Diana Haynie had lived in the Quad-Cities for around 15 years before deciding to start her own business. But when she began sifting through the initial paperwork and applications, the Guatemala native said, once again, everything felt foreign.
"I think the first challenge was the language barrier," Haynie, owner of Q-C Tote Bag & Tag, said. "As I go, my English is getting better and I'm able to communicate better. But everything I had to do, I had to do it twice. There was always something I was wondering, 'what is the meaning of this?' I had to try twice as hard just to understand."
Every step of the way was a challenge, she said, from financing to licensing to marketing. But now a year-and-a-half into her business venture, Haynie's persistence has paid off, she said. And Friday morning, she shared her story and sold some of her products at Illinois’ first Immigrant Entrepreneurs Summit at the TaxSlayer Center in Moline.
People are also reading…
A regular at Moline's weekly Mercado on Fifth, Haynie always believed she’d become an entrepreneur, even working for Elliott Aviation and other companies for years.
"I worked in the aviation industry, and in the interior area, for a long time. And I gave them a lot of my talent," she said. "I have a lot of talent. And eventually I felt like this is my time to do something for me."
Her confidence helped, but setting out on her own to start and run a business was no easy task. And according to Ann Friederichs, business adviser with the Western Illinois University Quad-Cities Small Business Development Center, Haynie’s struggles are common among the majority of immigrant entrepreneurs.
“Access to capital is a huge need on all sorts of levels,” said Friederichs, who on average helps around 150 residents start, sustain or sell businesses. “And so is technical assistance, like putting together some of the items you need to actually start a business and have a presence online. But one thing they don’t need is the energy and the stick-to-it-ness and the commitment. They’ve got that. They’re ready to go. They’re so fired up. I think entrepreneurship is in their DNA.”
‘That’s the spirit of the entrepreneur: always hungry’
More than 200 business owners and entrepreneurs flocked to the TaxSlayer Center Friday morning, representing dozens of nationalities and countries, including Mexico, China, Burma and Togo, to only name a few.
While the Greater Quad-Cities Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, St. Ambrose University and other organizations have held smaller summits for immigrant entrepreneurs in the past, Friday's event was the first intensive, workshop-based day-long summit to be held in the Quad-Cities.
It was also the first Immigrant Entrepreneurs Summit, or IES, outside of Iowa, according to program manager Dan Kim. He said the summits began 10 years ago in Des Moines, the brainchild of three immigrant business owners.
"We were encountering a lot of refugees coming into the state of Iowa, and of course they were not understanding the rules and regulations as to how to run a company in the state," Kim said. "They decided they wanted to help fill the gaps for immigrant business owners and connect them with people who knew information, or financial institutions to get funding."
Through that, the non-profit was formed, and the first Des Moines event hosted around 250 people. Since then, the group has been holding smaller summits year-round across Iowa, and celebrated its 10th anniversary in Ankeny last year.
Now, he hopes to take the summits nationwide. They started with Illinois, and after working with refugee and immigrant resource groups in the Q-C, chose Moline as the host city.
"A lot of the participants are coming from the Hispanic community that Moline has, or in the Quad-Cities, coming from the African community, the Togolese community, or from Sudan," he said. "And all of these communities have been very responsive."
Providing free and accessible information to those looking to start a business is becoming more necessary with time, Kim said, as the immigrant population grows. And, according to a 2016 report on start-up activity by the Kauffman Foundation, immigrants account for 27.5 percent of all new entrepreneurs in America. That's up from more than 13 percent a decade ago, and despite the fact immigrants only make up 13.5 percent of the U.S. population.
"I think it's because refugees especially have very low baggage; they don't worry about what they have because they often have nothing," said Ying Sa, one of the IES founders. "When you get here and have no place to go, and are even lower than where you were, you can only go up. A lot of immigrant refugees are that way. They come with not even a penny. Even making $5 is a celebration. But that's the spirit of the entrepreneur: always hungry and always wanting to do more."
Natural risk-takers, immigrants are nearly twice as likely to start a business as native-born Americans, according to the Kauffman Foundation report.
'It's understanding your right as an American'
Quad-City immigrants spent Friday learning how to finance businesses, start tax plans, hire employees, understand legal jargon, use social media and create innovative marketing.
Sa, a native of China and founder of Community CPA, calls the summit a "crash course in 18 different topics," also featuring talks about zoning, payroll, building codes and other processes hard to understand, especially for those unfamiliar with American government.
"I think because a lot of new immigrants here are refugees, given that particular background, a lot of them come in with a lot of fear of the government," she said. "Asking questions to the government is not as easy as it is for people who were born here and know their rights, know what to ask and what to reject."
Kim said many of the people the group works with have no idea where to go to start a business. And it's often a scary process.
"A lot of them, wherever they're coming form, have faced a lot of injustice. So that doesn't really allow them to build trust immediately for the authority or financial community," he said. "At IES, everybody's on the same platform. We have one goal and that is to build each other up and support each other. When trust is established and a connection is made, they can continue to share that information to the rest of the community."
Representatives from legal firms, non-profits, banks, colleges and other organizations passed out information and held seminars throughout the day. The Small Business Development Center in Moline, for example, offered free bilingual information on budgeting, insurance, taxes, investing and more.
But for Sa, she said the most important tool for immigrant entrepreneurs to learn is understanding your rights as an American.
"Every immigrant group goes through the process to become American, but one important factor to become a real American is to understand the right of being American," she said. "And it's not about if you speak fluent English or not. It's not about if you dye your hair color to brown so you're more like the majority. It has so much to do with knowing your right, the regulations, government positions, the positions you take, and how that can be reconciled through the legal process. All of these things are the most vital part of becoming American. That's part of having the American dream."
'We have to do better before we can expect society to'
Sa moved to Canada as a teenager. It was hard enough for her to feel like she fit in at school, but now she didn't even understand the language.
Moving from Canada to the U.S. in 1996 was less of a leap, and now Sa considers herself a global citizen. Despite not understanding American regulations and legal processes when she arrived, being a quick learner helped her catch on pretty fast, she said. But she knew other immigrants in her Des Moines community were struggling.
She formed Community CPA two years later to help immigrants navigate the system. But even as a successful entrepreneur, with all of the knowledge of American business at her fingertips, Sa said it's still challenging being an immigrant in Iowa.
"A lot of entrepreneurs struggle on the knowledge side, but now I'm the one giving advice. What I really struggle with in the Midwest is struggling for acceptance," she said. "To have people view you as someone who is competent, especially from Caucasian groups, that was a long time coming."
Sa told stories of people walking into her office, seeking help she could easily give them, but refusing to acknowledge her position. One woman grew angry no certified public accountants were around to help her, while ignoring Sa as she explained she is, in fact, a CPA. She walked out of the office, leaving Sa in tears.
"I was crying for not being able to display myself as someone who is confident. I know that's not me. I know it's just because I have black hair and am Asian — not the typical CPA look," she said. "You have to really not take that personally. I make sure I always realign my feelings, if I'm being discriminated against, and try to look the other way. That's something nobody can really help you with. Society needs time to recognize you."
Nowadays, Sa said most of her clients probably "don't even recognize I'm Chinese. I'm just American." She advised it "just takes time."
And she remains hopeful society is moving in a positive direction when it comes to opportunities for immigrants, especially those hoping to foster their risk-taking spirit through entrepreneurship.
"I know the immigration issue is such a hot topic. Every time you mention the word 'immigrant,' we classify that into this undocumented immigrant group," she said. "But IES is really focused on the positive of having people who are diverse and can be an asset. As long as we have immigrants coming in and positively contributing to the community, coming out of welfare, making money and raising kids, that's what the IES spirit is."
In Iowa, IES has helped created more than 1,200 new companies since 2008, including the creation of 6,200 jobs.
"Having a business is a very visible sign of what you provide to the community," Sa said. "We need to build shining examples in every immigrant community. I think humanity is always getting better, even though we're going through struggles. And on our own, we have to do better before we can expect society to do better."