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- At the end of the day,
all of this is about serving people.
That's where I think each of our hearts are
as we do our work each and every day.
And so, as we think about job quality and what it means,
it's really about what it means for all of us
in our community, right?
It's what it means for all of our families.
And as we think about immigrants and refugees,
they're an incredible part of our community.
As we look at the data
from an organization called New American Economy,
we see that immigrants and refugees
represent 24% of San Diego County.
That's nearly a fourth of our community members,
our neighbors, our colleagues, our friends, right?
And when we think about what that means in economic terms,
that's representing something like
7.5 billion in taxes paid.
That's 20 billion in earning power.
That's a significant piece of our economy.
That's something that needs to be part of
any strategy we have for how we serve our workforce,
and this is something that hits
incredibly personally for me,
I'm the spouse of an immigrant engineer
who came to the US
after living through 10 years of civil war
in his own country,
and who struggled to find a job in the states
with a degree, speaking three languages.
It was difficult to integrate into the community.
And so when I look at data such as that
from the Migration Policy Institute,
and I see that something like nearly two million immigrants
come in with college degrees
and have not been able to
fully integrate into communities.
The impact that has is missing out on
something like 39 billion in wages.
This is something that
means we're missing out as a community on that talent.
Right, we're missing out on
businesses having inclusive growth as a result.
But I think the best way to understand this
is by hearing directly from individuals
for whom have experienced this firsthand, right?
That you have lived through this.
And so they're gonna share personal stories,
but I think there are pieces of this
that we can learn from and be inspired by.
So, Dyna and Rahmatullah,
I'm so happy to have you with us today.
Dyna, can you share a bit about your personal journey
coming to the US
and to the point now of being a business owner?
- Thank you, Brooke.
Good morning, everyone.
So, I migrated here from the Philippines 20 years ago
and when I came, I really didn't know what I wanted to do.
But I got introduced into a senior care industry,
so I started as a bathing aid
in a large-scale facility.
There's like 99 beds,
and that was my first job.
And coming here was not that easy,
but the opportunities had been given,
so I just grab it.
As an immigrant, you just gotta have to
grab whatever you can to survive.
And
two years after that,
I was able to find another job
to be a private caregiver to,
I was able to serve two awesome seniors
that have made a huge impact in my life,
and I just find myself that,
"Wow, this is actually what I'm gonna be doing,
"serving the seniors."
So when I got married, met my husband,
who has been very supportive,
he's here in the audience as well,
we were able to acquire a facility,
a six beds care facility,
and me and my husband, we were the caregivers
and we started hiring caregivers,
and for me to have no experience,
I'm a high school graduate from the Philippines,
but my driving passion is my ambition.
I'm ambitious,
and coming here with just 35 US dollars
was a very brave move,
and my mom, my dad were here, and my sisters,
so they accommodated me and helped me
integrate into the workforce
for whatever is available at the time.
And growing my business from
having six beds facility to another,
I was able to see that there's actually
a need in the senior care industry,
and I want to be a part of the solution,
and in 2015, later of 2015,
I launched First Promise Care Services.
It's a non-medical in-home care services
that serves seniors in the comfort of their own homes,
and again, I started that business with 500 US dollars,
plus me, going out and serving seniors
and I hired a caregiver, I hired a helper,
and right now, we have 60+ employees that are serving
and making a difference in the community of seniors.
(audience applause) - That's phenomenal.
When we think about soft skills like grit and dedication,
I think going from $35 or 500 to a business
that's now supporting people is incredible.
And Rahmatullah, your story is a little bit different,
but you were providing an incredible set of support
to troops in NATO prior to coming in.
Can you share about your experience?
- Yes, hello everyone.
So, I started working for US Army in Afghanistan
and prior to that, I was a volunteer
with the United Nation Human Settlement Program,
they call it UN-Habitat.
So, I work four year for US Army
and then I migrated to US
and I started off
after six months of being unemployed
and juggling for jobs
and I started off for being a pizza delivery.
However, I worked with the UN
and I miss another part,
I worked for Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce.
And I had a degree in business administration
and associate,
a bachelor in business
and associate in public administration.
All education were foreigner education,
where it comes from like Europe and America,
I've been taught in English,
but when I got here,
nobody just paid attention to that,
or trusted that experience and credential
and I have to start as a pizza delivery.
And these career development programs
really help me to be here today
and then work with International Rescue Committee,
and I help other refugees right now
and I'm a financial education coordinator.
So what I do basically I'll
teach and coach refugees on US financial systems.
- Incredible. (audience applause)
Both of you have taken those life experiences
and really applied them,
not only to transform the situation
for yourself and your family,
but are making an incredible impact in the community.
But sometimes, when we're trying to support people,
there are gaps in our systems.
Things don't work as they should.
Rahmatullah, you're thinking day in and day out
about the job seeker.
What are some gaps you see
and what can we do to fill those gaps?
- I mean, it's not one or two, it's a lot, unfortunately.
And then, I don't want you to all leave this
imposing with a negative (laugh) world.
So, the gap, one of the problem is
the recertification issue for refugees.
I have seen doctors and engineers, as you say it,
they need to be recertified
and they don't know from where to start.
Also, they have all the skills,
they just lack some softer skills
and maybe some English and that's all.
So, struggling with the stress
and all the anxieties of like
being away from your family, refugee,
and to pay your rent and just right upfront,
the next month rent and all that.
So, it's really hard to navigate from where to start.
So, the career centers are supporting, yes,
but the childcare is another issue.
And the benefit cliff or the welfare system
sometimes is really a lot of bureaucracy
and so it's, it's a lot around there.
Refugees for first few years are pretty new,
have a lot of acculturation and then
even I was able to speak English.
I was not able to speak the English
which is more soft and diplomatic
with the culture, acceptable in the US. (laughs)
I come from a culture background of,
I'm very straightforward in most of the cases,
and that's creating a problem.
(audience laughs)
(laughs) So those are the things that
refugees are struggling.
Those are the least, you know?
There's a lot.
We have refugees coming,
they have a huge debt.
They don't know, they just got the credit card at home
and then they don't know how it works.
And there's much more, which I can share. (laughs)
(audience laughs)
- I think you hit on so many important pieces
from the spoken and unspoken aspects of language
to how we think about to generational support.
And for those of you who were with us last year,
you heard Laura share about
the work we're doing as it relates to childcare.
And so, just navigating all of those pieces, right,
in the system that the benefits cliff,
which are difficult often to navigate
for any of our job seekers,
but even more so imagine navigating it
in a language that you don't speak at all,
or you don't speak well yet.
Just an incredible consideration.
And for Dyna, as an employer, right,
you've come to the point of starting that business
and you have a particular passion
around helping other immigrants as part of that.
But, what do you see as challenges
from the employer's side?
Right, for how they tap into the skillsets
of immigrants and refugees in the communities
and what more can they do?
- So, one thing that I,
one of the problem I would say is the communication.
This is really big on
whenever we send caregivers to client's home,
like if they can't understand English.
It's gonna be like this.
Like, they would call our office.
And so we would, with that problem,
it's very important that we,
when we are screening our employees
or a caregiver that would be applying,
we want to make sure that they can understand English,
and so this is the integration.
So communication is very important.
So if you want to be a respected both side,
it actually benefit both the employers,
the clients and the employees, the caregivers.
If you don't know how to communicate
and so again, this is America.
We are all here, we understand.
We need to be able to understand each other
and communication, again, is a big factor.
And of course cultural skills.
So I, myself, I came from a third world country.
This is so different from where I was raised.
And we don't know how to operate
like let's say microwave,
we didn't have that,
so there's a lot of little things
that we take for granted here.
But this little things, little skills
that we can actually teach our employees to learn
so they can be effective in the workforce
and be integrated well
and so they could become successful.
- Yeah, and I think there's,
I know we've talked about this concept of
how we move from seeing things
as a deficit to an asset, right?
Those individuals who bring not only
the grade of experience of everything
that they've navigated through, but a second language.
Right, a cultural understanding for clients
that you might be serving
who are from other parts of the world, right,
as true assets, and how we can look at that
from an asset-based mentality
of what people are bringing to the market.
But the change around immigrant integration,
there was phenomenal work that was done
in a launch earlier this year,
and many in this room were involved
around a strategy for San Diego for immigrant integration.
And some phenomenal efforts, right?
But this is a place where all of us can play a role.
Right, each of us can be change makers,
whether we're educators,
whether we're workforce practitioners,
whether we're employers.
What are one or two things, Rahmatullah,
that you would encourage folks to think about
what they can do as a change maker in this space?
- So, the most, or to pick two, it's hard but,
one of the thing, if you're an employer,
please understand this that a refugee
who came through all this bureaucracy
or complicated process and survived
and resilient enough to establish their life,
I think that will be a great asset
for your business as well.
So, one of the number one thing you can find in a refugee
is that resilience,
and ability to start from zero again and again.
Please remember that and then
we should learn from bigger corporations
that the CEOs are refugees and then
and the top employees are refugee.
They may not be very soft and you know
cheesy-mouth speaking skill,
(laughs) but they have very good talent,
could be profitable for your business.
And yeah, that's number one.
Number two, I would ask support of the county
and then everybody who is a policy maker
or has influential role to
you know, just smooth the path for refugees
to get to the higher education
or skills they need,
or at least recertificate and then
transfer their skills,
and then, you know, their workforce.
You can generate revenue, simply.
- Dyna, what thoughts would you share
about how members of the audience
can be change makers in this space?
- I believe to be a change agent in any demographic,
it's very important to value the person,
value your employees.
And focusing on creating a solution
to elevate them where they're at,
that it would elevate your business as well,
to the next level.
And like Rahmatullah has said,
like you know, immigrants are resilient in so many ways.
But we start from zero to here,
but we have the ability to adapt
to what's in front of us.
And so as a business employer,
it's really important to really recognize
some of the strengths of the immigrants.
- Yeah, thank you.
I hope that Dyna, like you're an inspiration.
Rahmatullah is something that each of us
can carry with us, right,
as we move into our day-to-day.
And I think, these stories and those of many others
are things that we're using at the Workforce Partnership
to really inspire us and the way that we think about
how do we serve our whole community.
And so that means digging in
on how can we make the credential conversion process easier,
easier to navigate?
How can we make English language learning,
working with wonderful partners like adult education
more accessible, more contextualized, right?
How can we really dig in on
where there are those last mile challenges, right,
and try to remove those barriers?
And how can we partner with employers
to really understand that inclusive growth, right,
as we've heard and as we've seen already this morning,
can be good for them,
from their business bottom line
and good for their employees.
So as we continue with this session this morning,
as we hear from the remaining speakers,
I encourage all of us to come away from this thinking about
what can we do to be change makers.
We often say in the US that now knowledge is power,
and I think if we really look at it,
we would consider it's putting knowledge into action
that's truly powerful.
Thank you.
- Thank you. - Thank you.
(audience applause)
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