AM Tech to Graduate First Latino Class

American Management Tech University was founded in Los Angeles to educate South Korean immigrants on the ways of U.S. business.

Now the institution is reaching across ethnic boundaries to forge closer ties with other minority groups. On Tuesday, 50 Latino business owners will graduate from AM Tech’s first-ever entrepreneurship training for Latinos. It’s modeled after a similar program the university held last year for African American entrepreneurs.

The cross-cultural training reflects the economic reality of Los Angeles, said AM Tech President Ky Chueon Kim. In the long run, minority entrepreneurs must reach beyond their own ethnic groups to survive.

“We want to spread our success to other ethnic communities,” Kim said. “For Los Angeles to prosper, we all must prosper.”

In addition to standard entrepreneurial fare such as business planning, accounting and finance, the Latino participants in the 12-week program learned about Korean culture and Asian history.

The goal was to give Latinos a glimpse of Korean businesspeople beyond the boss-worker relationship that many have experienced in industries such as apparel, food service and retail. Kim said the new graduates will become part of AM Tech’s alumni network, a relationship he hopes will lead to increased business connections between those business communities.

Latinos “may only have seen Koreans working very fast and not saying very much,” he said. “We wanted to have some relations from heart to heart.”