For years, immigrants with little understanding of U.S. law, custom and, frequently, without a firm grasp of the English language, have been staking their fortunes on restaurants, groceries, liquor stores, laundries, salons and other small, service-oriented businesses.
For some, it’s the means to an end: a lifetime of back-breaking work to ensure that their children have more choices than they had. But more and more, says Tomas Avila, a business adviser at the R.I. Small Business Development Center at Johnson & Wales University, immigrants are building businesses to grow and pass on for generations.
“I think most immigrants start a business so their kids can get a good education and pursue a career of their choosing, but we are seeing more instances of children inheriting businesses and taking them to the next level, or parents doing it themselves,” he said.
“For some families, business is more than a source of income, but a long-term investment,” he added. “I call them the next wave of American corporations.”
Avila, a Honduran immigrant and self-made businessman, said the SBDC sees those long-term investments as good news for the state economy, so it’s encouraging them. This is not to say that Avila recommends that all small business owners groom their children as successors, but that they embrace growth as a means to creating substantial personal wealth.
Allan Fung, the government relations counsel for MetLife in Rhode Island and a former Cranston city councilman and mayoral candidate, said his parents had barely set foot on U.S. soil when they began laying the groundwork for their family’s future.
In the early 1970s, the Fungs, drawing on their intimate knowledge of Hong Kong-style Cantonese cuisine, opened the Kong Wen restaurant in Cranston. With the help of their three children and Fung’s aunt and uncle, the restaurant attracted a legion of loyal customers and kept the family well fed, clothed and educated for more than three decades.
Although he had no interest in running the restaurant himself, Fung said the budgeting and business practices he learned at Kong Wen served him well in law school, as a city councilman – the state’s first Chinese-American elected official – and in his legal career.
“The restaurant was very successful, and for a while I thought about continuing [in my parents’ footsteps], but my dad always pushed my sisters and I to concentrate on school and get a good education. The restaurant business requires long hours and hard work, and he didn’t want that for us.”
Five months ago, 22-year-old Jorge Boror quit his job installing and refinishing hardwood floors to start his own company. He had just completed an SBDC program for entrepreneurs called Primer Paso, and in March, he opened RENDE Hardwood Flooring.
It’s a new business but also a continuation of the journey his father, Guatemalan immigrant Jorge E. Boror, began many years ago. Jorge was 6 when his father moved the family from East Los Angeles to New England to take a job as a floor sander.
By age 13, Jorge Boror was buying his own floor resurfacing equipment and working part-time alongside his father. By 17, he was a full-fledged contractor, juggling up to three side jobs at any given time.
Now, Boror has managed to parlay his father’s trade into a promising business without a minute of management experience or a penny of startup capital.
Boror said he intends to grow RENDE (an acronym for Renovation and Design) into “the biggest hardwood flooring company in New England,” but it’s not something he would force on his children (when and if he decides to have children).
“I would teach my kids the ropes of owning a business, but I would want them to do their own thing,” he said. “I would have already conquered this business by then and I would want them to blaze their own trail.”
Ama and Isaac Amponsah, who own Ama’s Variety and Mini Market at 957 Main St. in Pawtucket, said they opened the store in order to become more self-reliant.
“We wanted to work for ourselves – to be in control,” said Ama, who emigrated from Ghana with her husband in 1981. “I like being a mother and a business owner, because I have more flexibility. If I needed to pick my kids up at school, I could. I couldn’t do that if I worked for someone else.”
Ama and Isaac have insisted that their kids work in the store – all three children climbed onto a milk crate and learned how to operate the cash register when they turned 6 – but they were never expected to follow in their parents’ footsteps.
The couple’s daughter, Alethea, recently graduated from Tufts University with a double major in clinical psychology and child development. She is currently working for a property management company in Cambridge, Mass.
“We wanted them to work here because it was important that they learn how to handle money and how to interact with people, but I don’t think any of them love the business,” Ama explained. “To do this job you have to love what you do, and I do. I love my customers and I love my store.”
