Transcript
Leslie Mix
President/CEO, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Northern Nevada
Are these small Hispanic business providing employment?
Well, yes, they provide employment to Reno residents; they are in growth mode. The smarter businesses begin by opening a business, by growing the business. Then they start expanding their market a little bit, they look at owning the building that their business is in so that they don't have to deal with raising leases. Most people who are going to be successful in this country recognize that they've got to learn English, so even if they start out not speaking in English, they take ESL classes in the middle of these 20-hour days that they work. They begin to look at that they have access not only to the Hispanic market, but now they have access to the whole market when you can speak two languages. In our city, it's almost 1 out of every 4 or 5 people is Hispanic, and 85% of the people that live there prefer to speak Spanish over English, so if you can cross over in both languages, it's to everybody's economic opportunity and advantage to speak and be bilingual.
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