GREENVILLE COUNTY, NC (October 4, 2017) excerpt from THE DAILY REFLECTOR - It is more important than ever before to have a conversation about Latinos in Greenville and Pitt County, Juvencio Rocha-Peralta, executive director of the Association of Mexicans in North Carolina, told about 75 minority business owners and government officials during a Minority Enterprise Development Week luncheon at the Hilton Greenville hosted by the Greenville Financial Services Department
“Latinos have embraced communities and changed the culture of the United States,” keynote speaker Rocha-Peralta said. “We have grown extremely fast. In 2016, 27.3 million Latinos voted in elections, and 24 percent of private enterprise is Latino-owned, an amazing business statistic ... that shows a powerful movement to change the political climate.”
Rocha-Peralta also said that most Latino business startups are self-financed, a claim apparently backed up by a 2016 report by JP Morgan & Chase on a study by the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. When Latino entrepreneurs start a business, 70 percent of their funding comes from personal savings, while six percent comes from commercial loans, according to the study.
Of the businesses surveyed in the Stanford study, more than 40 percent of non-citizen Latino business owners, all of whom are here legally, are rejected when they apply for their first business loans, according to the JP Morgan report.
Rocha-Peralta praised Greenville and Pitt County officials and residents for their recognition of the accomplishments of minority business owners, but said there still is much work to do.
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