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Diversity For Growth by Richard T. Herman, Immigration Lawyer and Author was recorded Tuesday, June 9, 2015 in Cleveland, Ohio. [00:36:56]
Introduction Hi, I’m Richard Herman, I’m an immigration lawyer based in Cleveland and some people refer to me as an evangelist for welcoming immigrants to cities across America as a way to grow the population, attract entrepreneurs, and ultimately create jobs for Americans to make our cities more vibrant. I started this crusade as a Clevelander where I was born and raised. |
Immigration As An Economic Driver Of Population Growth, Entrepreneur Attraction and American Job Creation
I love my home town. I graduated from Case Western Reserve University School of Law in 1993 and decided to pursue my dream abroad and move to Russia. I lived in Moscow for two years as an American lawyer and my job there was to help Russian entrepreneurs move to the United States and expand their businesses. That’s where I really fell in love with immigrant entrepreneurs. I started to see the resolve, the resilience, the passion to surmount any obstacle. But that’s really where I fell in love with the United States, which sounds like a cliche, but that’s really when I fell in love with Cleveland. You can’t see the beauty of Cleveland until you’re on the outside looking in. And on the outside looking in was, “Wow! What a great city!” It’s got so many natural resources, actual capacity, and talent, infrastructure and so when I moved back to Cleveland in 1995 I saw a city in the decline. The city was depopulating, losing companies, losing jobs, and we were just in free fall. That continued for many years.
So when I started my law practice in downtown helping immigrants I started to see a connection between my work with immigrants as an immigration lawyer and the potential future of the city to embrace immigration as an economic development driver.
My office is at East 9th Street and Superior Avenue and I could almost envision as I walked to work every day the tumbleweeds going down East 9th St. as the empty streets were just so blatant. I met a guy, a journalist from The Plain Dealer, Bob Smith. Bob wrote about immigration and demographics and later became the economic development reporter for The Cleveland Plain Dealer. Bob and I struck up a friendship in part because we were both writing about the same things and talking about the same things around immigration. But also because of our families. Bob and I are married to women from abroad. We’re, at least I’ll speak for myself, a lazy white guy from the Midwest and I married a woman from Taiwan and Bob the same way, his wife is from South Korea. We both had young children and so we started becoming drinking buddies to commiserate, like, we can’t keep up with our immigrant spouses. It was all about education for the children, and Suzuki violin, and Chinese acrobat lessons, and competitive swimming and so Bob and I were saying, and he’s at The Plain Dealer down on Superior Avenue a few blocks from me and he says, “You know, Rich, may be immigration is what Cleveland really needs? It’s what we’re experiencing in our home lives: this energy, and vigor and maybe this is the secret sauce to getting back into the New Economy and getting back into the game?” Training the cubs to compete outside the den as they grow up. So, maybe we should write a book about it and start to research the stories of people, of immigrants creating jobs, creating companies, but also what cities around the country are doing on this issue. So, we sold the idea to a publishing house, Wiley Publishing, the largest business book publisher in the country. They said, “Great! We love the idea! Go around the country and gather stories from the billionaires, and the bodego owners, these immigrants who started these companies.
"We want to help raise awareness in America that immigrants are not job takers, immigrants are job creators.” ~ Wiley Publishing.
So, what we found was staggering. We found the new research coming out of Stanford University and Duke University and Harvard University that immigrants were twice as likely to start a business than American born, that immigrants were twice as likely to file a patent compared to American born, immigrants are more likely to have relationships overseas in emerging markets. So, immigrants were an incredible resource for cities looking to reinvent economies and grow the economy. Silicon Valley, California is a good example of that. Half the companies in Silicon Valley were founded by immigrants. Google, PayPal, Intel, Yahoo, YouTube, eBay, these are all immigrant founded companies.
So, a city like Cleveland or Pittsburgh or Detroit looking for new answers to reposition and pivot to a new economy, why aren’t we looking to immigrants as a resource? We started looking at a study in Cleveland and we learned that less than 5% is foreign born. That was a bad sign because the national average is about 13% in the country and the cities that are really popping economically, are 20%-25% foreign born.
I testified at City Council in Cleveland a couple of years ago and not that they had any real interest in the issue at that time, but I said, “Listen I really want to see what we’re talking about. Forget the white papers and the research, I’m not sure they mean anything anyway, let’s get on a bus and I’ll drive the bus and we’ll go to Toronto, five hours to the north and we’ll see what happens when a Great Lakes, cold, grey city embraces immigration and see what happens.” Our fears of this city being destroyed and people losing jobs and housing values dropping are just that: they’re fears they are not founded in fact. What we’ll see in Toronto is a city that is a global city, it’s morphed into a global city. 50% of the population is foreign born, they are just popping and they have a housing problem too - they’re housing problem is the housing values keep going up!
So, when I look at Cleveland and I see all these abandoned properties and they want to demolish or mothball these homes, I don’t hear people saying, “Well, why don’t we attract the immigrants and welcome immigrants as part of the equation?” That’s really why we wrote this book, to try to change the perception that immigrants offer incredible value to our community and we should be figuring out ways to make them more a part of our community, part of our Cleveland family and the conversation I have heard in so many rooms in Cleveland, in Board rooms and political offices and foundation offices is just the exact opposite of what other cities are doing and so that’s why we wanted to start that conversation.
So, a city like Cleveland or Pittsburgh or Detroit looking for new answers to reposition and pivot to a new economy, why aren’t we looking to immigrants as a resource? We started looking at a study in Cleveland and we learned that less than 5% is foreign born. That was a bad sign because the national average is about 13% in the country and the cities that are really popping economically, are 20%-25% foreign born.
I testified at City Council in Cleveland a couple of years ago and not that they had any real interest in the issue at that time, but I said, “Listen I really want to see what we’re talking about. Forget the white papers and the research, I’m not sure they mean anything anyway, let’s get on a bus and I’ll drive the bus and we’ll go to Toronto, five hours to the north and we’ll see what happens when a Great Lakes, cold, grey city embraces immigration and see what happens.” Our fears of this city being destroyed and people losing jobs and housing values dropping are just that: they’re fears they are not founded in fact. What we’ll see in Toronto is a city that is a global city, it’s morphed into a global city. 50% of the population is foreign born, they are just popping and they have a housing problem too - they’re housing problem is the housing values keep going up!
So, when I look at Cleveland and I see all these abandoned properties and they want to demolish or mothball these homes, I don’t hear people saying, “Well, why don’t we attract the immigrants and welcome immigrants as part of the equation?” That’s really why we wrote this book, to try to change the perception that immigrants offer incredible value to our community and we should be figuring out ways to make them more a part of our community, part of our Cleveland family and the conversation I have heard in so many rooms in Cleveland, in Board rooms and political offices and foundation offices is just the exact opposite of what other cities are doing and so that’s why we wanted to start that conversation.
A Holistic Perspective Unlocks The Joy Of Diversity
[00:06:38]
I think what really drives me is the joy of being around people who are different from me. I really love that. I love being a “stranger in a strange land” and the word “grok” you know, comes to mind if you guys remember the Robert Heinlein book, the science fiction book. But it’s cool, it’s fun to get outside your comfort zone, experience new foods, new cultures, new ways of praying. As a matter of fact, in our house, my wife and I, we bought a home a few years ago that was owned by an Indian Hindu family. And there’s a temple in our house, a Hindu temple with a six foot high, six foot long carved stone temple. It’s funny because I’m raised Catholic and she was raised in a Buddhist family in Taipei but went to a Catholic school in Taipei, so this is really about connecting all these different backgrounds and leveraging that to make us stronger, not weaker. So, I enjoy going to different restaurants, whether it’s an Ethiopian restaurant in Cleveland right down the street on St. Clair Avenue or the Arab restaurant on West 25th Street or whatever, you can travel the world right in your own city or get on a plane and for $500 bucks travel halfway around the planet. So, to me, that is really the opportunity. That the world is open, and you can access resources, and people and talent from around the world, so why not do that?
I think that one of the challenges in this globalization conversation is, what about people left behind? And the feeling is there are people who don’t have access to that. By definition, they would be left further behind if you pursue this and I think that is a misguided notion and actually we can all go together.
One of the things we talk about is, can we connect some foreign investment into urban areas in Cleveland? I belong to the Chinese Merchants Association and we’re seeing money flowing from China into certain parts, certain streets in Cleveland for rehab and development. Why not connect them to the African American business community leaders here in Cleveland? Why don’t we go to China and invite our African American friends to go with us? Let’s do this together. It doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game and I think that’s too much the conversation.
When we talk about diversity we usually talk about it in Cleveland as a white or black issue. And the rest of the world is not talking that way or the rest of the county. It’s a broad spectrum of race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation and everybody deserves a seat at the table.
So, that’s what drives me, I think unlocking the power of diversity both for personal joy and also for economic growth because everybody has something special to offer, everybody, no matter what their background and the key is taking joy in that and connecting those resources.
I think what really drives me is the joy of being around people who are different from me. I really love that. I love being a “stranger in a strange land” and the word “grok” you know, comes to mind if you guys remember the Robert Heinlein book, the science fiction book. But it’s cool, it’s fun to get outside your comfort zone, experience new foods, new cultures, new ways of praying. As a matter of fact, in our house, my wife and I, we bought a home a few years ago that was owned by an Indian Hindu family. And there’s a temple in our house, a Hindu temple with a six foot high, six foot long carved stone temple. It’s funny because I’m raised Catholic and she was raised in a Buddhist family in Taipei but went to a Catholic school in Taipei, so this is really about connecting all these different backgrounds and leveraging that to make us stronger, not weaker. So, I enjoy going to different restaurants, whether it’s an Ethiopian restaurant in Cleveland right down the street on St. Clair Avenue or the Arab restaurant on West 25th Street or whatever, you can travel the world right in your own city or get on a plane and for $500 bucks travel halfway around the planet. So, to me, that is really the opportunity. That the world is open, and you can access resources, and people and talent from around the world, so why not do that?
I think that one of the challenges in this globalization conversation is, what about people left behind? And the feeling is there are people who don’t have access to that. By definition, they would be left further behind if you pursue this and I think that is a misguided notion and actually we can all go together.
One of the things we talk about is, can we connect some foreign investment into urban areas in Cleveland? I belong to the Chinese Merchants Association and we’re seeing money flowing from China into certain parts, certain streets in Cleveland for rehab and development. Why not connect them to the African American business community leaders here in Cleveland? Why don’t we go to China and invite our African American friends to go with us? Let’s do this together. It doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game and I think that’s too much the conversation.
When we talk about diversity we usually talk about it in Cleveland as a white or black issue. And the rest of the world is not talking that way or the rest of the county. It’s a broad spectrum of race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation and everybody deserves a seat at the table.
So, that’s what drives me, I think unlocking the power of diversity both for personal joy and also for economic growth because everybody has something special to offer, everybody, no matter what their background and the key is taking joy in that and connecting those resources.
"Unlocking the power of diversity both for personal joy and also for economic growth because everybody has something special to offer, everybody, no matter what their background and the key is taking joy in that and connecting those resources."
Immigrant And Minority Communities Are Reservoirs Of Entrepreneurship
[00:09:20]
I think what I’d like people to do, is to reach out, in Cleveland, I’m talking about Cleveland, which I think is a very siloed community, as living in the former Soviet Union, this reminds me of a Soviet style city in many ways. The power structure is siloed, it’s a control down economy with a few players whether it’s the Chamber of Commerce or foundations or City Hall or political leaders, there doesn’t seem to be a free flow of information, a free flow of ideas in many ways and there’s even efforts to stop free flows of ideas, so I think what we really need is for people to get out of their comfort zones. I love to see people connect across cross cultural and racial lines in a much more significant way. Why can’t we have an incubator in Cleveland that connects African American businesses with immigrant businesses?
I think what I’d like people to do, is to reach out, in Cleveland, I’m talking about Cleveland, which I think is a very siloed community, as living in the former Soviet Union, this reminds me of a Soviet style city in many ways. The power structure is siloed, it’s a control down economy with a few players whether it’s the Chamber of Commerce or foundations or City Hall or political leaders, there doesn’t seem to be a free flow of information, a free flow of ideas in many ways and there’s even efforts to stop free flows of ideas, so I think what we really need is for people to get out of their comfort zones. I love to see people connect across cross cultural and racial lines in a much more significant way. Why can’t we have an incubator in Cleveland that connects African American businesses with immigrant businesses?
“We know the data shows immigrants are entrepreneurial and twice as likely to start a business than Americans, but we also know that African Americans were the most prolific entrepreneurial group in America in the early part of the twentieth century and this was because of exclusion.” ~ Johnson Lee Butler.
One of my favorite books is called, edited by Johnson Lee Butler who has the entrepreneurship program at the University of Texas, he’s African American, and in his introduction he says, “African Americans and immigrants have a lot in common” he says, “they’re both outsider groups and in some way disconnected from the mainstream. But also, they’re both entrepreneurial groups.” He said, “We know the data shows immigrants are entrepreneurial and twice as likely to start a business than Americans, but we also know that African Americans were the most prolific entrepreneurial group in America in the early part of the twentieth century and this was because of exclusion.” Hard core, brutal exclusion where communities like in Hough or different areas of Cleveland could not even come downtown to shop let alone get a job. So, in Hough, you had your own barber you had your own lawyer, your doctor, everything was there and self contained. So there was, in a way, a forced entrepreneurship. But it thrived.
So what Dr. Butler recommends is we connect to that entrepreneurial spirit - and that’s another thing I hope more of us do - is look at immigrants and minority communities as reservoirs of entrepreneurship. Untapped, unleveraged entrepreneurship. And that we should all be benefitting from that and we should all be connecting to that, re-animating that inner entrepreneur, that inner immigrant, it’s in our DNA.
So what Dr. Butler recommends is we connect to that entrepreneurial spirit - and that’s another thing I hope more of us do - is look at immigrants and minority communities as reservoirs of entrepreneurship. Untapped, unleveraged entrepreneurship. And that we should all be benefitting from that and we should all be connecting to that, re-animating that inner entrepreneur, that inner immigrant, it’s in our DNA.
The government is not going to save us, big companies are not going to save us. Entrepreneurs hold the key to a lot of growth and innovation and job creation in America. The Kauffman Foundation does the research on entrepreneurship and they said that nearly 100% of all net job creation in America since 1985 comes from companies less than five years old. So, while big businesses were destroying 1 million jobs a year, by outsourcing or inefficiencies or closure, new companies less than five years old were creating 3 million jobs per year. So, that’s where the action is. That’s where I think our energy and our creativity should be focused. How do we encourage more entrepreneurship? Again, the pie is not limited, we can grow the pie. It’s not limited to a zero-sum game, let’s go global and let’s harvest the resources that exist at the intersection of us and them.
Demographics And Resonance Leverage The Power Of Global Connectivity
[00:12:31]
The future, I think, is already here. One of the writers I love to read is Drucker, Peter Drucker who was an immigrant to the United States, passed away, from Austria and obviously he’s one of the key management gurus of all time and he was also a demographer. He said one of the most powerful forces in America, in the world, in terms of business and social change is demographics. He said it’s also the least understood and often the most ignored by policy makers and even business leaders.
Changes in demography are thought to happen slowly and very incrementally. In reality, they happen very quickly. By the time you notice it the changes have already happened and you may not be able to adapt quickly enough. So, looking at the very micro level you can see what’s happening and in America, we’re undergoing radical transformation. 13% of our population is foreign born. Actually, Asians now are faster growing than Latinos. The largest source of Latino growth is not immigration, it’s birth. If you look at the percentage of inter-racial marriages over the past twenty to thirty years, it went from one out of twenty seven to one out of sixteen and now it’s one out of seven.
So when people say to President Obama, you’ve got to put a moat around the country to keep all this diversity from coming in - diversity is happening in our homes. Are you going to put a moat around the bedroom? This is happening and so let’s celebrate it. I love watching television commercials, love watching the NBA game, go Cavs! you’d already won the championship by the time you watch this - but, watching commercials now, I’m seeing biracial families featured in the commercial. I have a thirteen year old and a twelve year old and when my daughter was four or five she asked me, “Am I Chinese or am I White? I said, “You’re both. You’re everything.” This is really this identification with the world and with multiculturalism in a very empowering experience, not alienating, this is the future.
The future, I think, is already here. One of the writers I love to read is Drucker, Peter Drucker who was an immigrant to the United States, passed away, from Austria and obviously he’s one of the key management gurus of all time and he was also a demographer. He said one of the most powerful forces in America, in the world, in terms of business and social change is demographics. He said it’s also the least understood and often the most ignored by policy makers and even business leaders.
Changes in demography are thought to happen slowly and very incrementally. In reality, they happen very quickly. By the time you notice it the changes have already happened and you may not be able to adapt quickly enough. So, looking at the very micro level you can see what’s happening and in America, we’re undergoing radical transformation. 13% of our population is foreign born. Actually, Asians now are faster growing than Latinos. The largest source of Latino growth is not immigration, it’s birth. If you look at the percentage of inter-racial marriages over the past twenty to thirty years, it went from one out of twenty seven to one out of sixteen and now it’s one out of seven.
So when people say to President Obama, you’ve got to put a moat around the country to keep all this diversity from coming in - diversity is happening in our homes. Are you going to put a moat around the bedroom? This is happening and so let’s celebrate it. I love watching television commercials, love watching the NBA game, go Cavs! you’d already won the championship by the time you watch this - but, watching commercials now, I’m seeing biracial families featured in the commercial. I have a thirteen year old and a twelve year old and when my daughter was four or five she asked me, “Am I Chinese or am I White? I said, “You’re both. You’re everything.” This is really this identification with the world and with multiculturalism in a very empowering experience, not alienating, this is the future.
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So demographics, I wish more people would look at that and say, okay I understand what’s happening, how do we leverage it? How do we make our communities stronger by acknowledging demographic changes? Making those who are outside feel more inclusive and building strategies around that. Whether it’s business strategies or other types of social engagement strategies, I don’t care if you are selling Pepsi or politics or Pampers, you’ve got to know about these communities and what resonates with them? What resonates with the Hispanic community? When we talk about the Hispanic community we’re not just talking about one model of community. There’s a Puerto Rico community which is very vibrant and American born. Then we’ve got Mexican, we’ve got Guatemalans, Salvadoran, we’ve got mixed immigration status, some are citizens by two, three, four generations and some are undocumented immigrants that just came five years ago. Who are these people and what resonates with them?
So, that’s what I hope. I hope that cities like Cleveland we don’t think about crossing the river from the east side over the Cuyahoga to the west side as being “the trip”. The trip really is now thinking and traveling and doing across time zones. Getting on planes and getting on the Internet and making connections around the world and pulling all these resources and knowledge together and saying, “I can make something special.”
So, that’s what I hope. I hope that cities like Cleveland we don’t think about crossing the river from the east side over the Cuyahoga to the west side as being “the trip”. The trip really is now thinking and traveling and doing across time zones. Getting on planes and getting on the Internet and making connections around the world and pulling all these resources and knowledge together and saying, “I can make something special.”
Shift Your Mindset From Threat To Valued Asset
[00:15:52]
By day and by night, I’m an immigration lawyer. I’m an immigrants rights lawyer and we have a law firm and we speak over twelve languages and we help immigrants and companies that hire immigrants with various legal issues. I’m an advocate for immigrant rights so I see my work in writing about the economic benefits of welcoming immigrants as an outgrowth of my role as an advocate for immigrants.
By day and by night, I’m an immigration lawyer. I’m an immigrants rights lawyer and we have a law firm and we speak over twelve languages and we help immigrants and companies that hire immigrants with various legal issues. I’m an advocate for immigrant rights so I see my work in writing about the economic benefits of welcoming immigrants as an outgrowth of my role as an advocate for immigrants.
I’m tired of hearing the immigrants being treated as liabilities or as a threat. Listening to Lou Dobbs on CNN all those years, “the immigration invasion is on”, “they’re going to destroy American life”, “they’re going to destroy your barbecue in the back yard”, “they’re taking your jobs” at one point he was saying, “they’re bringing leprosy into the United States”, “it’s gang warfare” and I’m like, that is not my experience. My experience is that I represent immigrants from all over the world and some of them represent NFL teams and bringing the kickers from Canada and Mexico. I represent researchers from the Cleveland Clinic, I represent undocumented workers in Painesville in the farming fields. What I see is incredible work ethic, incredible dedication to family, love of this new adopted country, a patriotism that exceeds most Americans that I know that have been here for four or five generations. And a willingness to risk. To risk everything.
My daughter, Isabella was about four or five and she heard her Mom and me talking about immigrates a lot in the house, so one day she tugged at my sleeve and said, “Daddy, what is an immigrant?” And so I thought, how do I explain this? And so I thought how would I explain this to Lou Dobbs? That’s probably the same demographic I would be speaking to - age wise. I said, “Well, honey, immigrants are heros. They sacrifice everything for their children and it’s all about the future and it’s all about believing in an ideal and working really, really, really hard to make it happen no matter what the cost.” And she’s like, “Wow, Daddy, when I grow up I want to be an immigrant too!” I chuckled and I said, “Well, you probably will Isabella, you’ll probably immigrate to China or India.”
The reality is, this is the new frontier: on diversity and economic development and we’re just beginning to come to grasp with globalization. With cities like Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Detroit - and I think Pittsburgh is in a better position, but I think the question is, “Do we have to be punching bags for globalization?” Can we actually turn it around and harness those connections for growth and economic opportunity?
My daughter, Isabella was about four or five and she heard her Mom and me talking about immigrates a lot in the house, so one day she tugged at my sleeve and said, “Daddy, what is an immigrant?” And so I thought, how do I explain this? And so I thought how would I explain this to Lou Dobbs? That’s probably the same demographic I would be speaking to - age wise. I said, “Well, honey, immigrants are heros. They sacrifice everything for their children and it’s all about the future and it’s all about believing in an ideal and working really, really, really hard to make it happen no matter what the cost.” And she’s like, “Wow, Daddy, when I grow up I want to be an immigrant too!” I chuckled and I said, “Well, you probably will Isabella, you’ll probably immigrate to China or India.”
The reality is, this is the new frontier: on diversity and economic development and we’re just beginning to come to grasp with globalization. With cities like Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Detroit - and I think Pittsburgh is in a better position, but I think the question is, “Do we have to be punching bags for globalization?” Can we actually turn it around and harness those connections for growth and economic opportunity?
China is looked at as the taker of American jobs. We should be flipping that and saying, “How can we attract Chinese investment to create manufacturing jobs in America?”
I will give you an example. China is looked at as the taker of American jobs. We should be flipping that and saying, “How can we attract Chinese investment to create manufacturing jobs in America?”
We already have an analogy for that, a precedent, in Japan. When Japan started investing heavily in the United States in the 1970’s, the fear was Japan will own us, Japan will take our jobs, will destroy America.
What happened?
Japan created manufacturing in the United States and they started auto manufacturing and major installations around the country creating great, well paying jobs. That could happen with China. I think it’s going to happen because I think China is starting to look at the United States, particularly the rust belt, and saying, “We can invest here, we can do some manufacturing here.” A case in point is in Dayton, a Chinese company spent $200 million and bought an abandoned GM factory and they’ve already put one hundred people to work and they’re hoping to put up to one thousand people to work in an automotive glass factory.
So, if you want to attract these resources as a community, you have to know how they think, what they’re looking for, what their thousands of years of culture mean, the dance of business conversation and developing relationships. I don’t see that happening overnight.
One of my clients in Cleveland bought a large warehouse and he’s from China and he went to some folks and said, “What do you have in Chinese that I can market Cleveland in China with?” and they said, “Nothing.” And there didn’t seem to even be an interest to even translate and that was few years ago and I think now it’s getting better but my client ended up getting the video of Cleveland, of the sexy footage of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Lake Erie and the Cleveland Clinic and sending it to Hong Kong and then hiring a journalist to superimpose against the video and talk about the attributes of Cleveland. So, I think that’s what we’re going to see happening more and more is, you know, working on that side of the isle.
We already have an analogy for that, a precedent, in Japan. When Japan started investing heavily in the United States in the 1970’s, the fear was Japan will own us, Japan will take our jobs, will destroy America.
What happened?
Japan created manufacturing in the United States and they started auto manufacturing and major installations around the country creating great, well paying jobs. That could happen with China. I think it’s going to happen because I think China is starting to look at the United States, particularly the rust belt, and saying, “We can invest here, we can do some manufacturing here.” A case in point is in Dayton, a Chinese company spent $200 million and bought an abandoned GM factory and they’ve already put one hundred people to work and they’re hoping to put up to one thousand people to work in an automotive glass factory.
So, if you want to attract these resources as a community, you have to know how they think, what they’re looking for, what their thousands of years of culture mean, the dance of business conversation and developing relationships. I don’t see that happening overnight.
One of my clients in Cleveland bought a large warehouse and he’s from China and he went to some folks and said, “What do you have in Chinese that I can market Cleveland in China with?” and they said, “Nothing.” And there didn’t seem to even be an interest to even translate and that was few years ago and I think now it’s getting better but my client ended up getting the video of Cleveland, of the sexy footage of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Lake Erie and the Cleveland Clinic and sending it to Hong Kong and then hiring a journalist to superimpose against the video and talk about the attributes of Cleveland. So, I think that’s what we’re going to see happening more and more is, you know, working on that side of the isle.
How Do We Build A Globally Inclusive Community For The Benefit Of All?
[00:20:23]
So where do I spend my time? I spend my time largely with my law practice, we’re an immigration law firm in Cleveland, Columbus and Detroit and with my family. I’m with my family all the time, I’ve got young kids at home so we’re always doing something and traveling a lot, my son’s a competitive swimmer so we travel around the country doing that so we’ll be in Baltimore this weekend. So, that takes up a lot of my time and I represent immigrants on immigration issues, civil rights issues, I represent companies that hire immigrants, people from the Cleveland Clinic that are doing medical research, NFL football players, tech workers, undocumented workers in the fields, we do all of that.
I think one of my passions, which I see as an outgrowth of my role as a lawyer and advocate for the immigrant community, is trying to initiate this conversation that immigrants add value and that immigration be part of our economic strategies and inclusion strategies in cities across America particularly cities that are struggling and depopulating like Cleveland. Cleveland continues to depopulate despite a resurgence in the downtown dwellers and the young people moving in apartments downtown. The new census data shows from 2010 to 2014, Cleveland continues to depopulate and it’s not just Cleveland, it’s Cuyahoga County, one of the leading number two counties in the country on depopulation. So, we were a city of 950,000 people once in it’s heyday and now we’re down to 380,000 to 200,000 thousand people. How do you sustain all this infrastructure and all this when you have dwindling population? And dwindling real estate taxes and all this stuff? So, that kind of consumes me, so how do I change the mindset that immigrants can be part of the solution, they’re not the problem in a city that’s only 5% foreign born? Or, Detroit, 6% or 7% foreign born?
So where do I spend my time? I spend my time largely with my law practice, we’re an immigration law firm in Cleveland, Columbus and Detroit and with my family. I’m with my family all the time, I’ve got young kids at home so we’re always doing something and traveling a lot, my son’s a competitive swimmer so we travel around the country doing that so we’ll be in Baltimore this weekend. So, that takes up a lot of my time and I represent immigrants on immigration issues, civil rights issues, I represent companies that hire immigrants, people from the Cleveland Clinic that are doing medical research, NFL football players, tech workers, undocumented workers in the fields, we do all of that.
I think one of my passions, which I see as an outgrowth of my role as a lawyer and advocate for the immigrant community, is trying to initiate this conversation that immigrants add value and that immigration be part of our economic strategies and inclusion strategies in cities across America particularly cities that are struggling and depopulating like Cleveland. Cleveland continues to depopulate despite a resurgence in the downtown dwellers and the young people moving in apartments downtown. The new census data shows from 2010 to 2014, Cleveland continues to depopulate and it’s not just Cleveland, it’s Cuyahoga County, one of the leading number two counties in the country on depopulation. So, we were a city of 950,000 people once in it’s heyday and now we’re down to 380,000 to 200,000 thousand people. How do you sustain all this infrastructure and all this when you have dwindling population? And dwindling real estate taxes and all this stuff? So, that kind of consumes me, so how do I change the mindset that immigrants can be part of the solution, they’re not the problem in a city that’s only 5% foreign born? Or, Detroit, 6% or 7% foreign born?
"We’ve got to talk about tangible ways using immigration law that we have right now, to leverage and unlock this opportunity."
So, to me, it’s really about education. So, how do we educate communities and people to think differently about immigrants? So, one way, is we wrote the book, Bob Smith and I wrote the book called . And because of that book, I started getting speaking invitations around the country. Mayor Bloomberg hired me to initiate a new partnership he called, The New American Economy. That’s a coalition of 500 major CEOs and Mayors around the country who wanted to take this conversation out and into the streets, into the communities, to say listen, immigration is a growth opportunity for cities, it’s not a problem, it’s an opportunity. So, liberal cities like Oklahoma City, Des Moines, Raleigh, Charleston, they all invited us to come speak to their Chambers of Commerce. Cleveland’s Chamber of Commerce unfortunately said, “No, no thank you we don’t want to have this conversation in Cleveland.” But to me, this is what we’ve got to do, we’ve got to talk about tangible ways using immigration law that we have right now, to leverage and unlock this opportunity.
And I’ll give you an example. I was recently hired by Governing magazine to speak at a retreat of the top one hundred innovative leaders of local government around the country. They went off to an Omni Resort off on an island off the Florida coast and there were a lot of tech leaders there as well, Microsoft, Oracle, Intel and so we were talking about how can cities unlock the opportunities of immigration while the Federal government is sitting on their hands, not doing immigration law reform, we’ve got these major problems with immigrant tech talent leaving the United States because we’re educating them as international students and then we’re kicking them out to compete against us and start new companies abroad. What can we, as cities, do?
The answer I think is, first of all, acknowledging that this is a local issue, not just a Federal issue and that we have an opportunity now to do what we can at the local level to retain international talent, to attract international talent and to take care of those undocumented folks that are in our communities right now, sending their kids to our schools, they’re part of our families. So, we’ve got to have a local strategy for immigration. Two, we’ve got to understand immigration policy and immigration law to unlock the key.
So, I’ll give you an example and I wrote this in the Governing article. I talked about a real case that I had with an international student, she’s from Taiwan, she had a graduate degree in fashion design and she came into my office with these big eyes and a little bit of moisture, a little bit of dew there and she’s with her boyfriend and she says, “I’m graduating and I don’t want to go back to Taiwan, to go back home. My home is now the United States. I’ve lived here five years, this is my home, my boyfriend’s here, and so what do I do?” She knew she probably couldn’t get an H-1B Professional Worker Visa because we have a lottery and the lottery is exhausted the first week of the window opening. So she knew she probably couldn’t get a work visa so her options were limited. So, I said, “Have you ever thought about starting a business?” And she said, “No, I never really have.” So, I said, “We have a visa program for eighty nationalities, that if you invest a relatively small amount of money, you can start a small business whether it’s an Internet website company or restaurant or whatever, you could apply to stay here on that treaty investor visa called the E-2 Investor Visa.” So, I said, “Here’s the website for the government and they’ll explain it.” So she said, “Okay, I’ll talk to my parents about it.” So, she came back two weeks later and said, “We’re ready.” I said, “Ready? Do what? Are we going to do the restaurant, do this, do that?” Her parents were going to invest in her. They’d already been investing in her through her education here, this was a continuation of their investment. And I could see the resources the family had and they were tremendous. I said, “What a missed opportunity that communities around the country are missing.”
We have 900,000 international students in the country right now, it’s the highest in U.S. history. 30% are Chinese. And increasing numbers of them are coming from very wealthy families. These kids are the best and the brightest and many of them are entrepreneurial. Why aren’t we reaching out to them saying, “How can we help you stay and contribute to America?” Now, they’re already pumping in $26 billion dollars a year into our national economy through tuition and living expenses. The real payoff, as Silicon Valley found out over the decades, is, how do you help them stay, integrate, contribute their talent, and then some of them will eventually start companies? Half of the companies in Silicon Valley were founded by immigrants, many of them were international students who stayed and graduated and worked and what not. So, that, really, is one of the opportunities, is to try to help them educate. Now, what I found was, the universities don’t talk this language, they don’t understand this stuff, it’s not in their best interest, in their minds they’ve already made their money on the tuition. The city halls and the economic development groups, they don’t really understand this. And politically, it may actually be a disadvantage for them politically to push it, as we found in Cleveland.
Cleveland politicians find that a nativist strain of discussion in policy is actually politically beneficial in the short term for them. I mean, how else do you explain our Mayor in front of one thousand people in the State of City Address, when asked, “Why aren’t we welcoming immigrants like other cities?” his response was, “Because we take care of our own.” So, first of all, who are “our own”? And two, how do we take care of our people? We open up and welcome the world. That’s one of the ways, it’s not the only way. It’s not the panacea or silver bullet, but it’s part of it. A good example of what’s happening now, is Cleveland is an outlier city and we’re surrounded by cities that now with their City Halls and their philanthropy and their business communities are embracing immigration as an economic development driver. So, City Hall in Detroit, in Pittsburgh, in Columbus, in Cincinnati, in Dayton, in Buffalo, in Philly, in St. Louis. I mean, it’s embarrassing to see what’s happening in Cleveland because one person, the Mayor, decides this is not a popular conversation for him. I think partly, it’s just because of his age, he’s from the older generation, he just got his first passport not too long ago, a few years ago, so this is not his world. His world is, Cleveland is a black and white town, politics are divided by black and white and it’s totally in contradiction to what the rest of the world, the United States, is experiencing.
And I’ll give you an example. I was recently hired by Governing magazine to speak at a retreat of the top one hundred innovative leaders of local government around the country. They went off to an Omni Resort off on an island off the Florida coast and there were a lot of tech leaders there as well, Microsoft, Oracle, Intel and so we were talking about how can cities unlock the opportunities of immigration while the Federal government is sitting on their hands, not doing immigration law reform, we’ve got these major problems with immigrant tech talent leaving the United States because we’re educating them as international students and then we’re kicking them out to compete against us and start new companies abroad. What can we, as cities, do?
The answer I think is, first of all, acknowledging that this is a local issue, not just a Federal issue and that we have an opportunity now to do what we can at the local level to retain international talent, to attract international talent and to take care of those undocumented folks that are in our communities right now, sending their kids to our schools, they’re part of our families. So, we’ve got to have a local strategy for immigration. Two, we’ve got to understand immigration policy and immigration law to unlock the key.
So, I’ll give you an example and I wrote this in the Governing article. I talked about a real case that I had with an international student, she’s from Taiwan, she had a graduate degree in fashion design and she came into my office with these big eyes and a little bit of moisture, a little bit of dew there and she’s with her boyfriend and she says, “I’m graduating and I don’t want to go back to Taiwan, to go back home. My home is now the United States. I’ve lived here five years, this is my home, my boyfriend’s here, and so what do I do?” She knew she probably couldn’t get an H-1B Professional Worker Visa because we have a lottery and the lottery is exhausted the first week of the window opening. So she knew she probably couldn’t get a work visa so her options were limited. So, I said, “Have you ever thought about starting a business?” And she said, “No, I never really have.” So, I said, “We have a visa program for eighty nationalities, that if you invest a relatively small amount of money, you can start a small business whether it’s an Internet website company or restaurant or whatever, you could apply to stay here on that treaty investor visa called the E-2 Investor Visa.” So, I said, “Here’s the website for the government and they’ll explain it.” So she said, “Okay, I’ll talk to my parents about it.” So, she came back two weeks later and said, “We’re ready.” I said, “Ready? Do what? Are we going to do the restaurant, do this, do that?” Her parents were going to invest in her. They’d already been investing in her through her education here, this was a continuation of their investment. And I could see the resources the family had and they were tremendous. I said, “What a missed opportunity that communities around the country are missing.”
We have 900,000 international students in the country right now, it’s the highest in U.S. history. 30% are Chinese. And increasing numbers of them are coming from very wealthy families. These kids are the best and the brightest and many of them are entrepreneurial. Why aren’t we reaching out to them saying, “How can we help you stay and contribute to America?” Now, they’re already pumping in $26 billion dollars a year into our national economy through tuition and living expenses. The real payoff, as Silicon Valley found out over the decades, is, how do you help them stay, integrate, contribute their talent, and then some of them will eventually start companies? Half of the companies in Silicon Valley were founded by immigrants, many of them were international students who stayed and graduated and worked and what not. So, that, really, is one of the opportunities, is to try to help them educate. Now, what I found was, the universities don’t talk this language, they don’t understand this stuff, it’s not in their best interest, in their minds they’ve already made their money on the tuition. The city halls and the economic development groups, they don’t really understand this. And politically, it may actually be a disadvantage for them politically to push it, as we found in Cleveland.
Cleveland politicians find that a nativist strain of discussion in policy is actually politically beneficial in the short term for them. I mean, how else do you explain our Mayor in front of one thousand people in the State of City Address, when asked, “Why aren’t we welcoming immigrants like other cities?” his response was, “Because we take care of our own.” So, first of all, who are “our own”? And two, how do we take care of our people? We open up and welcome the world. That’s one of the ways, it’s not the only way. It’s not the panacea or silver bullet, but it’s part of it. A good example of what’s happening now, is Cleveland is an outlier city and we’re surrounded by cities that now with their City Halls and their philanthropy and their business communities are embracing immigration as an economic development driver. So, City Hall in Detroit, in Pittsburgh, in Columbus, in Cincinnati, in Dayton, in Buffalo, in Philly, in St. Louis. I mean, it’s embarrassing to see what’s happening in Cleveland because one person, the Mayor, decides this is not a popular conversation for him. I think partly, it’s just because of his age, he’s from the older generation, he just got his first passport not too long ago, a few years ago, so this is not his world. His world is, Cleveland is a black and white town, politics are divided by black and white and it’s totally in contradiction to what the rest of the world, the United States, is experiencing.
- On Amazon:
So, I’m optimistic. I spend most of my time, on this side of my life, on the passion side of educating people and using social media to push this information out. There are articles constantly coming out every day of some city in the United States, and often the Midwest, saying, “I want to do this: I want to start a program at City Hall where the Mayor says, “I want my City Hall to be opened up to all people. How do I do that?” I want to make sure there is a language equity policy - so that I don’t care if you speak Chinese, Arabic, Hindu, whatever, we’ve got something here for you, we want you to feel welcome, this is your City Hall. Some cities are saying, “We are going to issue ID cards.” So that, we don’t care what your Federal documentation status is, or, we don’t care if you’re homeless, in terms of ID, we want to make you feel welcome. We don’t care if you’re transgender. These ID cards can be saying, you’re a part of our community. You can enter City Hall with that ID card and you can show it to a police officer to show who you are, maybe even a bank would take it as an ID and you can open up a bank account. Cities are doing that across the country to build a more inclusive community. Some cities are saying, we want to attract foreign direct investment and to be an immigrant friendly city, that means being pro-international and pro-investor.
How do we help immigrant entrepreneurs? We know that they’re prolific entrepreneurs but they have barriers. Language, culture, how do we help them succeed? Overall, this is about a globalization strategy, it’s just not because we want to welcome immigrants because of their prolific output. It’s also because we want them to affect change in our community. We want to think and act globally. We want to learn from the immigrant community, we should want to learn, like I learned from my wife and how she approached education in a much different way than how my family approached education. So, there’s lots to learn from each other. So, that’s what I try to spend my time on is, changing the conversation about immigration from it’s us versus them, they take our jobs, we take care of our own, to, how do we build a globally inclusive community for the benefit of all?
How do we help immigrant entrepreneurs? We know that they’re prolific entrepreneurs but they have barriers. Language, culture, how do we help them succeed? Overall, this is about a globalization strategy, it’s just not because we want to welcome immigrants because of their prolific output. It’s also because we want them to affect change in our community. We want to think and act globally. We want to learn from the immigrant community, we should want to learn, like I learned from my wife and how she approached education in a much different way than how my family approached education. So, there’s lots to learn from each other. So, that’s what I try to spend my time on is, changing the conversation about immigration from it’s us versus them, they take our jobs, we take care of our own, to, how do we build a globally inclusive community for the benefit of all?
Isolation Narrows Collective Survival
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[00:30:18]
There’s often times a negative view about immigration and immigrants. I think a lot of it is emotional, psychological fear of “the other” and the unknown. This can manifest in ways such as bad policy and even in violent encounters. I’ll give you an example. It kind of starts as a funny story. My wife was out of town and I had my toddlers who were probably age two and four at the time. My wife didn’t know this, but I decided to take the kids out to a march in Painesville on Father’s Day with the Latino farm workers. I thought it would be important that non Latinos would be arm-in-arm with the Latino community. This is a not a Latino issue only. People think this is a Latino issue, they have no idea of what this issue is really about. 40% of the undocumented came here legally with inspection, with a visa and they overstayed. They’re Canadian, they’re Irish, they’re French, they’re the gamut of professions. I had a practicing brain surgeon who’s undocumented, they're doctors, lawyers, they’re engineers, they’re your next door neighbor. So, for the media to portray this as only a Latino issue does a disservice to the Latino community and to the whole issue at large. |
So, I thought it was important for other folks to join hands with the Latino community on this issue on Father’s Day. So, I dressed the kids up in their Chinese costume, age two and four. And so they’re going to march. They want to march, they’re not really sure what they’re marching for, but they are marching. So, the organizers are busing people in from all these rural counties in Ohio and the next thing I know, the organizers are taking the kids, my kids, and putting them up front. And there’s a big banner in Spanish, “We Love Our Fathers”. So, all of a sudden the kids are marching and my kids say, “Daddy, we’re marching!” and I said, “That’s great! Keep going!” And all of a sudden I hear a police helicopter overhead and I see police cruisers now and I’m starting to think, “Maybe not a good idea. If my wife knew what we were doing, she would probably not be happy.” But everything went well and we ended the day with a great time and I thought it was a great experience.
So, as a result of that experience, there was a local newspaper story that was picked up by the O’Reilly Factor on Fox News. So the O’Reilly Show called me up and said, “Did you want to speak on TV, on the O’Reilly Factor, on immigration, immigrants and community building and all that?” So, I said, “Sure.” So, Michelle Malkin was the guest host that day and I knew what this was going to be all about, be her yelling, so I said, “Michelle, I don’t think you can distill all this into bumper sticker slogans, it’s really about families and building community and growing.” And she started yelling and screaming and all this and then the segment ended and then we’re off their air and she’s on my ear, I could hear her in my head phone saying, “Richard! That was fun! Let’s do it again!” It’s all theater folks, it’s all theater.
I get back to the office the next day and my phone lines are all lit up with messages and they were all messages like, “Richard, we saw you on FOX, all one hundred million of us saw you and the revolution is on.” “You’re a traitor to your race.” “You should die. You’re kids should die.” So, obviously my staff was not happy, my family was not happy. But this is a very small portion of the United States but I think there is varying degrees of xenophobia that plays itself out. I think that’s some of the fear that I have, is that diversity can be chaotic and we need to figure out a way to bring it together and leverage those connections. But, if we don’t know them and we don’t know us, we’ll never get anyway.
Another example of this kind of virulent response, I wrote an Op-Ed for the Plain Dealer a couple of years ago, “Will a Dying City Finally Embrace Immigrants?” And they put a big picture of an abandoned house on the front cover of the Forum section and the back cover of the Forum section was a chapter from Immigrant, Inc., a book I helped co-write. I criticized policy leaders in Cleveland, the Mayor, The Cleveland Foundation I may have referenced, and the Chamber of Commerce in not ushering in this conversation in Cleveland and actually sequestering this conversation as actually hurting Cleveland. And so, I get a call from one of the billionaires in town and he calls me up and says, “Richard, do you want to be Mayor of the city?” sarcastcially, knowing that I can barely run my little corner of the world. And I said, “No.” And he said, “Then, shut the “f***” up. Who do you think you are? You’re going to create a race war in this town. You’re done!” And he hung up the phone. To me, again, this is running away from the conversation of demographic changes, of globalization, of community building.
We’re one of the top five or six most segregated communities in the world, in the country. How are we going to solve that problem if we segregate ourselves constantly? We segregate the ideas and the communities. Let’s not run away from this conversation, let’s run towards it. So, that’s what I spend a lot of my time on and trying to raise awareness about this issue and using social media to pollinate these ideas and hopefully a few grains will catch on.
So, as a result of that experience, there was a local newspaper story that was picked up by the O’Reilly Factor on Fox News. So the O’Reilly Show called me up and said, “Did you want to speak on TV, on the O’Reilly Factor, on immigration, immigrants and community building and all that?” So, I said, “Sure.” So, Michelle Malkin was the guest host that day and I knew what this was going to be all about, be her yelling, so I said, “Michelle, I don’t think you can distill all this into bumper sticker slogans, it’s really about families and building community and growing.” And she started yelling and screaming and all this and then the segment ended and then we’re off their air and she’s on my ear, I could hear her in my head phone saying, “Richard! That was fun! Let’s do it again!” It’s all theater folks, it’s all theater.
I get back to the office the next day and my phone lines are all lit up with messages and they were all messages like, “Richard, we saw you on FOX, all one hundred million of us saw you and the revolution is on.” “You’re a traitor to your race.” “You should die. You’re kids should die.” So, obviously my staff was not happy, my family was not happy. But this is a very small portion of the United States but I think there is varying degrees of xenophobia that plays itself out. I think that’s some of the fear that I have, is that diversity can be chaotic and we need to figure out a way to bring it together and leverage those connections. But, if we don’t know them and we don’t know us, we’ll never get anyway.
Another example of this kind of virulent response, I wrote an Op-Ed for the Plain Dealer a couple of years ago, “Will a Dying City Finally Embrace Immigrants?” And they put a big picture of an abandoned house on the front cover of the Forum section and the back cover of the Forum section was a chapter from Immigrant, Inc., a book I helped co-write. I criticized policy leaders in Cleveland, the Mayor, The Cleveland Foundation I may have referenced, and the Chamber of Commerce in not ushering in this conversation in Cleveland and actually sequestering this conversation as actually hurting Cleveland. And so, I get a call from one of the billionaires in town and he calls me up and says, “Richard, do you want to be Mayor of the city?” sarcastcially, knowing that I can barely run my little corner of the world. And I said, “No.” And he said, “Then, shut the “f***” up. Who do you think you are? You’re going to create a race war in this town. You’re done!” And he hung up the phone. To me, again, this is running away from the conversation of demographic changes, of globalization, of community building.
We’re one of the top five or six most segregated communities in the world, in the country. How are we going to solve that problem if we segregate ourselves constantly? We segregate the ideas and the communities. Let’s not run away from this conversation, let’s run towards it. So, that’s what I spend a lot of my time on and trying to raise awareness about this issue and using social media to pollinate these ideas and hopefully a few grains will catch on.
The Tide Of Global Evolution Is A Force Of Nature
[00:35:49]
I guess what gives me optimism, despite a lot of resistance in cities like Cleveland to this idea of welcoming immigrants as a growth opportunity for all of us, is that organically, things are happening anyway. So, people can put up roadblocks, and stop things or try to slow things down but they can’t stop the tide. The wave of the world connecting and gently colliding. So, I think that’s what gives me optimism, that we’re moving towards this more globally inclusive community no matter what folks will try to do and fear mongering and political gamesmanship.
I’d like to see less career politicians driving the ship and I’d like to see less foundations driving the ship and just more concerned citizens coming out and saying, “You know what? I think this is what I want my community to look like.” And, “I want to be part of the future. I want to harness this.”
So, to me, this is where the optimism is, I can already see it happening and Cleveland’s going to be just fine.
I guess what gives me optimism, despite a lot of resistance in cities like Cleveland to this idea of welcoming immigrants as a growth opportunity for all of us, is that organically, things are happening anyway. So, people can put up roadblocks, and stop things or try to slow things down but they can’t stop the tide. The wave of the world connecting and gently colliding. So, I think that’s what gives me optimism, that we’re moving towards this more globally inclusive community no matter what folks will try to do and fear mongering and political gamesmanship.
I’d like to see less career politicians driving the ship and I’d like to see less foundations driving the ship and just more concerned citizens coming out and saying, “You know what? I think this is what I want my community to look like.” And, “I want to be part of the future. I want to harness this.”
So, to me, this is where the optimism is, I can already see it happening and Cleveland’s going to be just fine.
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