Latinos are “untapped economic potential.” Two reports tell different stories
By Victor Landa, NewsTaco
One great story, two different versions.
According to a Stanford University study, Latino entrepreneurs are the largest untapped source of U.S. economic growth. The report calls it the ”opportunity gap.”
Latinos started 3.38 million businesses in 2012.
The fact, according to the study, is that “while Latinos are starting businesses more frequently than the overall population, these businesses are smaller and making less money than their non-Latino counterparts. In fact, Latino businesses could have generated an additional $1.2 trillion in 2012 if they had been of equal average size to non-Latino businesses.”
The important phrase is “could have.” $1.2 trillion left on the table is a problem.
One story, two versions
But two news reports, from two of the nation’s most respected business journals, took different approaches to telling the story. I bring them up to illustrate how nuanced differences in perspective tell differing narratives of the Latino experience.
First, Bloomberg Business. Under the headline “Hispanic Entrepreneurship Could Mean $1.4 Trillion Boost to U.S.,“ the writer, Ali Donaldson, draws attention to the personal story of a Latina entrepreneur to illustrate the boom in Latino business, but places the blame for the opportunity gap on Latino shoulders:
“One reason more Hispanics resort to starting businesses is that the population has struggled to overcome differences with other groups in educational attainment and employment. Hispanic students are the least likely to complete the 12th grade, and 84 percent of 24 to 29 year-olds do not have a college degree. For the few that do earn a bachelor’s degree, their unemployment rate is still above that of whites with a similar education.”
Forbes, on the other hand, ran this headline: “Economic Growth’s New Driver: It’s All About Latino Entrepreneurs.“
Writer George Sanders draws our attention to the economy and quotes a Stanford researcher:
“’Latinos have not been a drag on the U.S. economy,’ said David Rivers, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, who is leading new research by the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative (SLEI). ‘It’s more the reverse. A weak economy is holding back Latinos.’”
To read Sanders tell it, the problem isn’t Latinos, it’s a systemic lack that isn’t taking advantage of an untapped potential.
One story, two different narratives.
[pullquote]”… people like to read and hear stories about other people.”[/pullquote]Framing for numbers, not for good storytelling
I remember listening to a long list of consultants over my years as a commercial TV reporter. All of them stressed one thing – people like to read and hear stories about other people. That’s why so many news reports you see lead with a personalized story that illustrates the problem or revelation at hand. The idea is to write a story in such a way that it attracts the most readers or viewers, not that it tells a better story.
But this way of framing news does two things. It focuses on the person at the expense of a wider context because only the context relevant to the personal story is in view. And it tends to place the blame for whatever ill it’s talking about on the people. So a story about drug addiction that uses an addict as an example tends to place blame, by default, on the addicted.
That’s what the Bloomberg story does. The potential for economic growth isn’t reached because Latinos lack something – education, culture, knowledge.
The Forbes piece talks about the systemic lack that keeps Latino entrepreneurs from reaching their potential, and how that affects the U.S. economy.
A completely different view with a different outcome. It’s a subtle difference, because at first glance it’s not noticed, and because it’s not noticed it’s accepted.
So what of it? We need to be telling our own stories, and not leave the framing to someone else.
[Photo by vreimunde/Flickr]
