Integration, Competitiveness, and Prosperity in the Heartland: Omaha’s Hispanic and Business Communities

Spring 2010

This working paper provides a general background on the Hispanic community in Omaha, Nebraska—one of the country’s new gateway cities for new immigrants. It documents how businesses, community and religious organizations and the local government are working both to promote the socioeconomic integration of Latinos—and immigrants overall—and to maximize their overall contributions to the Omaha metropolitan area. At this time of renewed national attention to the rights of immigrants—sparked by local and state legislation (Arizona SB 1070) that present new obstacles to their integration—the Omaha area is an example of immigrants’ contributions and of how positive, community-wide efforts can create an atmosphere that fosters greater immigrant contributions.

The findings presented here follow a roundtable meeting in Omaha where Americas Society and Council of the Americas (AS/COA) convened local and national business executives, community leaders, public officials, and others to share concrete experiences of how to promote Hispanic workforce development and integration. A draft of this paper was presented at that meeting. While our research is comprehensive, it does not claim to document all initiatives throughout the metropolitan area—our primary focus has been on the work of business and the larger community groups.

This is the second in a three-part series of working papers focusing on new gateway cities. In September 2009, AS/COA released Economic Opportunity and Integration: Nashville’s Hispanic and Business Communities. The next paper in this series will focus on Portland, Oregon. Through these working papers, AS/COA aims to promote greater business attention to how integration programs are beneficial to both business and the community and demonstrate the social and economic contributions of Hispanic immigrants. We thank the National Business Council of this project for their continued support, and in the case of Omaha, our two local partners: Omaha Community Foundation and Nebraska Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Download the PDF of this report.


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