Despite making up just 14.3% of the U.S. population in 2023, immigrants accounted for 23.6% of entrepreneurs and 25% of all new businesses. In 2023 alone, immigrant-owned businesses generated $116.2 billion in business income, according to an analysis by the American Immigration Council.
And as of last year, 46% percent of all Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children. That is the highest level recorded since Council researchers started tracking immigrant entrepreneurs in yearly reviews since 2011.
Mendez, who grew up in southwest Ohio and is the child of Puerto Rican parents, said her organization works with 150 businesses across the Dayton region. Many of these southwestern Ohio entrepreneurs were born in South America or Spanish-speaking nations in other parts of the globe or are the children of immigrants.
“A lot of children get to learn from watching their parents doing it. And for them, they’re not starting from Ground Zero. They can start from a place of innovation,” she said.
Industries represented among these business owners range from food service, construction, logistics, personal care and retail, Mendez said.
Locally, immigrants inside and outside of the Hispanic community are also contributing greatly to “Main Street” businesses — corner shops, gas stations, grocery stores, nail salons, dry cleaners, restaurants and others that serve the local community.
The Immigration Research Initiative estimates that immigrants own 27% of all Main Street businesses in the U.S.
Taking risks and laying roots
Launching a business is challenging for anyone, but oftentimes, immigrant entrepreneurs lack access to capital and other resources or struggle to learn a new language.
When Robert “Bob” Salinas started his auto parts supplier business, Salinas Industries, he had to prove he came to the U.S. as an immigrant to the National Minority Supplier Diversity Council to be certified as a minority supplier. Certification is important for accessing new business opportunities.
The problem was the council wouldn’t accept any of his documentation linked to his naturalization as a U.S. citizen. In Mexico, where he was born, his small village recorded births in a book, rather than handing out documents to families.
So Salinas had to call his mother and request a relative obtain a copy of his certificate of baptism he received as a child, instead.
“So one of her sisters, who still lived in Mexico, had to travel to the next town over to get a copy of my baptism certificate to prove to the council that I was really born in Mexico,” he said.
But other skills that many immigrants possess can make entrepreneurship an ideal career path for them, said Salinas.
Credit: SarahLydia Keihl
Credit: SarahLydia Keihl
“That entrepreneurial spirit is there,” he said. “Every immigrant you meet wants to do well. You hear some really bad things about immigrants. But the vast majority of those that come to this country want to do well. They’re here to make a better life for themselves.”
Salinas, who came to the U.S. from Mexico with his family when he was a child, operated his Miamisburg-based business for more than 20 years.
A strength he brought to the business was his bilingualism. From a young age, he spoke English during the school day and mostly Spanish at home. His ability to speak two languages opened opportunities in the earlier years of his career that never would have been an option without that skill, like traveling for a former employer to Mexico to train workers there.
And when he decided to start Salinas Industries, a venture that created several jobs, his Spanish speaking opened his company to the global market.
Salinas in his retirement — he’ll be 80 this fall — is enjoying the typical joys of a grandfather: lots of time with his loved ones. He continues to help others ponder the start of their own small business through his participation in the Dayton Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and through volunteering in the Miami Valley Community ID program, an initiative that launched in 2019 to help people obtain identification that has their photo, name, date of birth and other information.
Multiple local agencies support and generally accept the low-cost ID cards, like the Dayton Police Department, the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, the Dayton Metro Library, the Dayton Food Bank, Dayton Public Schools, Dayton Children’s Hospital and Premier Health.
“A lot of people that I do get to meet are people who started working for another company,” he said. “And I say, always, always learn from the guy you’re working for. You have to learn how to run a business. And when the time comes, you’ll move.”
Benefitting broader community
Many of the immigrant-owned restaurants and markets in the Dayton area represent a slice of “home” or familiarity to people who move to southwest Ohio from other nations.
“They are anchors to the community,” Mendez said. “A Hispanic-owned restaurant isn’t just a place to eat — it’s a community hub. I think if those don’t exist, we don’t have a heartbeat. We have businesses, but we don’t have warmth. We don’t have vibrancy.”
Credit: Tom Gilliam
Credit: Tom Gilliam
Mendez said she thinks the successes of one Hispanic business is also counted as a “win” for the broader community, and the Hispanic Chamber is a network of connections and support to Dayton business leaders.
But challenging still is getting the broader Dayton community to continually support those businesses outside of every September, when Hispanic Heritage Month kicks off nationally, Mendez said.
She feels this challenge exists for every immigrant community.
“If we really looked at how much immigrants serve America, we’d realize they’re contributing more than what they’re getting credit for,” she said.
Supporting a diversity of businesses in a community renders major rewards: the ability to attract industry leaders looking to expand to Ohio.
“If you’re trying to attract the best talent to come to Dayton, and the best talent is comprised of different nationalities and races, and they don’t exist here, why would they come here?” Mendez said.
Cuisine, culture, community
Immigrant-owned businesses can also provide a glimpse into another life. One local group of foodies has found connection in sampling the menus of local eateries.
The Dayton region has seen a steady increase of immigrant-owned restaurants and markets, said Peter Benkendorf, founder of The Collaboratory and the child of immigrants. Ethnosh Dayton, a project he helped launch in 2019, aims to connect the community to these small businesses.
And food has a way of uniting people. Benkendorf said the traveling feasts, called Nosh-ups, focus on the three C’s: cuisine, culture and community. Nineteen restaurants and markets have been stops on the Ethnosh Dayton tour, and the group is meeting again at Gulzar’s Indian Cuisine in downtown Dayton this month.
Foods from across the globe have been represented in Nosh-ups: East African flavors at SOSO Cuisine in West Carrollton to Turkish and Mediterranean dishes at Dayton Village Pizza.
“It’s about building community and seeing people from so many different walks of life have a shared experience,” he said. “Whether you’re wrapping it in cuisine or you’re wrapping it in music and art, these are the threads that connect us all.”
For regular Nosh-up attendee (“Noshers,” as they’re called) Karen Korn, said she loves the family-style dining concept of the events. Noshers are often seated with people they have never met while sampling platters they have never tasted.
Hua Mei, located in Moraine, was the site of a past Nosh-up. When Korn arrived for the evening, she saw a dish on the menu that was called “saliva chicken” — a quirk in translation. Other dishes were made with meats that aren’t the norm for an American consumer, like tongue and certain kinds of seafood. And soups varied from scallop to bitter melon.
But even greater than the food are the stories shared by the immigrant restaurateurs, who take time at Nosh-ups to tell stories of how their grandmothers taught them how to cook, or how they crossed deserts to make it to the United States, or how they fled war in their birthplaces.
“It’s a really powerful tool to create connections and empathy. I think that part of Ethnosh builds community beyond helping to bring more customers into that business,” Korn said.
Festivals help economy
Daytonians engage with multicultural experiences outside of Nosh-ups, too. CultureWorks, a funding, advocacy, and service organization geared toward arts and culture, touts numerous culture-inspired events throughout Dayton annually.
Weekends are filled with festivals, ranging from A World A’Fair in the spring to the United Irish of Dayton Celtic Festival in the summer and the Hispanic Heritage Festival right before the start of fall.
Credit: Tom Gilliam
Credit: Tom Gilliam
Cultural events have a huge economic impact on the Dayton area. A study released last year by Americans for the Arts and CultureWorks found that Dayton was attracting people from outside Montgomery County, in large part, due to cultural events, with 77% of survey respondents claiming the primary purpose of their visit to the area was a cultural event.
And people who are not local spend twice as much in the region. They are going out for meals before events, spending the night at local hotels and trying out other venues while they are in the area, the report found.
In its 67 years, the Greek Festival honors the legacy of immigrants who fled war and persecution in their home country to start anew in Dayton more than 100 years ago. And what started as a church picnic at the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church has blossomed into an event that attracts thousands of attendees annually.
Groups of children and adults dance in circles and leap into the air while traditional songs are played. The scent of gyros wafts through the air as families also carry around loukoumades (honey donut holes) and saganaki (fried cheese). Attendees are also certain to hear an “Opa!” or two shouted across the festival grounds.
It’s an atmosphere that Centerville residents Casi and Kevin Horan gravitate toward — they were attending the Greek Festival this year shortly before their departure to Athens, Greece’s capital.
“Just having everyone here, celebrating. All from different backgrounds… it’s amazing,” Casi Horan said.
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