Forging Their Own Path to the Labor Market: Hispanic Women Business Owners in North Carolina

Abstract

Hispanic women are an understudied entrepreneurial population with considerable potential for economic impact. Our study uses fieldwork and semistructured interviews with entrepreneurs and community informants to understand the experiences of Latina business owners in North Carolina. We focus specifically on their entry into the formal economy as majority owners of for-profit ventures. Social location of owners is discussed to appreciate how the intersectional position of Hispanic women in the market economy shapes their entrepreneurial trajectories. Building on prior research on the “embedded market” and “gendered capital,” our study confirms that entrepreneurial succession and employment opportunities and constraints are strong motivators for Hispanic women to start businesses. However, we also identify a new catalyst for business entry that we call “social ventures and passions,” a finding that challenges the conventional assumption that immigrant and ethnic entrepreneurs open businesses primarily as an economic survival strategy or as an appeal to cultural norms (i.e., ethnic labor market approaches).