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Some immigrants lose homes in pandemic economy
The pandemic has caused an increasing number of unauthorized immigrants to fall through the cracks, some advocates and non-profits say. They worked in hard-hit industries, such as restaurants, hospitality and construction. (May 4)
AP
One by one, Nieves Nuñez kept a steady pace as she skillfully wrapped shredded chicken inside empanada dough in her restaurant Sazón Frank in Utica, which serves food from her native Dominican Republic.
Nuñez has cooked all kinds of Caribbean delicacies − like arroz con habichuelas (rice and beans), tostones (fried plantains) and mofongo (mashed fried plantains) − in Utica-area restaurants for 20 years. One day, she decided to be her own boss and in 2020, opened her own restaurant, she explained in Spanish, barely stopping after sealing yet another empanada with a fork.
While the pandemic brought challenges for her − she almost died due to complications from COVID-19 − starting her restaurant was no easy task either: it was a”nightmare,” she said.
When she felt ready to start her business venture, she found herself with no clue how to do it. She didn’t know which permits and forms were required, or how to access local resources, especially because she speaks limited English. But if someone isn’t fluent, starting your own business is impossible, she said.
For many immigrants and refugees, this experience isn’t unique.
If language is an issue, starting a business means finding someone they trust who can interpret, usually a relative or friend. And while immigrants are 80% more likely than U.S.-born citizens to form new businesses, they face language and cultural barriers, lack of trust and representation and unfamiliarity with the requirements that US-born citizens don’t worry about, said Shelly Callahan, executive director of The Center, a refugee resettlement organization in Utica.
“Even if they’re aware of the resources, they’re not comfortable,” Callahan said. “Maybe they don’t trust them and they are inclined to do everything in their own particular way, which can be incredibly taxing and risky,” she said.
Upstate New York cities like Utica, Syracuse and Rochester have welcomed waves of refugees and immigrants in recent years, with Utica earning the nickname “the town that loves refugees.” As of June, New York has resettled nearly 1,000 refugees this year so far.
Now, advocates and entrepreneurs across the state are helping break down the barriers these populations face when trying to fully participate in New York’s business landscape.
“It impacts the fabric of the entire city,” Callahan said. “For every refugee or immigrant (or) somebody that starts a business, that just increases the cultural competency of the entire city. There’s going to be cultural things in there and you really just increase the warmth and welcome of the city just having businesses that reflect the community back.”
Business owners: What challenges have they faced?
“How to start a business” was one of the first things Nuñez googled before opening Sazón Frank. She recalls the six months she spent on the Internet doing as much research as she could handle.
When customers enter her restaurant, she greets them with a warm smile and a “Hello” or “Hola,” depending on the person. She could not be prouder of her ability to speak the two languages, although her English is limited.
She wasn’t surprised to see that all the documents she needed to fill out, such as business registration forms or restaurant permit applications, were in English. On top of that, she felt there was an overall lack of employees in public offices who speak different languages and can help those diverse communities.
“If this is a country with a lot of diversity, they’re supposed to have documents in different languages,” she said. “If there’s nobody that speaks Spanish in (public offices), how are they going to understand you if you don’t speak English?”
Business prospects who do not speak English usually bring an interpreter with them, such as a friend or child, to City Hall in Utica, said Jack Spaeth, the city’s Economic Development Specialist. City Hall does have Bosnian and Hispanic employees to assist if needed, he added.
Like many immigrant parents in the U.S., Nuñez asked her daughter, who is bilingual and went to school in the U.S., for help, but even she had trouble understanding documents like the CE-200 form, which shows a business is exempt from providing workers’ compensation and/or disability and Paid Family Leave benefits.
Nuñez warned that because many of the documents and information are found online, this makes the process harder for those without the knowledge or even Internet access.
Language barriers and unawareness also become an issue when requesting a health inspection that gives a restaurant the green light to open.
While the Oneida County Health Department works with interpreters to overcome language barriers, public health director Daniel Gilmore said many people don’t know what requirements businesses need to pass a health inspection. Some examples were lack of kitchen arrangements or set up, adequate hand-washing facilities, a dishwasher, and refrigeration to maintain adequate cooling or drainage facilities.
This is one of the most critical steps in the process because, without approval from a local health department, restaurants and food service businesses cannot operate, he said.
Also, “there’s some costs involved that people might not be aware of,” Gilmore said.
To raise awareness, the health department provides trainings with no direct fee, although owners pay for a food service permit, he said. The cost of food permits ranges between $300 for high-risk food service establishments, or businesses that “conduct complex cooking processes such as advance preparation, cooling and reheating,” and $175 for low-risk food establishments like bars and coffee shops.
In the face of these hurdles, Nuñez encouraged entrepreneurs to ask business owners, especially in their own communities, about their experiences and seek advice.
That’s exactly what Peggy Avilés did when she found herself having to renew her restaurant’s license. When she first opened La Perla Restaurant in 2021, she received help from a friend and her attorney, who took care of all the paperwork. But when that help wasn’t available again to renew her license, Avilés had to look for other avenues.
Avilés, who is originally from Honduras, moved from New York City to Utica in 2021 to be closer to her parents − but she also had the vision of someday opening a restaurant.
Speaking hardly any English, she had managed to work in restaurant kitchens for a decade and was determined to create a life for her and her children in a new city if that meant being closer to loved ones.
Soon she faced the devastation over her parents’ death and had to contend with her restaurant’s permit expiration date approaching − the renewal of that permit felt like starting over again. Then, an acquaintance encouraged her to call Sonia Martinez, executive director of the Mohawk Valley Latino Association, a local nonprofit that could help her.
Avilés described how she managed to understand employees working in county or city offices, who would tell her to fill out forms that were in English.
“They don’t try to understand you. They didn’t try to understand me when I needed help,” Avilés said. “How do they think I’m going to feel? When I ask a simple question and I find these obstacles or they don’t even want to listen to me. I felt discriminated against. They didn’t explain anything to me.”
But in light of those barriers, Avilés turned to Martinez, who is bilingual, for help. Overall, MVLA helped Avilés renew her restaurant’s license, complete workers’ compensation documents, and obtain her business insurance at no cost to her.
In early 2022, La Perla Restaurant began operating again.
“That’s why the restaurant is open, because that organization revived it,” Avilés said in Spanish. “One person by themselves definitely can’t do it, I think not even speaking English, because of all the legal language.”
The cost of a dream
Starting a business is an investment of thousands of dollars. Once all the forms are completed, entrepreneurs have to arrange for insurance, rent and other costs. As they establish themselves in a new country, many immigrants and entrepreneurs can’t make the initial investment, so they wait years to make their business dreams come true.
It took Mersiha Omeragic 15 years of saving to purchase her dream business: Yummilicious Cafe & Bakery on Rutger Street in Utica. Her journey in the city began decades ago − she arrived in 1994 as a 19-year-old Bosnian refugee escaping the country’s war. The cafe has become a place for everyone and refugees alike to feel comfortable, she said.
But the COVID-19 pandemic soon arrived and threatened to bring her newly opened venture crashing down.
Omeragic said she thought she was going to have a heart attack.
“I can’t even tell you the stress of all of that,” said Omeragic, who works in the cafe with her husband Hajrudin with the help of two of their children. “Restaurant businesses, bakery is the toughest, toughest job I ever had in my life. It’s so much stress, it’s not just work, you are married to this job.”
Omeragic said she would like to see more organizations reach out direcly to the communities that need entrepreneurial advice, but also encourages those wanting to start a business to think it through before investing so many resources and time.
“We wash, we clean, we prep, we do food, we do desserts, you name it. I’m a social media, I’m an accountant I can’t tell your every position possible,” she said. “You have to be ready for that.”
Despite the challenges, Omeragic said she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“But when you think, you sit down, and you think about this is our dream. We’ve been working so hard for this you know and we came from Bosnia and we went through war (…) so if we can survive all of that, and came to this country with nothing to build our dream, COVID is just another obstacle. Let’s just try and work harder. And that’s what we did.”
Assistance and programs: Who’s here to help?
When things get complicated, many business owners turn to agencies and nonprofits like The Center, which has numerous refugees on the staff.
In addition to language and cultural barriers, immigrants and refugees sometimes also face knowledge gaps, Callahan said. One of the first steps is to create a business plan to present to a financial institution, she said, and if entrepreneurs don’t know what it is or don’t understand the language, they’re “out of the loop.”
The Center works with several community partners to address those barriers. But sometimes, agencies don’t understand what those barriers are, and that makes it difficult for those institutions to come up with solutions, Callahan said.
“We need to work a little bit harder to make sure that all of our entrepreneurs in the community have access to the resources to give them the best chance at success,” she said. “Institutionally, we need to look at how we’re doing things: Are we creating barriers; is there a way to simplify things?”
The Mohawk Valley Latino Association receives dozens of clients every week seeking business assistance, said Martinez, its executive director. For her, not speaking the language creates further hurdles and prevents people from asking for help.
But the issue goes both ways, she said.
“When someone arrives at City Hall, everything is in English and when they go in, the person who welcomes them is a police officer and that person doesn’t speak Spanish, he only speaks English,” Martinez said.
Everybody faces challenges when starting a business, and people like Ryan Miller, who runs the ThINCubator, an entrepreneurship hub in downtown Utica, offers free coaching and mentorship and assists with their business plan, accounting, marketing and branding.
“A lot of these skills are not taught in school,” Miller said. “I don’t want them to think there’s something wrong with them. We get excited as entrepreneurs and that’s good, but your probability of success are higher if we can dial in to those costs.”
Salt City Market: Helping immigrants get a business boost
Burma, Vietnam, Cambodia, Jamaica, Afghanistan, Thailand: Salt City Market is a mini world of food in Syracuse. The food hall serves as a first business opportunity for ten different food stalls, many of which are immigrant and refugee-owned businesses that rent spaces.
While the City of Syracuse offers several resources and a step-by-step guide on what people need to set up a business, Salt City Market offers courses on entrepreneurship to help bridge the cultural gap.
To overcome the existing cultural and language barriers, Adam Sudmann, founder and manager of the food hall, said he encourages business owners to bring someone they trust with them that can interpret because they don’t have the resources to bring an interpreter on staff.
“People may not know Burma, but it you’re underneath this roof, there’s a kind of trust − but if you have a standalone it’s way more difficult,” Sudmann said.
Entrepreneurship takes on a different form depending on the country, and regulations may look different than in the U.S., said Mike Coniff, CEO of Rochester Refugee Resettlement Services.
“I can sell vegetables off a stand, but then I go through all these regulations…(In) countries that are not as urbanized, they just don’t have them,” he said. “If I’m making some ethnic foods and I’m using materials that are not common to the U.S. food markets, that comes with an additional challenge.”
Cultural differences present a secondary complication, because languages can be interpreted, but cultural concepts and traditions are harder to convey.
“We have all of these financial obligations, permits, licensing,” Coniff said. “With that background, it’s obviously challenging and any organization that is going to (help immigrants or refugees) needs to be sensitive to that and adjust accordingly.”
Looking to start a business? Here are some tips
- Identify what type of business are you planning to open. Is it a restaurant, a food store, a retail store? Depending on the business, you will need to acquire certain permits and licenses in order to operate.
- Decide your business’ location. This will determine your taxes, zoning laws and regulations that your business will be subject to.
- Create a business plan that outlines the business’ goals and how you plan to achieve them. A business plan also identifies your business’ target audience, organization and management, marketing strategies and more.
- Identify the cost of starting a business and how it will be financed. Will you rent or purchase a space for your business? Are you using personal savings or requesting a business loan? Financial institutions can assist you by going over your business proposal.
- Choose a business structure. Is it a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC), a sole proprietorship, partnership or something else? Your business structure affects how much you pay in taxes, your ability to raise money, the paperwork you need to file and your personal liability.
- Register your business with your state.
- Obtain federal and state tax ID numbers or an Employer Identification Number (EIN) for your business. These are like a your business’ social security number, which you will use to file taxes.
- Apply for licenses and permits based on the type of business you are starting.
- Open a business bank account.
- Get business insurance.
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