[su_dropcap style=”flat”]H[/su_dropcap]ERE’S A STORY with an ending I could have NEVER seen coming. But I’ll get to that once you hear the story.

It was 1915, and Diane Sabia was a young 12 years old girl when she left her home in Balvano, Italy, and crossed the Atlantic by ship to reach the United States. Diane carried her belongings in a cooking pot. She and her siblings were traveling with their mother Antoinette Sabia, to reunite with their father who was waiting for them in America. Their father, Carmen Sabia, had gone ahead to work in America and establish some semblance of stability before his family followed from Italy.

As is typical of most dreams, establishing the footing in America had taken Carmen longer than anticipated. He had worked diligently since his arrival in the United States; yet it had been eight years since Carmen had seen his wife Antoinette or his children.

As the ship approached the New York shore and Ellis Island came into sight, young Diane asked her mother, “How will you recognize papa after all the years?” Her mom smiled and said assuredly, “Don’t worry Diane, we’ll recognize each other.”

Reunited in the new land, they settled in Chicago, where Carmen continued working as a laborer in the railroad subway tunnels.

The journey had taken several years, but finally they were all together in their new home – the United States.

There’s a hunger to survive and thrive that is associated with immigrants. It’s what allows them to arrive in a new land – often with next to nothing except their work ethic and a drive to create a better future.

Pushing aside the fears of the unknown, immigrants leave their native lands with heart wrenching goodbyes to family and friends, and head out into foreign territory. Many immigrants arrive with a minimal amount of currency. Many don’t speak English. But they’re brimming with optimism, hope for the future and a profound drive to build. Their future and lives are at stake.

 “Every aspect of the American economy has profited from the contributions of immigrants.”

– John F. Kennedy

The success of immigrants is not anecdotal. Since the 1860’s immigrants in the United States have accounted for approximately 13% of the population. Yet, amazingly – 40% of the Fortune 500 companies were started by immigrants or children of immigrants. When you’re truly committed, few things can stand in the way of inexorable progress.

We can learn a lot from studying immigrants. They typically begin with very little. Essentially no connections, zero financial resources, limited education, poor language skills and significant cultural differences. Additionally, they often face prejudices and biases which create an environment of further difficulty.

Yet successful immigrants more than make up for these ostensible disadvantages with an abundance of tenacity and commitment to making forward progress. Immigrants bring with them an attitude of possibility, the belief that they can create something from nothing and the burning desire to create a better life. And they often do.

Perhaps that’s why in a New York Times article titled, “The Immigrant Advantage” the first line of the article began with the sentence, “If you want to die a successful American, especially in the heartland, it helps to be born abroad.”

Here are just some of the more than 200 Fortune 500 top American companies founded by immigrants or their children – Kraft, Ford, General Electric, Procter & Gamble, AT&T, Mattel, Google, McDonald’s, Heinz, Home Depot, Hertz, Estée Lauder, UPS, Boeing, and Disney.

Fortune magazine, referencing a report titled “The New American Fortune 500” by the Partnership for a New American Economy and which included business luminary Co-Chairs: Steve Ballmer, then CEO of Microsoft, Michael Bloomberg, then Mayor of NYC, Bob Iger, Chairman & CEO of Walt Disney, and Jim McNerney, CEO & President of Boeing to name just several, described these companies as being “synonymous with America’s leading role in the global marketplace.”

“There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism… The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

You would do well to think like an immigrant. The list of successful immigrants in the United States is basically limitless, but here’s just ten.

1. Sergey Brin: Co-Founder Google
Born in 1973, Brin immigrated with his parents to the United States from Russia when he was just six years old. While working on his Ph.D at Stanford, he and his friend Larry Page built a web search engine before starting Google in a garage. His net worth is approximately $30 billion.

“Obviously everyone wants to be successful. But I want to be looked back on as being very innovative, very trusted and ethical and ultimately making a big difference in the world.”

2. Do Won Chang: Co-Founder & CEO of Forever 21
Do moved to the United States from Korea in 1984 and worked as a gas station attendant and a janitor. He also worked at a coffee shop. Three years later he and his wife opened a clothing store. Today Forever 21 does about $4.4 billion in annual sales, and they own 100%.

3. Jerry Yang: Founder of Yahoo
At the age of ten, Yang immigrated from Taiwan with his mom and brother. Jerry knew just one English word – “shoe.” He started Yahoo! in 1994. Today he’s an investor and advisor to several corporations, and is worth $1.8 billion.

4. Pierre Omidyar: Founder and Chairman of eBay
Omidyar is the son of Iranian immigrants, who were living in Paris when he was born. Shortly thereafter, they moved to the United States. Omidyar created a website called Auction Web that supported auctions. The service continued to evolve, eventually he renamed the company eBay and the rest is history.

“Pursue your passion. If you’re passionate about something and you work hard, you will be successful.”

5. George Soros: Soros Fund Management Chairman
Soros was born in Hungary and had a difficult childhood, including a period wherein he lived in hiding to avoid the Nazi Germans occupying the country. He immigrated to England where he attended the London School of Economics, and paid his way by working on the railroad and in local cafés. He immigrated to the U.S. in 1956, and went on to become a wealthy businessman and philanthropist.

“Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition, there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.”

6. Andy Grove, former Chairman and CEO of Intel Corporation
Grove was born in Hungary, almost died from scarlet fever, and survived a Nazi occupation by taking on a false identity along with his mother, while his father was taken to a labor camp. They reunited after the war. Grove later escaped Hungary during the revolution in 1956 for Austria, and eventually made his way to the U.S. the following year where he was employed as a busboy. Grove graduated with a Ph.D from UC Berkeley in 1963, and his career in technology led to his being the CEO of Intel. He wrote an excellent book called “High Output Management” which I highly recommend.

“Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.”

7. Indra Nooyi: PepsiCo CEO
Indra was born in India and received a masters degree there before coming to the U.S. in 1978, where she earned a 2nd masters at Yale. After a stint doing strategy consulting, she joined PepsiCo in 1994 where she became CFO in 2001 and CEO in 2006. Since 2001, she has helped guide net profit from $2.7 billion to $6.5 billion, and has been recognized by Time, Forbes and Fortune magazines.

“My mother’s greatest gift was making me and my sister believe at a very young age that we could achieve anything. While we were growing up in southern India, mom always made certain we set our sights high and worked tirelessly to achieve our dreams.”

8. Andrew Ly: CEO & Co-Founder Sugar Bowl Bakery
Ly along with his family escaped Vietnam after the U.S. departed the country. In 1978, they took a small boat, survived a harrowing 8 day and night journey at sea – which included being boarded by pirates that took everything but the clothes they were wearing. They began learning English when they arrived, worked hard, saved money and bought a small coffee shop where they learned how to make doughnuts and muffins. Today their bakery does over $100 million in annual sales.

“When I came here, I didn’t speak the language or have any money. I am proud that I’ve taken my family where they hesitated to go years ago. Whenever I mentor young people, I tell them, never give up. Work hard, have a good heart, and be disciplined. Those are the ingredients to success.”

9. Jose Wilfredo Flores: Founder and President W Concrete
Flores came from El Salvador to escape the civil war when he was just 14. He made his way to Washington DC to live with his uncle and older brother. While he attended middle school, he worked part-time cleaning offices. At 15 he quit school, lied about his age using a fake ID and social security, and began working in construction. By age 25 he was supervising a crew of up to 50 people and was making $60,000. He eventually started W Concrete which does several million dollars a year in sales.

“In my country, there’s no opportunity for poor people. The rich get richer and richer. The poor will always be poor and poor. Here, do it right and nobody can stop you.”

10. Lowell Hawthorne: President Golden Krust Bakery and Grill
Hawthorne emigrated from Jamaica in 1981 and became a stock handler for the New York Police Department, and went to school at night to get his associates degree in accounting from the Bronx Community College. Remembering how his father operated a bakery in Jamaica, he and his siblings took out a 2nd mortgage, borrowed money from family and friends and opened the first Golden Krust restaurant. Eventually growing to over 100 locations in several Eastern states, the company has generated over $100 million in annual sales, and they have plans to continue expanding.

“Anybody can achieve the American dream. You’ve got to be focused, educated, have discipline, and just go for it. Risks not taken are opportunities missed, you’ve always got to take calculated risks in entrepreneurship.”

And by the way, here’s the part that I could have NEVER seen coming about that 12-year-old Italian immigrant girl who carried her belongings in a cooking pot through Ellis Island on her way to meet her father Carmen Sabia who she hadn’t seen for 8 years.

Although she never went to school beyond 5th grade, she was industrious and helped her parents with their family business. Eventually, she grew and married a young man who was also of Italian heritage, and they in turn had several children of their own. One of their boys grew and eventually married, and he in turn had a son… and that was me (with the uncommon middle name of Carmen).

Thanks grandma for being a brave little girl and coming home to a foreign land.