Immigrants are often more willing to take the risk of using their savings to launch a business, he said, hence the huge number of new immigrant-owned businesses. "When you come here as an immigrant, you are taking a chance, and that is what starting a business is all about," Zajur said.

Many are like Jose Merino, who came here from El Salvador with no money. Almost immediately, he began working, shoveling snow off sidewalks in Alexandria. For years, Merino and his family worked at maintenance jobs, stashing away as much money as they could. Two decades later, with the help of his wife, children and brother, Merino bought a food truck where he and his wife sold pupusas and carnecitas to players of a Sunday Salvadoran soccer league. In 1999, they opened a restaurant. Now they have three restaurants: El Pulgarcito in Alexandria and Woodbridge and Las Americas in Falls Church.

"I never dreamed I could have this much," Merino said. "It was very difficult, but it can be done."

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Most Hispanic businesses are even smaller than Merino's. Nationally, only 12 percent have paid employees. Many face obstacles, such as language barriers, said Daniel Flores, president of the Greater Washington Ibero American Chamber of Commerce, the region's oldest Hispanic business group.

Patricio Carrera spoke no English when he immigrated here five years ago from Ecuador, where he was a journalist writing about his country's justice system. He arrived in Montgomery County without a visa or authorization to work. So, despite his education, he took the first job he could find, which was as a landscaper. He later found work as a painter. At one of the work sites where he was employed, a property owner pulled Carrera aside and offered him a contract to fix up an apartment complex in Annapolis.

Carrera, who is applying to be a permanent resident, got a tax ID number, formed ARPI Construction and contracted a team of workers to do the job.

"I have a little suerte," he said, using the Spanish word for luck.

When that contract ended, Carrera began taking small construction jobs and started a slew of side jobs — freelance writing for a local Spanish-language publication, studying to be a loan officer at company targeting Hispanics. He also works as a DJ at a Latin nightclub in Silver Spring.

"To do business here, you just need your mind and vision and desire," he said.

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