Economic empowerment and business innovation have the potential to make a lasting change in minority communities that are underrepresented. New jobs could be created, opening up more opportunities and building wealth. These two factors have a critical role in decreasing poverty and addressing the systemic barriers that many underrepresented groups face. When a community is economically empowered, it can thrive and be independent. One of the most significant ways business innovation helps underrepresented communities is through job creation. When people start businesses, they create employment opportunities for others, directly benefiting the local community. One of my career goals is to own and operate my own business. My business will stimulate the local community and economy by increasing employment in my community, as well as fulfilling the needs of my community. This creates a circle of job growth because when more people are employed, more people are earning money, which increases purchasing power and the demand for a business. On top of creating jobs, new businesses give people the opportunity to learn new skills. Businesses need employees with various abilities in fields such as customer service, technology, or conflict management. By offering professional training and development, businesses help to provide their employees with valuable skills that will eventually help them in their future careers. I worked at Chuck E. Cheese’s for 2 years. There, I learned many beneficial skills, such as conflict resolution, multitasking, and communication. Opportunities like this can be extremely helpful for young people, especially ones who come from communities with limited access to job training and high-quality education. One of the biggest problems people who plan to start businesses face in marginalized communities is access to funding. Much like college, without funding like loans, grants, or investors, many prospective businesses simply will not come into fruition. Part of economic empowerment is creating easier access to these resources. Business owners with access to these resources have the potential to reinvest the money in their community, improving infrastructure, supporting schools, and combating local issues. Successful business innovations open up a path for the building of generational wealth, and successful business owners can serve as role models. They can create assets like property or investments that will eventually grow in value over time. These assets can be passed down to future generations, which allows families to build financial security and freedom. When young people see successful business owners that they relate to, whether in race, background, or gender, it can inspire them to pursue their own goals and show them that success is possible for people like themselves. It shows that success is not limited to one particular group of people. Many successful business owners from marginalized communities often become advocates for policy changes that positively affect the community they come from. The success they earned gives them the ability to have a platform and a louder voice to speak out for changes for the benefit of their community. Economic empowerment and business innovation are extremely critical components to the uprising of underrepresented communities. They allow people to build wealth and improve the quality of these communities. Successful entrepreneurs give younger people a relatable model to look up to, which in turn helps economic empowerment and business innovations to break down barriers associated with starting a successful business and create a lasting effect on future generations.

I was homeless. Looking around, I’m surrounded by brick walls and bullet holes, Crackheads and gangs. The same old faces selling the same old stuff to the same old people. This is not my home. What I saw as the regular was in actuality a place in which I did not belong. As I see it, it was just the place where I happened to live. I sit and wait for my dad to pack my bag and take me to the Greyhound station downtown. The sky is grim and the clouds are billowing. “Jaden, get ready to go.” On the way downtown I see the regular. The ladies who get money the only way they know how. Derelict buildings lining the sides of roads. McDonald’s bags and liquor bottles bestrewed the road leading to nowhere. Potholes. There are so many potholes. I wonder if I could fall through one to a new world. Blue skies, one big family instead of the broken branches of mine, a room unoccupied by 3 others, a neighborhood that wasn’t low-income or listed on a top 10 list of the most dangerous parts of my city. The streets get wider. The iconic Los Angeles skyline moves closer and closer, as my surroundings become more and more industrial. My uncle waits patiently in the desolate station, then we board the nearly 40-foot-long brimming bus. Hours pass and I’m wide awake. Looking around, I’m surrounded by cars whizzing past, mountains and valleys, canyons cut into the dry land. More time passes and for miles, there is nothing. We’re inching closer and closer to the state line, and as we cross, I begin to doze off. When I open my eyes I look around to see a sign that reads “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada.” The clouds start to disperse. I spy my mother waiting at the station for our arrival. There was not a cloud to be seen. I’ve fallen into a pothole. I have my own room. This neighborhood is safe. Somehow, I still don’t feel at home. The sun went down and I understood the meaning of the words ‘home’ and ‘impermanence’ more intensely. Home is a place where someone feels comfortable living. Impermanence is the feeling I had as I realized that as long as I’d be going back and forth I would have no home. No one place felt like it was the place for me. My mother, being a former foster youth, felt the same way as I did around this age, except she physically experienced homelessness.These feelings led her on a path towards real estate. Spectating this growth have in result sparked my interest in the fields of real estate and industries surrounding business. I have decided that I would make a home for myself and others sharing the same perspective. My prospective career interests would give me the chance to do what I can to make sure no one would feel the way we did.