Stories

Immigrant Entrepreneur Shares Culture through Pinatas
Esther Ortiz was born in Mexico and spent her childhood straddling the California border, but she found her home in Erie. In 1994, her parents landed jobs at Plastek, a local plastics manufacturing company and settled in Erie’s upper west side neighborhood. Their family of 11 – her parents and… Read More

From Syria to Erie: Immigrant Family Finds Success and Community
Mahmoud Albaradan had a thriving used car dealership in Daraa, Syria. But in 2011, anti-government protests propelled the city into civil war. As violence escalated, Mahmoud, his wife and their six children, along with his brother’s family of nine, fled for their lives. In 2016, after four years in a… Read More

Mechanical Engineer Builds Bridges Across Communities
When General Electric Transportation/Wabtec offered Brittany Lee Fisher a job as a mechanical engineer in Edison Engineering Development Program (EEDP) in 2016, she jumped at the chance. The daughter of Korean and Japanese immigrants, Fisher knew the position would allow her to build a strong career and make her parents’… Read More

Immigrants in South Carolina’s Workforce
We have an updated report about this topic: Immigrants in South Carolina’s Workforce (2022 Update) New research from New American Economy highlights the crucial role immigrants are playing in South Carolina’s economy, including in some of the state’s fastest-growing and most in-demand… Read More

New Americans in Dayton, Ohio
New research from New American Economy shows that immigrants contributed $5.3 billion to the GDP of the Dayton region in 2018. The report, New Americans in Dayton, was prepared in partnership with the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce. In addition to their financial contributions, which included… Read More

Election 2020: Unregistered Voters in Swing States
Election Day is now less than two weeks away. Among registered voters, the vast majority of minds have been made up—and adding to the sense of urgency, tens of millions have already voted. With record low numbers of undecided voters left to convince, some pundits say that… Read More

Election 2020: The Changing Electorate in Swing States
With the election less than three weeks away, attention is quickly turning to several swing states where the election may ultimately be decided. Using Cook Political Report’s rating system for states (as of October 13), we examined the 13 states that they rate as “Lean Democratic” (Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota,… Read More

Election 2020: Shifting Demographics in U.S. States
Last week, we examined how the U.S. electorate has changed nationwide from 2010 to 2018. However, these demographic changes at play nationally are even more pronounced at the state level, especially in many of the states that have developed recently into perennial or emerging swing states… Read More

Election 2020: The Most Diverse Electorate in U.S. History
The electorate in this year’s elections will be the most diverse and well-educated electorate in the history of the United States. Nationwide, non-Hispanic whites without a college degree were a slight majority of all voters in 2010 (51.0%), but by 2018 had fallen to just 44.6% of all voters. At… Read More

The Role of Immigrants in Mental Healthcare Services
Since the start of the Covid-19 crisis, ample attention has been paid to the value and demand for frontline healthcare workers such as doctors, nurses, respiratory technicians, and care aides. However, as the nation enters into its seventh month dealing with Covid-19, other forms of healthcare services… Read More
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