By Jorge Mercado Friday, August 30th, 2024

When Teresa Arredondo first attempted to work in the aviation industry, she was rebuffed by a white man telling her the job was too much for a woman.

But three years later, she purchased the company from that same man, changed the name of the business, and now, 30 years later, Arredondo, owner of ArtCraft Paint in Santa Maria, is part of hundreds of thousands of Latinas contributing immensely to the overall health of the American economy.

“When we all moved to this country, my mom leaned on all the women of this family. She had 10 kids, six were women,” Arredondo, who immigrated from Michoacán, Mexico in 1977, told the Business Times.

“It was expected that the men in our lives would be the main financial providers, but after growing up how we did, we realized we weren’t just responsible for taking care and teaching our kids, but we also became the main financial breadwinners for our family.”

The role of Latinas in this country cannot be understated, especially after a new report funded by Bank of America and conducted by professors at California Lutheran University and UCLA was announced on Aug. 26.

The report, which was co-authored by Cal Lutheran’s Matthew Fienup and UCLA’s David Hayes-Bautista, found that Latinas contributed $1.3 trillion to the U.S. gross domestic product in 2021, up from $661 billion in 2010 and at a growth rate nearly triple that of non-Latinos during the same time period.

The full report can be found at LatinoGDP.US.

The $1.3 trillion economic contribution by Latinas is about as much as the GDP of Florida, and only surpassed by California, Texas and New York, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

“There was this sense of expectation that as amazing as the story is for all Latinos, that it was going to be even more amazing for U.S. Latinas, and that’s what we see from this report,” Fienup told the Business Times.

Hayes-Bautista noted that when people think of U.S. Latinos as a whole, many believe immigration became more prevalent just a few years ago, but in reality, people have been immigrating for hundreds of years.

“I have been watching changes in the composition of immigrants, U.S. born Latinos, Latinas for decades and understanding some changes, we had that suspicion going into looking at this we had some strong demographic trends that were likely to translate into what we subsequently found which were just huge premium in terms of human capital and then subsequently GDP growth for Latinas,” he said.

When Arredondo immigrated to the United States in the late 70s, her opportunity for education was almost none.

But, how Latinas have influenced future generations is what ultimately leads to the current report.

Arredondo has been working since she was seven years old, first starting in the fields out in Santa Maria.

She knew that she had to work, following in the footsteps of her mom who came to the United States and worked for several years to save up enough to bring all 10 of her kids to this country.

“The reason why I was one of the strongest leaders in my house is because I started working so young and my sisters were looking up to me,” she said.

“They all tell me how I influenced them, how I inspired them.”

But Arredondo knew she wanted more than to work in the fields her whole life. 

So even without a formal education, she saw that ad for an upholsterer in the aviation business and tried to get the job. 

And even after being turned away, she stayed persistent, helping her then-husband get a job before eventually getting a job at the business herself.

Then she bought the business outright and has found more success doing that than ever before.

“I had support from different people at different points in my life, but it was my decision to be this person. I remember when I was nine, ten, that I will told myself I would never go back to sleeping with an empty stomach,” Arredondo said.

“I told myself I want to be number one in what I am doing, and I am on that path.”

And just as Arredondo followed in her mom’s footsteps of working hard, young women can look at examples like Arredondo to carve their path.

Arredondo noted how her youngest sister runs a medical office and has accumulated nine properties. 

And her sister’s kids are finding success of their own as well, with one of them being a registered nurse and the other one a psychologist.

“My sister built a legacy and now at the same time, the taught them how to be a leader, the main person in charge,” Arredondo said.

That anecdote follows the national report as well, as the number of Latinas with a bachelor’s degree or higher education increased 103% between 2010 and 2021, while the number of highly-educated non-Hispanic females increased only 38.3% — a main driver of why Latinas are able to contribute so much to the economy.

“We recognize educational attainment as one of the most important ways that individuals accumulate human capital, that they increase their productivity, and by increasing their productivity, increase their incomes, their consumption, their standard of living and this is really a story about rapid human capital accumulation on the part of Hispanic females in the United States,” Fienup said.

“David and I both teach at universities and right now, close to 60% of our student bodies are female. So at a time when all females are rapidly accumulating education, we still see this amazing premium on the part of Hispanic females.”

Other key numbers from the report include:

• From 2010 to 2021, the number of Hispanic females in the U.S. labor force grew a total of 32.9% compared to only 2.7 percent for non-Hispanic females. Despite being just 9.3% of the U.S. population, Latinas are responsible for 30.2% of the growth of the U.S. labor force since 2010.

• From 2000 to 2021, the Latina labor force participation rate increased 7.5 percentage points, while the rate for non-Hispanic females was flat. U.S. Latinas, who started the century with a participation rate a full 5.0 percentage points lower, are now 2.5 percentage points more likely to be actively working than their non-Hispanic female counterparts.

• From 2010 to 2021, the real incomes of U.S. Latinas grew a total of 46.0 percent compared to only 18.5 percent for Non-Hispanic females. In other words, Latina income growth is 2.5 times that of their Non-Hispanic female counterparts.

“Being a Latina is seen as a disadvantage, but I flipped it,” Arredondo said.

“When you educate yourself, you understand the biggest gift you have being a Latina immigrant in this country, is that the sky is the limit. And this is why we have a $1.3 trillion impact in the U.S., the greatest country in the world.”

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