Moveable Feasts
on wheels Denise Severe’s Carribean Soul Food truck may be mobile, but her biggest journey is already behind her. Severe started selling platters of her trademark dishes – including fried fish, oxtails, jerk chicken and collard greens – from her Philadelphia home when she first arrived here from Haiti. The food was such a hit with those who came to her home for weekly dinners that she decided to take the show on the road. “I bought my first food truck in 1996,” she said. “I have two now.” She’s not alone. At a time when Americans are willing to try any type of food at least once, immigrants looking for a way to make their mark in their new home are taking a variety of foods – including sushi, lo mein, curried chicken and quesadillas – to the streets to satisfy that need. Some, like Dien Vinh, owner of Tommy’s Food Truck on Temple University’s main campus, are even adding their spin to American food to try and get consumers
to see it in a different way. Vinh, a native of Vietnam, decided to take a chance on feeding the students through the help of a friend. “A friend of mine sold me this truck,” he said. “It had been here for a long time and we do well here, especially at breakfast.” People like Severe and Vinh are part of a growing trend, according to Future of Small Business, a report released by Intuit Inc. and the Institute of the Future. Immigrants make up the fastest growing segment of small business owners, according to the report, and immigrants will make up a sizable portion of the small business base by 2017. Furthermore, according to the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity, small business startup rates are higher among the 36 million immigrants in the United States than they are among the native-born. Immigrant women like Severe are 57 percent more likely to start a business than native-women, and immigrant men, like Vinh,
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