A WORD FOR "ENTREPRENEUR"
This NYT profile Mohamed Dia, whose line of hip-hop-inspired clothing has made him a rich man, suggests that a dose of American culture can be good for France--and, especially, for its black immigrants.
Mr. Dia wears his own brand of clothing, which is sold in four Dia stores in France and is carried in 700 others. Sales are projected at $19 million to $22 million this year, up from $13 million in 2002. He drives a black Mercedes and has bought an apartment in Paris for his mother. In an effort to break into the American market, Mr. Dia is negotiating to open a store on 125th Street in Harlem with a special line for the United States. He will open the shop with Wyclef Jean, the Haitian-born hip-hop singer and composer.
In a country where class, education and pedigree still count, Mr. Dia is emblematic of a small new group of French entrepreneurs--hip, young and determined to escape the tough suburbs of the immigrant poor.
In Mr. Dia's case, the road to success came via New York. "America is a place where you can still dream," he said. "In America, if you want to succeed, you give yourself the right to do it and no one stops you. In France that can't happen."...
[H]is mother arranged for him in 1994 to spend the summer with cousins who ran an African food shop in Harlem. Arriving first in Baltimore with a friend with relatives there, Mr. Dia was stunned by the level of racial integration he witnessed.
"My first shock was to see so many black policemen in the airport" he said. "I couldn't understand it at all. In France out of 100 policemen, maybe one is black. I thought all blacks in America lived in the ghetto. Then I saw blacks with two cars and beautiful houses. I thought I was in the middle of a movie."...
Slowly, Mr. Dia came to realize that in America, destiny was not automatically determined by skin color or family history. "When I saw blacks making money, in responsible positions, I saw that I had a chance," he said. "I said, 'Why not me?'"
Dia's picture of America is more optimistic than even I would generally adopt, but it just goes to show that opportunity is relative--and that successful (and unsuccessful) entrepreneurs tend to see more possibilitis than the average person.