, Virginia. It was bought by Mr. Duverné’s previous company, Taino Consulting Group, which he founded in 2009, and which by 2017 had experienced growth of 398 percent. Herby Duverné was born in Haiti, the poorest country in the hemisphere. His mother was illiterate, his father a cab driver. Mr.  Duverné knew no English, bagged groceries, and yet ended up with a master’s degree and a mandate to pave the way for his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Thank you for joining us today, Herby  Duverné. So glad to have you on JobMakers. In 30 seconds, tell me about your services, what you do.

Herby Duverné: So we are a company that’s provided services to a lot of companies, not just commercial, but also federal government too. We like to describe it as, we get clients ready, we get them to be ready for what’s next. We get them to be ready for the unknown. And the way to do that is through training, risk assessment, through security. And we provide them professional services support.

Denzil Mohammed: And in 30 seconds, give us the vision for your company. And I think you’ve already begun actualizing a new stage of your vision, right?

Herby Duverné: Yes. Our vision of our company is to be the best in the space that we are in right now. We want to be one of the premier organizations where we focus on not just clients, but also focus on our people, because at the end of the day, we realize the company will not be where it is if it wasn’t for its people. So we want to focus on our customers, but also want to focus on our people. We want to create an atmosphere, an environment, so not only our clients get ready, but also our employees thrive as well within the same environment.

Denzil Mohammed: Maybe in about 60 seconds or so guide us through the timeline of your company.

Herby Duverné: So right around 2016, we looked at our companies and where could we get more market share. What else should we do? How different can we do that? But also I’m in a company that I’m building something long term. So I’m not in it for one day, one week. I’m in it for a long time. So given these parameters, I realized that what I need to do is to figure out exactly, how do I want to grow this business? Do I keep spending money on growing internally by just having our people knock on doors and get more clients? I think we realize there’s time spent for that. Or do I go out there and acquire another company that’s already ahead of it. And then put that services and that company on top of what we do and then make it a new company. We think where the market was really strong for us is training. Top CEOs, they will tell you training and development is one of the important pieces in the business. So I realize that it’s important for me to get there. I realized training was so important. So when we were looking at for acquisition, we’re looking at something not only to increase our revenue, but something to give us a better angle from a different market, which is training market. So that’s what we did. So we went out there, we looked for companies, and we found Windwalker Corp. At that time which we merged and become Windwalker Group. So we found this firm that was doing similar revenue like us. And we merged them together to make a Windwalker Group where we provide all the different services, not just from the old company, but also for the new company. The other advantage for us as well for Windwalker Corp., Windwalker Corp. had been doing training for 25 years. And their clients include big names, like IBM, Amtrak, Department of Defense, you name them. So we really felt that it would’ve take us a long time to build that capabilities. Purchasing this company would have been a better move. And that’s what we did.

Denzil Mohammed: Okay, I’m gonna talk a little bit more about your company later on, but I want to focus in on you. You spent the first 20 years of your life in your homeland of Haiti. Few people in the U.S. know, or can even imagine, what life is like there. What was life like growing up in Haiti?

Herby Duverné: Life was very tough growing up in Haiti. I mean, that’s the thing. There’s two things I always say about my 20 years in Haiti. One is, it was a very tough life in term of, from an economy perspective. But at the same time, It was a very loving environment, because not only I had my mother, single mom, who loved me and loved my sister and did everything she could possibly do, and protect us and do everything that most parents do for the kids. My mom was always that. And the other thing also too, which is unbelievable for that notion is my mother, one of the things raising us for 20 years, I always felt she put us first. She always put us first. I mean it was, that was just the way it is. She is, I live, I mean in my mom’s mindset, I live for my kids. I want my kids to be the best they can be. Even though the environment where we are from a economy perspective was not good at all. I mean, we were very poor. We live in one room house, I mean not even house. We live in one room with my sister, myself and my mom. My mom worked in a factory from six days a week from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM. She will make, at the time, maybe a dollar a day, for the work she was doing. She was making aluminum bowl. You know, we were lucky to eat three times a day. We usually eat, at least we’ll have a good meal once a day. Um, so all the basic stuff that we take for granted, refrigerator, I didn’t have that. None of those things ‘cause you are in one room house. So there is no refrigerator. There is no oven. You go out there with charcoals and those stuff, that’s how you cook. Um, it was a rough life. It was a tough life. And I never had a job, not because I didn’t want to work. It’s because there was no job for me. Unemployment in Haiti is about 60 percent plus. For the 20 years, at least as I was getting older, I felt that there was gonna be no hope for me.  You know it wasn’t a place that I feel that I can envision what I can be next, tomorrow. There was none of that. So that was my life in Haiti until my dad who’s been coming, trying hard somehow to get a visa and come to the U.S., and was able to get his green card and was able to become a U.S. citizen. And was able to send paper to allow me to come on a residence when I was 20 years old.

Denzil Mohammed: And he was a cab driver.

Herby Duverné: That’s correct. How did y’all, you did your homework. I like that.

Denzil Mohammed: What happened when you moved there? You moved to New York City, right?

Herby Duverné: I moved to New York City. So my dad’s been a cab driver for a long time. December 26th, 1989. That’s the time that I came here, and I get right into New York City with my big envelope. This is when you know you’re gonna have … that’s the envelope they give you to get your green card. You just get your big envelope. Obviously you realize this place is cold. My dad bought me a jacket and I, I still feel cold and, and seen smoke coming out everywhere, you know. So, it was a very interesting moment, I will say. Some of the family members, we were all in one place supporting each, get each other for a walk, but more importantly, try to support each other on make sure they know where to get some English as a second language, which I did when I was in Brooklyn, New York. I went to York College in Queens, and get English as a second language. So he [dad] say, okay, and enroll here, try to do that. But, you know, you start working. I mean, that’s just the way it is for immigrant. So we start working, you know, getting a job and, and do different things. It doesn’t matter. You just try to make money. In 1991, we decided to move to Boston. And the idea of moving to Boston was my dad felt that Boston has better job. More importantly, Boston was calmer than Brooklyn, New York. So it’s a way for me to make sure that I don’t get into trouble. I felt that the moment I get in the U.S., my life would not be worse than it was in Haiti.

Denzil Mohammed:  And one of the ways in which it got better for you was through education.

Herby Duverné: Absolutely.

Denzil Mohammed: That your mother could not read and write.

Herby Duverné: That’s correct.

Denzil Mohammed: She emphasized education. And, as you said, whenever you could go to school, could afford to go to school you went in Haiti.

Herby Duverné: Yes, absolutely.

Denzil Mohammed: What was your educational trajectory in the U.S. and what was also going on in your life at that time in terms of jobs and whatnot?

Herby Duverné: When I move to Boston, I took more English as a second language at Bunker Hill Community College. And I keep going to school there. Once I take enough English as a second language, I try to take other courses at Bunker Hill Community College. I also realize I gotta go somewhere else. So I apply at Northeastern and other colleges around here and got accepted at Northeastern. I started in 1993, a year later I have my daughter, and then now I’m a father 20 something years old, like 24, 25 or so, living in this country. I say, I gotta take care of my daughter. I also have to go to school. I gotta do something. I’ve done any type of job you can think of to support me and support my daughter at the time. I have driven a cab in Cambridge for a number of years, where I know it was easier for me. I’d do it, you know, 12 hours, Friday, Saturday and Sunday so I can do a good amount of money because it was hard. Um, before that I have gotten job cleaning bathroom at Harvard University. Again, those hours were part-time with good benefit at the time and good insurance at the time. And, you know, you can be there, but there were like 20 something hours. I bagged at the grocery place, put food in bags for people. So I tried to do different jobs to combine so I could go during that time take care of my daughter and go to school, and then graduate from school, graduate from college in 1998. Got a bachelor degree in 1998 in criminal justice. And part of the criminal justice is, I always wanted to have working in security, but I didn’t want to be a police officer. I wanted to be someone that walked in protecting, more like prevent something from happening before it happened. I sort of have this sort of mindset that was more attractive to me than taking, being a cop, which is a very reactive kind of job. Someone did something, you’re gonna, this is the law to arrest them or not. So that’s what I did. So I went on and to do that and throughout Northeastern I got the opportunity about year, my third years at Northeastern to do a co-op where you, you stop working, you get a job. I mean, they’ll help you get a job to a certain [site] aligned to your degree. And that’s what I did. My co-op was at CVS. I did a co-op at CVS, and I did so well as a loss prevention personnel just watching people stealing at the store, and also doing all those different backroom processes for the store. And then when I graduate and my boss at the time say, “Hey, when you graduate, we’ll make sure you get a job.” So I got a job and I become a regional loss prevention manager. When I graduate from college, I become a regional person that’s not only training other people how to become a loss prevention, but also I was doin’ loss prevention for more than one stores. I decided that I wanted to have a master’s degree, something different at the next level of degree for my career. I’ve decided everything that I’m reading about people that’s done corporate security, they had master’s degree in all the level of degree. So I decided to do that. So I went in back and then enrolled at Northeastern again, and get a master’s degree in criminal justice administration, which is more focused on security and so forth. And I gotta tell you the moment I graduated from school, from college, I felt that my life was taking off. I think that’s probably for the first time, Denzil, that I felt that I was in control.

Denzil Mohammed: During any of this time, did you feel as though you were gonna be your own boss at some point?

Herby Duverné: It’s funny, after I graduated I created a company, right after graduation, created a company, even though I got a job, but I created a side company to do investigation for people, for lawyers and everything else. And I even went on and got my detective license in the state to become a P.I., you know, private investigator. So I will stay focused on my regular job, but I always keep thinking back and forth. I got people that will call me throughout my other job, “Hey, do you wanna do X, Y and Z for us? Do you wanna do this?” So every so often I will get a little piece of it. And then it shut down. So I always have this in my heart, I always feel that I can do my own thing.

Denzil Mohammed: And it was not because your parents were entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs ran in your family. You got education, you got a diploma in your hand and it gave you a certain confidence and a certain vision, right?

Herby Duverné: But the idea of being an entrepreneurs, yes. It was not something that my family was doing or I learned from a uncle. No, it was like, my education made me realize I can do those kind of things. I can provide that service to other people. There’s a market for what I do.

Denzil Mohammed: That market, Herby Duverné soon would conquer. After five years leading security at Logan International Airport, rising to the highest rank he could, he and some partners founded Taino Consulting Group in Boston in 2009, a security risk management firm named after one of the indigenous peoples of his homeland Haiti. The firm experienced such tremendous growth that Mr. Duverné won The Immigrant Learning Center’s Immigrant Entrepreneur Award for Business Growth in 2016 among many other accolades. Then Taino purchased Windwalker and expanded their portfolio to training and their footprint to nine states.

Denzil Mohammed: Is there anything special about Boston? It’s home to 12 of the cybersecurity 150 I saw in Cybercrime Magazine. Was there anything particularly notable about Boston headquartering your company here?

Herby Duverné: Absolutely, oh yes. I also believe that among all the other things that I’ve told you, what made me become an entrepreneur, this environment Boston is a very attractive environment for new thinking, for innovation, because there’s all these universities and schools all around us, from Harvard to MIT to BU, Northeastern, you name them. And the Bunker Hills and all the other schools out there. So I always feel that it’s an environment you always in a learning movement, right? You always want to learn. You always want to see the possibility. I feel that sometime learning help you see the possibility, right? What’s possible. Once I learn something I think, wow, I can’t believe it, I can do this. I can’t believe it that I can achieve this one. So that’s the mindset. I think Boston because it’s such a learning full environment that we want our people to sort of go out of your comfort zone. And also it’s easier to have a conversation about being an entrepreneur in Boston probably than in most other states. Because this is what people do. Young people get together, they went to school and partner with each other and say, “Let’s do this, let’s create that.” You know that’s what people do. So I felt that Boston is a very learning rich environment, that’s really allowed me and also many people to excel and do business. And even though we may not have all the answers, we feel that we have the confidence we can make it work.

Denzil Mohammed:  And bring us into this moment of public health crisis and pandemic. Has COVID driven any additional cybersecurity needs and issues for Windwalker’s clients? And give us your oracle view of what physical and cybersecurity is gonna look like after COVID.

Herby Duverné: So it’s interesting you’re saying that. Cybersecurity and more like technology was five, 10 years ago was already starting to go in a different direction. You know, we’re talking about AI. This is really the way things are going. This is basically where machine learning’s gonna do a lot of work, gonna do unbelievable things, if we train them to do those kind of thing. You know, you can call a call center right now, and you think you’re talking to a person but you’re talking to a machine. This is where technology with all the cybersecurity risks and everything else associated with it, gonna go. Anyway with COVID, I think it really accelerated those kind of mindset. Business people always knew that the biggest asset are the people, but didn’t believe how big that asset was until they have a problem getting those people. A problem, oh geez, if I’m a restaurant, if I’m a call center, oh, geez, this person cannot come to work. Because, you know, I think that’s gonna accelerate that mindset, you know, of people, companies gonna think about how do I do the work, the services, how do I provide services X with a way that I rely less on people, more on machine. That’s gonna happen. There’s also opportunity for people to even do better because at the end of the day, machine cannot do everything. Machine will do a lot of things, but not everything. So you will need people to be trained, people to really understand how we can work with machine to do the stuff machine needs to do, either fix machine to do the things machine has to do, all this kind of thing. So that’s part one on the security side. The other thing also too, my other part of my company is a training business. The training business is completely changed upside down, even though, again, even though, 15, 20 years everybody knew that it’s better, it’s more advantageous to have people learn in a way that’s different, not just being in a classroom. People know that. Companies were starting to put video content out there to train people from a video platform perspective. Even though they do that, not every company were doing that. Even everybody’s like, oh, I can see the light, but not every companies do that. I think COVID really make companies realize, holy cow, I cannot train these people. I gotta create a way to have content online. We are working right now, currently with a lot of clients that’s been doing classroom training organization. That’s been doing classroom training and now starting to ask us to do content, to develop content for them as opposed to learning in a classroom. So those starting to happen now. So these are the thing that I see happening from not just from a security perspective, but also from the training perspective.

Denzil Mohammed:  So you talk about a particular mindset, and I want to bring it back to something you brought up just before we started actually talking, which was a view and a vision of America and changing your mindset in order to really achieve something and be entrepreneurial and do something great and extra. I would venture to say that you never imagined that you would be in a position where spending so much time giving back to America for all the opportunity that it gave you. And I just want to run through a list: the Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Massachusetts Bay, Children’s Trust, Haiti Venture Impact Partners, Haiti Development Institute, Rise Together LLC, the Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct, appointed by Governor Baker. In our last minute, you know, what does it mean to give back and why do you do it?

Herby Duverné: Wow. I think that’s a very interesting question for me ’cause I feel that when I came to this country I quickly realized, not immediately actually, let me step back. When I came to America along the journey I realized that this is a country for all. At some point it clicked for me. When I came here, to be fair, it didn’t click. When I came here I feel like, well, I’m coming to a country, right. It wasn’t like I’m coming to a country, I’m gonna make it my own. Along the line as I have kids, as I get job, as I work, as I went to school, as I created a professional life, I realized this is our America. This is not some people, it’s our America. If it is our America we need to do whatever it takes to make it a place that we feel that we are invested in … ’cause this is our own. And that’s how I look at it. I look at my involvement in all these organizations, nonprofit and business alike. It’s to me saying like this is my country. If I own a house, you will want to take care of it. You wanna make sure that … If the barricade is in front of the house falling apart you want to fix that. If the water, if the shower is not working you want to make it better. So I feel that I have ownership in this county as an American. I have ownership in this country because normally I get a lot from this country but I also provide a lot. I provide my work, my blood, you know, in terms of working in this county. And I realize that it is our country. So I always have this mindset. So that’s sort of the switch that came to me, like, this is our country we gotta do whatever it takes to invest in it. So I always look at this as a way for me to invest. And why am I doing that? I’m doing that because I believe this country without a doubt, with the three kids that I have and a wife and family, it’s my country for the next hundreds of generations coming down the line, you know. I mean it’s gonna be at some point two hundred years down the line, you know, people are gonna remember there was a Herby that two hundred years ago, that sort of lineage to that person, to this family member.

Denzil Mohammed:  This is why I think it was so appropriate that you named your business Taino Consulting Group, going back to the indigenous peoples. You’re talking about generations to follow you. And that’s exactly what I think is gonna happen.

Herby Duverné: We gotta do that. Because at the end of the day we gotta see that. And I’ve seen the connection with my kids whose gonna have their own kids, their own great grandkids, significant others, whatever. They’re gonna be part of this America. So if I have to invest in something that I know my lineage and my family’s gonna be a member of, not doing that is crazy to me, not participating in it, it’s crazy to me, you know. And that’s how I see this country. That’s how I see my environment, as a place where, when I’m no longer around I will have people that are here because of me. Therefore, whatever I have to do during my time to make it a perfect union for them, to work hard, to make this country as welcoming as it possibly can be, I’m gonna do that.

Denzil Mohammed: Thank you very much, Herby Duverné, CEO of Windwalker Group. This was an excellent conversation and I’m so glad we got a chance to talk to you.

Herby Duverné: A pleasure. Thank you so much, Denzil. Thank you for your time.

Denzil Mohammed: So happy that you joined us for this week’s inspiring story of another immigrant entrepreneur. If you like what you’re hearing, share JobMakers on Twitter @pioneerboston and @ILCTR and on Facebook @pioneerinstitute and @immigrantlearningcenter. Join us again next Thursday at noon. I’m Denzil Mohammed. And thank you for listening to JobMakers.

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