December 13, 2005

32,000 Hispanic Businesses in Washington D.C.

June 2004 - A study funded by the Greater Washington Ibero American Chamber of Commerce, which Veve chairs, found that the number of Hispanic-owned businesses in the region has grown to 32,000 in 2002 from about 500 in 1970. The surge began in the 1980s after Hispanic immigrants fleeing El Salvador's civil war poured into the area and has increased as more Central American immigrants have moved here to join their families.

The largest group, Salvadorans, have started about 3,000 small family-run businesses -- restaurants, construction companies and retail stores -- in the Washington area, said Elmer Arias, president of the region's Salvadoran American Chamber of Commerce and owner of La Hacienda restaurant in Springfield. At first, these businesses were concentrated in the Adams Morgan area, but as immigrants saved money and moved out to the suburbs, businesses followed.

Now bustling centers of Hispanic commerce can be found in Langley Park, Wheaton, Bailey's Crossroads, Woodbridge, Manassas, Fredericksburg, Arlandria and at least a dozen other communities and neighborhoods. Latino-owned businesses have changed the face of many neighborhoods, as Hispanic mom-and-pop stores have filled once-abandoned buildings and brought commerce back to some neighborhoods.

The flood of immigrant business owners from Latin America was preceded by a smaller number of Hispanics who came to the area in the early 1960s and 1970s to work for the federal government. Veve said Hispanic businesses gravitated toward government procurement because of the federal program that sets aside business for minority-owned companies.

There are 38.8 million Hispanics in the United States, or 13 percent of the total population, making the group the largest minority in the country. In the Washington area, from 1990 to 2000, the Hispanic community doubled, to 447,000, or 8 percent of the total population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Latino advocates say the number is even higher, because the government failed to count some illegal immigrants.

By 1997, the last time the Census Bureau measured it, Washington area Hispanic businesses had sales of nearly $1 billion. Hispanic business leaders say that substantial growth has occurred since then.

These changes can be measured in a number of different ways. For example, the growth of advertising and clasificados aimed at Latinos here now supports nearly two dozen weekly newspapers, a dozen radio stations and three local television channels. Twenty years ago there were only a couple of weekly Spanish-language television shows, one radio station and three newspapers.

In the past few years, as the number of Hispanic businesses has soared and diversified, other chambers have sprouted up, including the Salvadoran chamber, the Hispanic Chamber of Montgomery County, and statewide Hispanic chambers in Maryland and Virginia. Last year, a Hispanic chamber formed in Prince George's County, which has one of the smallest Latino populations in the region but is home to Langley Park, where 63 percent of the residents are Hispanic.

Source: Copyright 2004 washingtonpost.com
By Krissah Williams

Posted by Ahorre at 08:13 AM

November 09, 2005

Nashville Hispanic Market 4Q 2004

Spanish speakers getting own event By Chris Lewis

Spanish-speaking business owners in the Nashville area have been invited to participate in the launch of the first business-networking group aimed directly at them.

Avance! (which means moving forward in Spanish) is being set up by Conexion Americas, a nonprofit organization representing Hispanics in Tennessee, in conjunction with the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce and Belmont University. The City Paper is a sponsor of the event.

The year-round program will offer Hispanic owners a chance to network, participate in educational forums, and attend structured peer sessions to help them set up and run their businesses, said Jose Gonzalez, executive director of Conexion Americas.

Conexion officials say they have no definitive data on how many Hispanic-owned businesses exist in Nashville, although they estimate that 130,000 Hispanic people live in Middle Tennessee.

"We have no trouble saying there's at least 700 or 800 Hispanic-owned businesses, but that's just a gut feeling," Gonzalez said. "What we do know is that Hispanic businesses are getting started at a very high rate, much higher than the non-Hispanic businesses."

Maitane Tidwell, owner of Inclusive Communications and marketing and fund-raising coordinator for the project, said over 1,000 invitations have been sent out. She anticipates between 200 and 250 people will show up for the first meeting.

The business group is an outgrowth of classes at Belmont that Conexion Americas has sponsored the past three years to help ease the path for Hispanics trying to set up businesses in the United States.

Business owners have several networking opportunities in Nashville, Gonzalez said. But Avance! is different in that it is conducted in a Spanish-speaking environment, Gonzalez said.

"So we're not reinventing the wheel, we're just doing it for the first time in a way that it seeks to bring in this emerging Hispanic entrepreneurial base," he said.

Posted by Ahorre at 09:58 AM