Labor pains at odds with the law: as baby boomers begin to retire, the U.S. economy will become even more dependent on immigrant labor--illegal or not.

"This country has benefited immensely from the fact that we draw people
from all over the world. And the average immigrant comes from a less
benign environment, and indeed that's the reason they've come here. And
I think they appreciate the benefits of this country more than those of
us who were born here. And it shows in their entrepreneurship, their
enterprise and their willingness to do the types of work that makes this
economy function."
--then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, to the House Financial
Services Committee in 2001

Art imitates life. James Michener's "Centennial" and Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation" are probably the two most celebrated books set in Colorado in the last 50 years. The former, historical fiction, takes place around 1876; the latter is a nonfiction account researched in the last decade. Each book features Mexican immigrants in Weld County.

Likewise, the historical reality is that Mexican immigrants, documented and undocumented, have participated in--and catalyzed--Colorado's economy since, well, Colorado changed hands from Mexico to the United States in 1848. In the time since, the golden rule has always been net migration equals net economic growth, and it remains true today.

Amid the furor of debate surrounding national immigration reform in Washington, immigrants of all kinds participate in Colorado's economy at every level, from professional baseball to software to construction to picking fruits and vegetables. Nonetheless, a wide variety of industries are plagued by chronic labor shortages. It follows that many small-business owners in Colorado argue the state needs more, not fewer, immigrants.

"In conversations I've had with both consumers and businesspeople, we desperately need workers from other countries," says Federico Pena, former Denver mayor and Clinton Cabinet member and current managing director at Vestar Capital Partners in Denver. "It's almost every sector. Every economist, every business owner I've spoken to says we have a worker shortage at least until 2020, maybe beyond."

Even with an estimated 200,000 illegal immigrants in Colorado and more seasonal workers on H-2B visas than any other state, Colorado's labor market is currently stretched so thin it's arguably hampering economic growth. The storm cloud brewing on the horizon: The country's 76 million Baby Boomers start hitting retirement age in 2011.

"In Colorado, we need to realize we're not alone," Pena says. "Almost every nation is using imported labor. Without recognizing that we have a need for it, we're going to be at a competitive disadvantage. Workers are going to where the labor is needed, and the economies that recognize that are going to benefit. This is a state that is growing. That could be in jeopardy if we close the door on imported labor."

Mike Gilsdorf, CEO of Arapahoe Acres Nursery in Littleton, is chairman of Colorado Employers for Immigration Reform (COEIR). He argues that the laws of supply and demand should apply to immigration policy. "We need a guest worker program that is based on market conditions. There simply aren't enough bodies."

Gilsdorf speaks from experience. In the last eight years, Arapahoe Acres' help-wanted ads have generated a total of one interview--and zero hires. Of 125 employees during the nursery's peak season, about 20 are guest workers on H-2B visas.

H-2Bs allow laborers from other countries to come and work seasonal positions for state-set "adverse effect wages"--or in 2007, $8.60 an hour and up--after the hiring company advertises the position and comes up empty. As a state, Colorado typically uses upwards of a quarter of the 66,000 H-2B visas allotted to businesses nationally. The annual cap of 66,000 was not enforced until 2004; in previous years the total number of H-2Bs issued was considerably higher.

"Recently it's gotten more cumbersome and more expensive," says Gilsdorf, citing unprecedented delays and denials this year. "It seems like the worse you need the labor the harder it is to get. The government is taking the posture that they're looking to turn you down or turn the people you're trying to get into the country down. They're using any excuse.

"I know a large number of companies that need seasonal guest workers, but they get capped out," he continues. "If a company gets capped out, they have three choices. One is to cut back their business, which would entail not only not having the guest workers but laying off U.S. citizens. Secondly, you can close entirely and lay everybody off. Number three is to go underground--be illegal.

"A cap generates illegal immigration because it creates a demand for workers that companies can't get because they're capped out. If they would take the cap off, all of these companies would be bringing in legal workers instead of one of those three alternatives."

If Arapahoe Acres lost its H-2B workers, it could no longer sell and install large trees, tasks the company accomplishes with crews of an American foreman and two H-2B laborers. Notes Gilsdorf: "If we don't have those workers, we have to stop selling large trees"--about a third of the company's business.

A COEIR survey of hotels, restaurants, landscaping companies, nurseries and greenhouses, contractors and subcontractors painted a similar picture. For every 2.6 immigrant workers--regardless of legal status--forced from the U.S. workforce, responding businesses said they would have to cut one job held by a U.S. citizen. These same companies said their overall spending would decrease by an astounding $85,000 for every immigrant job cut.

Gilsdorf says Arapahoe Acres has had immigrants of all kinds on its payroll since it went into business in 1971. With the 1986 amnesty, a number of Arapahoe Acres' longtime workers qualified for green cards. "They came up years ago when there were no rules for employers. It was illegal for them to be here, but it was not illegal for employers to hire them."

Adds Gilsdorf: "Just the policies have changed, not the need for labor. Pick-and-shovel work is not something we Americans raise our kids to do. We raise our kids to punch keyboards and be doctors and lawyers and that sort of thing.

"We want a legitimate system that pays a legitimate wage that allows us legitimate employees," Gilsdorf says flatly. "And year-round employers still have no way to bring in a legitimate workforce. I would like to see a provision for year-round help."

Dylan Norton, owner of Durango Dough-works, a breakfast and lunch spot in Durango, is always on the lookout for year-round labor. He'd love to hire a head baker for $30,000 a year, but no one wants the job.

Norton advertises jobs for bakers and other employees--jobs that pay $10 to $15 an hour--in local papers and on fliers he's distributed. "It's a really weak response. I ran an ad for two or three weeks in the (Durango) Herald and maybe got two or three phone calls. Nobody even came in for an interview.

"We need a guest worker program that allows us to fill those jobs with people in a legal manner," Norton says. "Even making the immigrants here legal, we need more labor than what's available in any case. If our economy's going to continue to grow, we still don't have enough. There needs to be a program by which you can sponsor workers ... a complete reworking of the whole visa system."

The labor shortage in low-skill, low-paying jobs is just the fin of a much larger shark circling the labor pool. As the baby boomers transition to retirement, an economy-wide talent drain could engender a long-term recession and threaten government services of all kinds, most notably Social Security and Medicare. Increased immigration is one of the only cures to this ill.

"The population of the United States has been increasing at a decreasing rate since the baby boomers, and as the baby boomers begin to retire, there will be vacancies in the workplace and nobody to fill them," says Cynthia Fukami, professor of management, Daniels School of Business at the University of Denver. "Social Security is very much encouraging people to postpone retirement, and there's a sense that people are living longer. Even so, there are expected to be pretty significant shortages, maybe as early as 2010."

Colorado's workforce is not getting any younger. According to a February 2005 report from a partnership of the U.S. Census Bureau and the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, about 33 percent of working Coloradans were aged 45 or older in 2002--up sharply from 24 percent in 1994.

Fukami says labor shortages and immigration are closely related phenomena. In countries with low birth rates such as Italy--where those over 65 outnumber those under 15--increased immigration has underpinned continued economic health. In the U.S., where the bulk of the population growth in the last decade was based on first- and second-generation immigrants, studies show that an immigrant is more likely to start a business than a native-born American.

And native-born Americans are no longer content to work in menial jobs, Fukami says: "As much as our society has advanced, we still have a fair percentage of low-level, unskilled, menial jobs that Americans are increasingly not interested in."

The U.S. economy has always relied on low-cost, immigrant labor, notes Fukami, citing Chinese railroad workers. "It was the same thing--Americans didn't want to do that. So we let people in because we had these jobs to be filled, and then we treated them very poorly."

Joe Winter, a senior economist with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, says the state's 3.5 percent unemployment rate in April--the lowest since 2001--has fueled a number of severe regional labor shortages, most notably on the Western Slope. The difference between 2001 and 2007, he adds, is "in 2001 the state was experiencing significant population growth. That has slowed down considerably."

Winter is optimistic that market forces can overcome regional labor shortages in Colorado. "People move to where the jobs are. That's been a tradition in the U.S. for a long time."

In Mesa County, however, the energy boom has outpaced migration. "Right now, (a labor shortage) is affecting every industry there is out there," said Gilbert Lujan, employment specialist at the Mesa County Workforce Center in Grand Junction. "Employers are stealing employees from each other because there's no one else to choose from."

Lujan says the center sees 15 to 20 new job orders a day and not nearly as many new faces to fill them. The result: rampant wage growth without a jump in productivity, a traditional bellwether of inflation.

Last November's minimum wage increase in Colorado "also puts a constraint on some employers," says DU's Fukami, pointing specifically to farmers who depend on immigrant labor. "If the agricultural industry is not able to hire sufficient people to harvest crops, then the price of food is going to go up, and the supply of food is going to be more of an issue. Or farming in Colorado will just disappear."

After new state laws that are tougher on illegal immigrants went into effect last year--possibly exacerbated by the December 2006 Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid on the Swift meatpacking plant in Greeley--Colorado farmers have found it much more difficult to find workers, regardless of citizenship or immigration status.

With pumpkins and other crops left to rot in the Colorado fields last fall, farmers in the Pueblo area are especially desperate for labor. The much-ballyhooed program of paying prisoners 60 cents a day to pick crops started in mid-May and is now "in a trial phase" with one work crew of 10 prisoners, according to a Colorado Department of Corrections spokesperson.

But labor shortages are also having a negative impact on industries that depend on high-skilled labor. Like H-2Bs, H-1B visas, issued to high-skilled workers in "specialty occupations" who are in high demand in the tech sector, are capped at a quota around 65,000 annually; U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services receives many more applications every year, which it denies. The national cap was reduced in 2006, after more than 100,000 were issued in 2005.

Employers are "out of luck" after the cap is reached, says Lisa Battan, a Boulder immigration attorney. "They can look at outsourcing or just not make the hire. In the end, companies aren't always able to hire the people they think are best for the job. I think it's in the country's best interest to have these people here." Battan says she is not against an H-1B cap per se, but wants one that is "realistic."

But others see any cap on temporary labor visas as market interference. A true laissez-faire policy towards foreign workers would allow labor to gravitate to industry need, and arbitrary cap numbers would be tossed out the window.

"Let supply and demand set the cap," argues Mark Kramer, president of JBK Landscape in Aurora. "If they'd expanded (the cap) 10 years ago to a million or 2 million workers, we wouldn't be having this conversation now."

At the height of JBK's peak spring season, Mexican laborers with H-2B visas make up nearly half of the company's 100 employees, but this wasn't always the case.

"In the '70s, it was easy to find help," Kramer says. "There were a bunch of hippies who wanted to work in the green industry. When I placed an ad, I'd get 10 calls the next day."

Today, it's a different story, says Kramer, as it has been for nearly 20 years. "We don't get any applicants. Now you can't find Americans who want to get their hands dirty or work seasonal jobs."

Kramer is not exaggerating. In nine years of advertising positions as mandated by the H-2B program--at an expense of several thousand dollars a year--JBK Landscaping has received a grand total of seven applications from American citizens.

"The existing H-2B program has worked well for this country and worked well for the immigrants," Kramer says. "It's a win-win scenario."

However, the continually shifting bureaucracy makes it difficult for JBK to do business. In 2004, the unprecedented cap enforcement caused "a lot of sleepless nights. It's all or nothing." The next year, JBK's renewal approval came in late, and returning seasonal workers were held up for months. "I was embarrassed at the quality of our work."

Then came 2007. "This year with the H-2B program, they decided to interpret things differently," Kramer says. "The Department of Labor bumped us out, saying we're not seasonal in Colorado. Well, I don't think we're planting much under 2 feet of snow December through March But then Homeland Security came in and overruled the Department of Labor."

Such bureaucratic unwieldiness drives employers to hire undocumented immigrants, says Kerry Plemmons, clinical professor at the Daniels College of Business at DU. Plemmons thinks today's immigration debate feels like deja vu all over again.

In the 1980s, he was president of Pour le France restaurants in Aspen and Denver.

"We hired any qualified person, regardless of legal status," Plemmons says. "In 1988, I got busted."

At the time, a post-amnesty crackdown on undocumented immigrants thinned out the labor pool in Colorado's mountain resorts. "Because of the immigration reform in the 1980s, there was nobody applying for a job," Plemmons says. "It wiped out our profitability almost completely. The overall service climate went to hell in every resort in the United States.

"Unless you're the Aspen Skiing Co. or Vail Resorts, how do you find employees? Truthfully, the only answer used to be--and probably still is--you look the other way when they slide you a phony Social Security card."

As the state's ski industry relies heavily on H-2B workers for seasonal help, another tourism heavyweight, The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, also brings in about 275 H-2B workers from Jamaica every year. When Cindy Clark took the position of director of human resources at the renowned resort in July 1995, there were 550 seasonal job openings.

"Recruiting locally, there just weren't enough," Clark says. "It was a really brutal situation to deliver service without enough staff. We were all cleaning rooms, all hands on deck."

"We cleaned them this spring, too, because we weren't getting our seasonal workers," adds Clark, describing a series of delays in clearing the resort's allotted H-2B and returning H-2B workers (on H2-R visas). "We have 700 rooms to clean every day--that's a lot of rooms." Not including the delays, The Broadmoor still had 165 seasonal job openings as of late May.

Clark says the delays are based on labor shortages nationwide. "The volume of (the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services') work has significantly gone up because of the labor shortages around the United States. Many more employers are having to use this program to augment their seasonal staffing."

However, the cap on H-2B visas does not respond to this uptick in demand. "A cap of 66,000 is not enough," argues Clark, praising the H-2B system as effective and secure. "It's not realistic or reflective of market demand in any sense."

Clark sees the bureaucracy as increasingly inflexible, when in fact the business community demands the opposite. "One size does not fit all," she says.

But a market-driven cap would allow for flexibility. And, according to the free-market economist, market barriers are antithetical to growth. An isolationist economic policy that draws an impermeable imaginary line around the U.S. labor market ignores that the country is already short on labor, with a potentially catastrophic shortage a decade away.

"If we lose all these immigrants and it dominoes through the economy, it can affect everybody, and the United States citizen needs to learn that," says COEIR's Gilsdorf. "That border fence, they'll dig tunnels under it as soon as they build it. The real way to control undocumented workers is through the employers. Give us a way to get legal workers, and punish the hell out of us if we hire undocumented people. All of a sudden, people will stop coming unless they have a visa, because they won't get a job. That's how you control undocumented workers--through the employer, not through a fence."

Gilsdorf has twice paid visits to immigration hardliner U.S. Congressman Tom Tan-credo's district office in Centennial to ask what an employer, blocked from getting legal workers by the paltry H-1B or H-2B caps, should do: fire U.S. citizens, go out of business, or go underground and hire illegal immigrants?

"I asked (Tancredo aide Andrew Good) 'Which one of these three choices would you have a company take if they get capped out?' His answer was, 'Well, I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.' I thought that was the poorest immigration policy I'd ever heard."

On a second visit, another aide declined to answer Gilsdorf's question. "I asked him to get an answer from the congressman and get it to me quickly. To date, I've not yet received a reply."

PHOTO BY MIKE TAYLOR

RELATED ARTICLE: TAXING TIMES FOR STARTUPS

Laws aimed at illegal immigrants affect legit business owners, too

It could be a Colorado landscape, this mural spray-painted on an exterior store wall: Purple mountains soar above green foothills, rising over a pristine blue lake. In a nearby field, a lone boy kneels before a miraculous spectacle. To the left of his head hangs a sign that reads "El Mercadito," or "little market." To the right is the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the traditional Mexican incarnation of the Virgin Mary.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

She clasps her hands in prayer above an empty asphalt parking lot. No one comes or goes from the entrance to the little market on the side of the painted mural. Today, it appears, she may be praying for more customers.

This small grocery store and restaurant on Federal Boulevard in Denver that targets Latino immigrants has weathered a recent drought in customers. A clerk, who was hesitant to reveal her name, says they've cut their staff in half because business has been so slow.

"Word spreads around quickly," she says of news about ratcheted-up immigration enforcement. "People have been afraid to leave their homes."

In an emergency session late last July, the Colorado Legislature and former Gov. Bill Owens passed 10 bills, mainly to limit taxpayer money from benefiting illegal immigrants. The laws--touted by Owens as some of the toughest in the country--have succeeded in making it difficult for undocumented immigrants to start or operate businesses, or even to find jobs, by requiring identity verifications.

But some people in the business world have questioned whether the new rules are worth the consequences.

Since last August, entrepreneurs and small business owners who lack documentation have been scared to engage in business for fear they'll be deported. The laws have also disrupted legitimate businesses that rely on immigrants as their clientele.

Many Hispanic-owned companies are seeing their profits shrink as customers save money for a worst-case scenario.

Until last September, Felipe Lopez ran a Denver nonprofit offering classes for beginning entrepreneurs in Spanish, often Latino immigrants who dreamed of owning their own business in the United States.

But before his fall session was to begin, just four students signed up. For Lopez, only the recently enacted laws could explain what happened.

"Right now, we don't have classes because immigrants are afraid to start businesses," Lopez says in his Five Points office. His organization, called Small Business of the Hispanic Office of the Archdiocese of Denver, is a church-funded outreach project.

Last September, he canceled all of his classes because of lack of demand. In the past, he enrolled an average of 25 people in his 13-week program, he said. In the winter of 2000, he had a record 47 students take his classes.

That was when Latino-owned businesses were exploding all over Colorado. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates 3,195 new companies were started by Latinos in Colorado in the five years from 1997 to 2002, generating about $2 billion in new sales, and marking a 67 percent increase in revenue from Latino-owned businesses. Those sales translated to a boost of about $130 million in sales tax revenue for state and local governments over that time.

But the climate for immigrants has changed. People must show documents to register a business, get public assistance, or even to enter a horse in a horse race. The laws were passed in a hurried special session to eliminate the drain created by, according to Owens, 50,000 undocumented workers receiving public benefits.

Recent immigration raids throughout the country have heightened immigrants' fears. In Denver, a raid by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Feb. 22 targeting janitors put 12 people in jail. The ICE raids on Dec. 12 of Swift & Co. meatpacking plants in Greeley and in five other states detained 261 Swift workers in Greeley and landed almost 1,300 workers in jail nationwide. The company said that roundup cost it an estimated $30 million.

These events have triggered many families in Colorado to move elsewhere. For some companies, the people who are leaving, or fear for their future here, make up a large part of their customer base.

"Many clients have been thinking twice about making any types of investments, for purchases such as cars, houses, and, in my case, satellite dishes," says David Falcon, owner of Falcon Satellite, which he touts as the largest retail business in Colorado targeting Hispanic consumers. He's from Inde, Mexico, now a mining ghost town. About 90 percent of his business is done with Latinos, he says.

People are more afraid than ever to commit to contracts or agreements with companies for products and services, especially big ticket items, he says. 'They think that at any moment, either by force or by emergency, they may have to pick up and leave or be deported." Many of his customers in Greeley fled the state, leaving their contracts behind.

Restaurants, grocery stores, clothing stores, and music stores--the retail economy--are losing customers fast. "It doesn't just hit one business like us. It's like dominoes. It affects other businesses as well," Falcon says.

As Falcon's customer base has eroded, his business has suffered. "We only have four customers for every 10 that we had before," he says. His profits have declined from $50,000 a month a year ago, to $20,000 a month now, after taxes, he says.

"Ten years ago, Colorado was a great state in which many doors and opportunities were open to anybody that was willing to make something, such as a business," Falcon says.

Starting from scratch

Lalo Delgado is someone who took advantage of that kind of opportunity.

Ads for phone cards and posters of popular Mexican bands with matching uniforms crowd the window of Delgado's general store in Boulder. A large sign above in big red letters beams "Tres Reynas," or "three queens;" it's named after Delgado's three daughters. A hip-high yellow placard in Spanish alludes to the practice by Latino immigrants to help their families back home: "Send your money here."

Business is bumping by 11 a.m. on a sunny but chilly Sunday. Delgado, who's from a ranch town in Durango, Mexico, runs the shop by himself. He smiles and talks loudly, chatting in Spanish and laughing with customers, all Latino, who come in. Almost everyone knows him by name.

"Mine was the first business selling all-Mexican products" in Boulder, Delgado says. The idea wasn't entirely new--similar stores existed in Denver when he opened in 1993--but Delgado spotted a niche that had escaped the vision of other Boulder businesspeople.

Delgado, too, has endured a slump in sales over the last year. Many people are hiding their money under mattresses at home, he says.

"They're preparing for an emergency to get their families back to Mexico or Central America," he says.

His profits have shrunk accordingly because not only are his immigrant customers buying less, they're wiring less money home. Earnings from his clients' money-transfer fees have declined, which has been his bread and butter in the past--making up about three-fourths of his transactions.

Yet, the ability to overcome adversity is needed for business success, Degado says, and he remains hopeful that the situation will improve for immigrants. "When we come to the U.S., we come to work hard and make our dreams come true," he says. "I want to keep working and working and never stop, like the Energizer Bunny."

While the current political climate around immigration is an added challenge, most immigrant business owners are used to grappling with obstacles. Immigrant entrepreneurs like Delgado cross borders with everything at stake to come here, and their business strategies and work ethic help them establish and thrive.

Like other small ventures, immigrantowned companies usually struggle to secure startup capital. A survey published in 2006 by the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade found only 10 percent of minority and women-owned businesses use bank or credit union loans to fund their launch, while only 3 percent use private investors or venture capital.

"Getting funding is the hardest part. Immigrant-owned businesses need to fund their own startup and growth," says Sharon King, director of Boulder's Small Business Development Center. "The number one biggest problem for small businesses is undercapitalization--not having enough money in advance or not tapping into available resources."

The vast majority of immigrant-owned businesses are started with personal savings and credit cards. Immigrants often pool money with family members and live in close quarters with extended family to concentrate their resources.

Some innovative lenders can help traditionally underfunded groups, like the Denver-based nonprofits Colorado Enterprise Fund and Micro Business Development, King says.

"There are resources out there. People need to be willing to go tap them," King says. Continuing a trend over the last 10 years, immigrants started companies more frequently than native-born Americans in 2005, found a Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation study. The rate of entrepreneurial activity for immigrants shows a strong upward trend with an average of 55 immigrants out of 10,000 starting businesses every month in 2004. The rate for U.S.-born entrepreneurs was 37 of 10,000.

This decade, approximately 70 percent of the 17 million workers entering the labor force will be ethnic minorities--becoming one-third of the total labor force. Minority-owned businesses will expand at four times the growth rate of businesses as a whole.

But merely outpacing other groups in startup rates doesn't ensure success. To keep from becoming another statistic in the failure column, these scrappy young businesses have to fuel their growth.

"When I started out, all I had was about 100 tapes and 20 CDs, and the shop was a lot smaller," Delgado says of his store that, in the beginning, primarily sold Mexican music. "At first I'd have one customer a day, then sometimes no one."

Delgado paces out an area maybe 10 feet square where his shop began. Now it's 20 times larger--big enough to be a 10-table cafe. Profits doubled from 2000 to 2005, and last month he had 1,200 customers, he says.

Soon after Tres Reynas opened, Delgado expanded by vending money-transfer services, attracting more people who then checked out his music and food selections. When people started requesting cowboy hats and ranchero clothing he glimpsed more opportunity--he ordered the desired items through catalogs until he could afford to stock the shop with clothing. Now, he's earning money on all his wares from huge pinatas of pop icons (Darth Vader, Spider-Man), to Mexican snack foods, to sunglasses and belts.

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, 72.6 percent of non-minority owned businesses survive for the first four years. For Hispanic-owned establishments the survival rate is 68.6 percent. Yet, while Hispanic-owned companies fail at a slightly higher rate, their expansion rates are significantly higher than non-minority companies--34 percent of Hispanic-owned businesses grow while only 27.4 percent of non-minority owned firms grow.

Immigrant business owners who succeed do it through hard work. That usually means keeping another job (or two) while getting the new venture to turn a profit.

In fact, employment is a strong indicator of who will embark on entrepreneurship to begin with, according to another Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation study. Full-time workers are more than 50 percent more likely to start a business than people outside the labor force.

Fidgeting behind his desk, Delgado's legs mark the seconds with pulses of nervous energy. "I was working three jobs before I opened the first business," he says. He held his full-time job as a custodian for almost three years while he built Tres Reynas' business, and he worked part-time cleaning a restaurant on the weekends.

His wife rallied to help support the family, working full-time at a bank. And they're still working hard, but the profits are for the family and reinvestment: In 2004, they started a Mexican restaurant called Tortilleria El Rey, which has six employees outside the family.

The motto of the restaurant is "the best Mexican food since Mexico." It specializes in "authentic, homemade Mexican food that's never canned," Delgado says, "all from scratch."

All from scratch. It's the starting point for most immigrant entrepreneurs, and a tribute to the gratification they get from building something from the ground up. Delgado knows all about it.

BY ERIC BARENDSEN