Immigrants Can Become Successful Without Learning English

The New York Times wrote a story this week highlighting immigrants who have become millionaires, despite not speaking English. In the context of the report, these entrepreneurs have been successful without English because they do business either largely in ethnic communities in urban areas or internationally with their home countries.

Here are some examples:

• Felix Sanchez de la Vega Guzman…turned a business selling tortillas on the street into a $19 million food manufacturing empire that threaded together the Mexican diaspora from coast to coast and reached back into Mexico itself.
• …Zhang Yulong, 39, who emigrated from China in 1994 and now presides over a $30-million-a-year cellphone accessories empire in New York with 45 employees.
• Kim Ki Chol, 59, who arrived in the United States from South Korea in 1981, opened a clothing accessories store in Brooklyn and went on to become a successful retailer, real estate investor and civic leader in the region’s Korean diaspora.

Of course this is not a new story. I know of several examples from my own life of business people, Latino or not, who perhaps did not speak English, but managed to make their American Dreams come true anyway.

One sparkling example absent from the story that comes to mind are the Korean shop keepers who live and work along the Texas-Mexico border selling goods primarily to the Mexican nationals who come over to shop. Although they do not speak English — they speak Spanish — a true example that, if there’s a will there’s a way.