Education among second-generation Hispanics is improving but still below national averages.

J.K. WALL
Gannett News Service

Since Javier Alberto Amezcua returned from living with his mother in Mexico six years ago, he has played a key role in his father's Indianapolis restaurant business.
He came to help his father, Javier Amezcua, expand his Mexican restaurant. He also modernized his father's business, moving bookkeeping from a paper system to computer. Then last year, Javier Alberto became the manager of a second location.

The 22-year-old, born in Beech Grove, Ind., now works days as long as 14 hours, cooking and managing the new location. Amezcua urges his son to return to school to earn a high school diploma, then take some college-level management classes, with the vision that he eventually would take the reins of the restaurants when Amezcua retires. The father and son are typical of a surging national trend: The U.S.-born children of Hispanic immigrants, the second generation, are coming of age, with generally fluent English, better education, more affinity with American culture and higher earning potential. For immigrant Hispanic entrepreneurs, the second generation presents a dilemma. Their children could be far better equipped to run the family business, but their acculturation and education often lead them into other career paths.

"When they see their other classmates going off to college, there's a certain envy, there's a certain desire, there's a certain peer pressure to go off and do that," said Eugene Muscat, director of the Family Business Center at the University of San Francisco School of Business, who counsels Hispanic entrepreneurs and their children.

Entrepreneur Mike Perez has seen both sides of the trend.

He and his wife, Anna, are natives of Dominican Republic who moved to New York as children. They run a phone-card retail shop in Indianapolis, a resort in the Dominican Republic and own five Indianapolis rental properties.

Mike Perez has insisted his children be educated. But he hasn't insisted they work for the family business.

His sons, Marcos and Wilson, both joined the military and are stationed in Iraq.

"They both were in here (helping the business), but they decided to go," Perez said. "It would be nice (for them) to stay here, but they decided they wanted to go serve their country."

Only 15-year-old Cathy, the baby of the family, has dreams of running the family firm. She started at age 10, counting phone cards, and now handles the rental property accounts and works as a clerk at the phone-card store.

"After I get out of college, I just want to keep on with the business. I want it to really be big. I want everybody to know about it," she said. Cathy Perez's aggressive style is common among second-generation Hispanics who are thoroughly educated, Muscat said. Unfortunately, most second-generation Hispanics don't get the opportunities she has.

While education among second-generation Hispanics is improving, it still falls below national averages. According to a report by the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington, D.C., 23 percent of second-generation Hispanic adults lack high school diplomas versus 54 percent for Hispanic immigrants. And a full 15 percent of second-generations have at least a bachelor's degree compared with 9 percent for immigrants.

Still, both those numbers lag the U.S. average of 16 percent without a high school diploma and 27 percent with at least a bachelor's degree, according to the U.S. government's Current Population Survey.

As education increases, so do wages. According to the Pew Center and the Current Population Survey, Hispanic immigrants earn a mean of $457 weekly, whereas the mean for second-generation Hispanics is $535. The U.S. average is $609 a week.