Guess who the biggest minority group is: Not African Americans
It seems like English is an optional skill you need for networking and being successful within the network in the United States anymore. The recent article from New York Times introduces three immigrant entrepreneurs who is running heir own successful multi-million dollar business with very limited proficiency of English. Felix Sanchez de la Vega Guzman is one of three immigrants introduced in this article, and his business targets only the Mexican community in the United States. His business produces Mexican cuisines such as tortillas and other goods to sell them to Mexican restaurants and stores. He says his market is the entire Hispanics in the United States. The article emphasizes that his business grew with the population of Hispanics in the United States
According to the Census Bureau, there are more than 15 million Hispanics currently living in the United States, which is about 16 percent of the total population. There are about 170 countries that are recognized by United Nation wit less than the population of 15 million people. Now, Hispanics are the biggest minority group after the African Americans.
This phenomenon goes back to the very earliest topic that we learned in the class about the network structure and the triadic closure property and explains why the Hispanic population outnumbered African American population and, in fact, keeps increasing. Mr. de la Vega Guzman came here 40 years ago and he did not know any of the Hispanic networks that he sees today. African American came to this continent long time ago, but lack of communication technology and the current status, they cannot form a union or network within each other. Nor they could talk to their family or other people back home in Africa. So even if those early African Americans had ties with people back in Africa, there was no way to reach them. So their population has grown within the United States.
However, the Hispanic population started immigrating to the United States since the World War II and we have seen the biggest Hispanic population increase during the 90s with economic stability. Those people who came to U.S. had the same tie with people back in their native country, but the difference from the African Americans is that they can keep in touch and talk to them. That is why the population of Hispanic origin keeps increasing and now, it is the biggest minority population.
Although Mr. de la Vega Guzman is not a bridge of the large component of the network, he has a lot of strong and weak ties within his network and now, the network is big enough for him to succeed without going out of the network.
And by the Strong Triadic Closure Property and demand of low-skilled and low-paying labor, the Hispanic network will keep increasing and their voice and rights will be heard with great importance in the near future.