The Alpha Dogs Blog

Because today is "A Day Without Immigrants" and because my 16-year daughter, who I constantly encourage to "get political" is now nagging me to do the same (ah, we reap what we sow!), I thought I'd post some thoughts on the subject. A few weeks ago, I read an editorial in The Washington Post called "A National Built on Immigrant Genes," by John D. Gartner, an assistant professor of psychology at John Hopkins University Medical School and author of "The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between (a Little) Craziness and (a Lot of) Success in America." As someone who is both passionate about entrepreneurship and who is the granddaughter of Polish immigrants, what Gartner had to say really resonated with me. "The secret to America's wealth is that we were settled by restless, driven, overconfident, risk-taking dreamers," he says. And then he goes on to site a study by The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor that puts some meat on the bones: The four countries with the highest per capita creation of start-up companies -- the United States, Canada, Israel, and Australia -- also happen to be nations of immigrants. Coincidence? I don't think so. Consider that in the 90s, the total number of U.S. businesses grew by 12% but the number of Hispanic-owned business grew by 144% and the number of Asian-owned businesses grew by 176%. So before we close the borders, let's remember that the immigrants we let in today may begin their working lives in America by performing manual labor, just like so may of our grandparents did, but that their courage, tolerance for risk, and work ethic is the foundation for the next generation of entrepreneurial companies.