Embracing Pittsburgh's New Immigrants

2014 I Want to be an Ambassador! students with leaders and entrepreneurs from the Business Round Table session. Front row (L to R) Jesse Schell (Schell Games), Paul Brahim (BPU Investment Management), Candi Castleberry Singleton (UPMC), and Rebecca Harris (Chatham University Center for Women's Entrepreneurship)

Pittsburgh is a great city and home to so many visionaries and entrepreneurs. That is one of the reasons Luminari was established – to heighten the awareness of those innovators, dreamers and doers and foster activities that expand imaginations to drive change. Luminari believes people create success when they offer different perspectives, ideas, skills and work ethics that stir things up and inspire innovation. As a result, Luminari is excited about a new initiative to bring more students from immigrant communities into the conversation.

For more than 25 years, the Allegheny Intermediate Unit’s K-12 English as a Second Language program (ESL), has been helping students from around the world. Arriving in Pittsburgh for the first time, these students must learn very quickly how to adapt and excel in their neighborhoods, language and culture.  They must quickly build cultural competency and tolerance, and approach the world with fresh, open minds. To this end, Luminari is a natural partner. 

As a Pittsburgh-based non-profit which seeks to promote community engagement, Luminari was pleased to offer a Luminari Award/ESLScholarship to a student in the AIU’s ESL program.  The scholarship, valued at more than $1,200, will allow a future leader to participate in the 2015 I Want to be an Ambassador! camp in June. Focused on building cultural competency and tolerance, the 2015 I Want to be an Ambassador! camp will focus on developing the vital art and skills of diplomacy. This is the first year that Luminari has offered a camp scholarship specifically for an ESL student.

There are currently 441 total students in the AIU ESL program.

With the wave of immigrants and refugees who have been slowly making their way to the Pittsburgh area, it is essential that we find as many opportunities as possible to include our newcomers into local events and programs. The AIU is excited to be a partner with Luminari and looks forward to announcing the first winner in February.

Written by Gina DeMarco Oliphant, K-12 ESL Coordinator and Sarah McCluan, Supervisor, Communication Services

Allegheny Intermediate Unit
475 East Waterfront Drive, Homestead, PA 15120

Statistics from the 2010 Census:

• From 2006 to 2010, there were 38,799 new immigrant business owners in Pennsylvania, and in 2010, 9.1 percentof all business owners in Pennsylvania were foreign-born.

• Pennsylvania is home to many successful companies with at least one founder who was an immigrant or child of an immigrant, including Fortune 500 companies such as U.S. Steel, Comcast, Cigna Health, and PPG Industries. Those four companies together employ 243,000 people and bring in $128 billion in revenue each year.

• In 2010, of the Pennsylvania metro areas that are among the 25 largest U.S. metropolitan areas by total population, the foreign-born share of business owners was 14 percent in Philadelphia, and 4 percent in Pittsburgh. In each case, the immigrant business ownership rate was higher than the particular metro area’s foreign-born share of total population.

• The Pittsburgh metropolitan area had 2,370 H-1B visa requests in 2010-2011, with 72.6 percent of visa-holders working in STEM occupations. Major employers include the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, Deloitte Consulting, and Fujitsu America Inc.