ABSTRACT
In the United States of America immigrant populations vary significantly by state. In 2000, California had the highest percentage of immigrants (24.9 percent) followed by New York (19.6 percent), Florida (18.4 percent), and Nevada (15.2 percent) (Wadhwa et al., 2007a). Immigrant-owned businesses play key roles in the US economy. Statistics regarding the creation of high-tech businesses show that at least one key founder was foreign-born in 25.3 percent of US technology and engineering companies started between 1995 and 2005 (ibid.). In California, this rate was 38.8 percent. In the Silicon Valley region of California, 52.4 percent of companies had an immigrant as a key founder, with the greatest proportion of founders from India, China, and Taiwan (Maclay, 2007). In fact, Silicon Valley leads the nation in immigrant entrepreneurship (Wadhwa et al., 2007b). Although the state of California has the highest percentage of immigrants in the US, and Silicon Valley leads the nation in immigrant entrepreneurship, the majority of studies that have focused on these immigrant entrepreneurs have mentioned little about the immigrant women entrepreneurs of this region. In this chapter we look at female immigrants in California, particularly Silicon Valley, and present specific findings regarding entrepreneurs in this group.
