Reviews 283

The New Entrepreneurs: How Race, Class, and

Gender Shape American Enterprise, by
Zulema Valdez. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 2011. 190 pp. $21.95
paper. ISBN: 9780804773218.

IVY KEN
George Washington University
ivyken@gwu.edu
Half of Latina/o entrepreneurs in Zulema
Valdezs study of restaurant owners in
Houston, Texas earn $50,000 or less in yearly
income. This median largely splits Latinas on
the low end from the men who dominate the
upper income brackets. Given these modest
income prospects and all the difficulties of
business ownership, one might question
why a Latina, in particular, would open a restaurant. Valdezs data allow her to address
this question, and the answer comes as no
surprise: just like everybody else, Latinas
want to make money.
The wise approach Valdez employs keeps
her from stopping there, and leads her to
explain the more interesting process of how
early motivations change based on entrepreneurs experiences of business ownership
from different social locations. In a persuasive use of an intersectional framework, Valdez reveals how privilege and disadvantage
are reproduced for business owners, finding
evidence of cumulative advantage and disadvantage in entrepreneurs goals and motivations. For example, the goal of economic
self-sufficiency may propel someone into
entrepreneurship, but when she struggles
to get a loan, has to lay off employees soon
after opening, and needs to bring the kids
to the restaurant with her because she cannot
spare the money for a caregiver, her goals
may change. She may come to prioritize her
desire to never again work in a dirty, dangerous wage jobher most likely other option
over the possibility of a solid economic entrepreneurial success. The risks of business
ownership, even when odds of a low income
are very high, seem worth it not because of
the actualization of a previously articulated
rational choice in which all possible factors
are taken into account, but on the basis of
experience that is shaped by particular intersections of race, ethnicity, class, and gender

within a specific market. The relatively privileged experiences of a white man who easily
assembles loans from different sources, uses
his college education and family business
training to earn $130,000 a year within the
first few years of opening his restaurant,
operate similarly to shape his reasons for
staying in business and his measures of success. Privilege and disadvantage are reproduced in these ways, which transform into
markers of business acumen in the popular imagination: he obviously does better in
business because he is a better businessman.
Like most current intersectional studies,
The New Entrepreneurs draws readers toward
fascinating comparisons like the above, but
cannot explain all the patterns and discrepancies that appear. Take high-skilled foreign-born Mexican women, for example.
Valdez finds that these women do better,
economically, as entrepreneurs than as
wage workers. The same is not true of
high-skilled foreign-born Mexican men.
Valdez argues that an intersectional
approach helps us understand how someone
disadvantaged by particular combinations
of race, class, gender, and ethnicity carry
their vulnerable status with them as entrepreneurs. Given the success of high-skilled
foreign-born Mexican women entrepreneurs
relative to wage workers, a reader may be
left wondering if disadvantage accumulates
for this group of entrepreneurs? Is there
a reason that high-skilled foreign-born Mexican men do not benefit economically from
their gender location, and if so, what is it?
In one of those peculiar intersectional twists,
Valdez shows that this group of high-skilled
women earns more than other women, but
they still do not earn as much as high-skilled
menboth entrepreneurs and wage workers. The interesting and unforeseen comparison then, might be between high-earning,
high-skilled, foreign-born Mexican women
entrepreneurs and higher-earning, foreignborn Mexican men wage workers. Explaining,
rather than just pointing out, the sometimes
contradictory processes that contribute to
disparities between these groups would be
very helpful.
Valdez prioritizes Latina/o experiences in
this book and confirms that many Latina/os
do not situate themselves within American
social scientists problematic system of racial
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284 Reviews
and ethnic classification. Some Latina/os
may, in some situations, set themselves apart
from blacks, for instance. This does not
make them white. Valdez is also not content to rest on notions of ethnic entrepreneurship that presuppose harmony and support
within ethnically-designated groups, contributing intersectional insights and a less
romantic notion of ethnic group affiliation.
Since she is dealing with entrepreneurs
those most rugged of individualsValdez
also dares to cast a critical eye on the ways
Latina/o and black entrepreneurs in Houston invoke individualism and color-blind
racism, likely to their own detriment. By taking issue with elements of an embedded market approach, ethnic entrepreneurship
tropes, a widely shared racial classification
system, and even her own study participants views on race, ethnicity, and capitalism, Valdez demonstrates her provocative
and critical stance.
At the same time, it may be true that we
learn more about what is wrong with social
science from this book than we do about
entrepreneurs. This is not a book that one
might pass along to a friend in Houston to
illuminate the state of entrepreneurship
there, despite its being filled with interesting
stories grounded in an accessible discussion
of underlying statistical patterns. Valdezs
robust ethnographic approach does not yield
surprising findings about entrepreneurs,
themselves, but rather prompts her to remix
some long-established sociological approaches
so that she can account for how the intersecting
dynamics of race, ethnicity, class, and gender
shape embedded opportunities for success
which, when realized, shape entrepreneurs
very understandings of the success they
experience.

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