Despite traveling a sometimes risky path, immigrants seize business opportunities
PHOTO/Emily Micucci
Charbel Najem escaped a war-ravaged Lebanon in the 1990s. After working as a landscaper and in a fast-food restaurant, he founded a general contracting business in Worcester that generated $4.4 million in revenue last year.
Charbel Najem is a successful Worcester business owner, running Capstone General Contracting Inc. on Grafton Street and living a comfortable life in the city with his wife and four children.
It's an existence that would have been difficult to imagine when Najem was a child living in war-torn Lebanon, in a small town near the Israeli border. When he was 7 years old, a rocket missed its target and landed on Najem's home, killing his mother, sister and grandmother. He was home at the time, but survived. Soon after, Najem's older brother was also killed in the fighting.
Najem said the event soured his outlook on life in his native country, and he grew up knowing he would one day leave.
“If I wanted to have a family, I wanted to have it in a country that's not there, and to be able to prosper,” Najem said.
It wasn't until he was 25 when Najem was able to leave, finding work in Israel. In the meantime, his knack for entrepreneurship blossomed in Lebanon, and Najem launched three businesses — two arcades and a restaurant — by the time he was 21.
Najem's ultimate dream was to come to the United States. After working for a few years in Israel, he was able to obtain a coveted permanent residency visa to the U.S. through sponsorship by a cousin of his former wife.
When he arrived in 1996 at age 25, Najem worked as a landscaper, and at McDonald's for a time. Eventually, he was able to land a job in the mortgage business. Najem bought a house, rehabbed it and flipped it in 1998, making $100,000. That gave him his start in the general contracting industry. It evolved into Capstone, which today has four divisions and generated $4.4 million in revenue in 2013.
The struggles in the U.S.
It's an inspiring story, but given the red tape involved in obtaining even a tourist visa to the U.S. today, Najem's success is not a given for every enterprising immigrant.
Many people, particularly those from developing countries, have trouble entering the U.S. even to visit family, with marriage to an American citizen being the only circumstance in which an immigrant can receive legal status with relative ease.
In the absence of sponsorship from a U.S. employer, foreigners usually struggle to obtain work visas, which are usually reserved for highly-skilled professionals.
Given these obstacles, one might expect that the appetite among immigrants to come to America and launch businesses is weak. But a report from the Partnership for a New American Economy, a coalition of business leaders and elected officials committed to immigration reform, indicates otherwise.
The report, “Open for Business,” was published in 2012, and it argues that immigrants are actually the force driving small-business creation in the United States. The report found that the small business start-up rate among immigrants is up 50 percent since 1996, while the rate among U.S.-born citizens declined 10 percent. Furthermore, 28 percent of small businesses launched in 2011 were founded by immigrants, up from 15 percent in 1996.
Challenges amid opportunities
Marcia Drew Hohn, director of public education at the Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, said that despite the tough road immigrants face in coming to the U.S. legally, it's still a major destination for many ambitious people who have limited opportunities to make money in their native countries. Hohn said it's common for illegal immigrants to start businesses that serve their own ethnic communities when they arrive here, but to grow beyond that, they need to comply with pertinent business regulations. That's a challenge when a person comes from a country where government regulation is minimal. Plus, many immigrant business owners are not fluent in English, Hohn said.
“Making that leap to the next realm, that's really hard for people,” Hohn said.
But it can be done. Angel Valdivia came to the U.S. from Chile in 1995 with no desire to stay. He was visiting his mother on a tourist visa for six weeks, but met his future wife and never left. Valdivia said he was living here illegally for a period of time, though he was able to become an American citizen because of his marriage.
Valdivia was a physical education teacher in Chile, and gave up his job as director of sports and recreation at a university when he settled here. He didn't speak English, and had to take a job at McDonald's to start out.
Eventually, Valdivia got a job painting and soon realized he could make a go of it on his own. He founded Angel's Painting Inc. of Framingham in 1999, and today employs 15 people, catering to upper-middle class homeowners.
“If you are smart, honest and hardworking, you can do whatever you want to do here,” Valdivia said.
But for those who are here illegally?
Nicolas Formaggia, an advocate at the Spanish-American Center in Leominster, has a more sober view of the opportunities for immigrant entrepreneurs. Formaggia said many limit business services to their own communities because they want to maintain a low profile if they're living here illegally.
But, as in generations past, Formaggia said today's immigrants have their sights set on the future.
“Most of the time what they will tell you is, 'We came here to offer a better future to our children','' Formaggia said.
And in the best cases, this vision becomes reality in front of them. That was the case for Leominster resident Susana Shaffer, 27. Faced with dim prospects at home, her mother took her across the Mexican-American border illegally when she was 9 years old.
Shaffer, now married to a U.S. citizen and in the process of becoming a legal resident, is frank about the struggles she and her mother faced when they arrived in California, their first destination.
There was mistreatment, and Shaffer saw her mother work grueling jobs to make ends meet when she was a child. But today, Shaffer owns Divas Hair Salon on Central Street in Leominster, and her mother's only job is to work for her.
Owning a business, and working with her mother, is a dream come true for Shaffer, too.
“I just wanted her to be proud of me, and I wanted her to feel like all her sacrifice that she went through, and she still is going through … I just wanted her to see that it is worth it,” Shaffer said.
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