Thursday, February 15, 2007

Immigrants find success as entrepreneurs

Stories of a few immigrants who are entrepreneurs and have their own businesses now. DP

By ELIZABETH LLORENTE, STAFF WRITER

NorthJersey.com: Herminio Morales did the odd jobs so familiar to new immigrants: He worked as a dishwasher, a busboy and a factory worker.

The toiling helped put food on the table, but it also seemed a dead end to Morales, who left a life of poverty in Mexico with dreams of someday owning a home and living comfortably in the United States.

"It meant long, long hours working for someone else, and hardly any time for me to spend with my family, and to devote to doing things to help me really advance in this country, things like learning English," Morales said.

So he followed another familiar immigrant path -- he scraped together some hard-earned savings, and went into business for himself.

He dabbled in a few -- investment properties, tortilla manufacturing -- before opening up a travel agency in Passaic nearly 15 years ago right in the heart of the city's mushrooming Mexican community.
Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.

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