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African Immigrant Enterprise in Metropolitan Washington, D.C.

Source: Africa Yellow Pages

Starting a new business requires innovation, risk taking, hard work, and a lot of discipline. For African immigrants, who have settled in the Washington, D.C., area at least 7,000 miles from home, even more is involved. African immigrants must learn American business practices, laws, and success strategies. Many rely on traditional skills, such as hair braiding, tailoring or dressmaking, and cooking as a basis for their businesses. At the same time, they rely on traditional social networks within their immigrant communities - friendship, kinship, and people from the same region or ethnic group back home - to help them succeed.


Suggested Reading

Light, Ivan. 1984. Immigrant and Ethnic Enterprise in North America. Ethnic and Racial Studies 7: 195-216.

Macharia, Kinuthia. “The African Entrepreneur in the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Area: Tradition in the Service of Entrepreneurship.