Tracy Liu and Howard Dong moved to North Texas last year after living in Arkansas for a decade. The couple, who is originally from China, said they moved here for the opportunities.
Last month, they opened a restaurant in Plano that serves Chinese and Japanese dishes.
“You know when you have kids, you just want to think about more. You want to think about kids’ education,” Liu, who has two daughters, said. “So I [thought], ‘we should move to a bigger city. It’s time to change.’”
According to a new report by the self-described bipartisan think tank New American Economy, the couple is representative of many immigrants who’ve recently moved to the area. The report, which uses data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 American Community Survey, found that the Dallas-Fort Worth is the fastest growing metro area in the country for immigrants. In just one year, from 2018 to 2019, more than 48,000 new immigrants moved here.
The report includes an interactive map that shows the economic contributions by immigrants in the country’s 100 largest metro areas.
“It’s a good sign because it means there’s opportunity there and it’s a good sign because when people come, they create opportunity,” New American Economy executive director Jeremy Robbins said. “They start businesses, they spend money, they buy homes. They do things that generate growth.”
