When Mahmud Jafri first came to the United States from Pakistan, he hit a “concrete ceiling” in the corporate world. He turned to entrepreneurship and started a business selling imported hand-knotted rugs. Through his business, Dover Rugs and Home, Jafri is creating opportunities in Massachusetts and for women artisans abroad. Learn how he believes integrating immigrants can benefit all U.S. residents! We also have a full-length video interview here.
Transcript
Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and this is JobMakers. JobMakers is a weekly podcast produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and The Immigrant Learning Center, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Every Thursday at noon, I talk with the risk takers, immigrants who create new jobs, products and services in Massachusetts and across the United States, building on the entrepreneurial spirit that led them to America. in the first place. When we return, we’ll meet this week’s inspiring entrepreneur.
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It takes a certain kind of person to leave everything they know behind and start anew in a foreign land. The kinds of qualities immigrants of all backgrounds bring to the U.S. other qualities we ought to demand in our workforce. Perseverance, grit, ambition, adaptability. For Mahmud Jafri, who came to the U.S. to study in the mid 1970s, those qualities enabled him to change course when he encountered what he calls the concrete ceiling in the corporate world for foreigners at the time. So, he built on a legacy started by his grandfather and began importing hand knitted rugs from his native Pakistan, something that economically lifted up women who traditionally couldn’t work outside the home. Today, he has three stores across Massachusetts, including the Back Bay and flourished during the pandemic renovation revolution. Mr. Jafri is very much of the mind that the United States is an extremely welcoming country, but also believes more can be done to integrate immigrants, including undocumented immigrants in Massachusetts for the benefit of everyone, if only for the politics of it all, as you’ll hear about in this week JobMakers.
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Mahmud Jafri, thank you for joining us. Your business, Dover Rug & Home manufacturers and imports hand-knitted rugs as well as provides interior design services and home furnishings. But this idea of weaving and designing and exporting beautiful rugs started generations ago with your family in Pakistan, is that correct?
Mahmud Jafri: Correct, my grandfather was a landowner and it was an interesting philosophy that he had. He also started the first women’s college of higher learning in Pakistan back in the late 1800s and also suggested that, to economically empower women in the rural areas or in an agricultural society is to have them weave rugs, because women can at that time it was difficult for women to be employed outside of their home and to some extent it still is true. So they could stay at home, set up a loom, take care of the family and still not fight the cultural taboos or norms and be a major source of economics to the family. Because agricultural work back in the day was seasonal work, and there were times where men would just sit idle and there weren’t, there would be no work, whereas women could continue to weave rugs 12 months out of the year and be a consistent source of income. And it also became a source of foreign exchange. So what started as a sort of a quasi philanthropic initiative also turned into a bonanza for the country in the foreign exchange.
Denzil Mohammed: That’s incredible and you’ve grown from your garage and living room into three outlets, Burlington, Boston and Natick. But bring us back to your life in Pakistan. What was that like?
Mahmud Jafri: I grew up in the central part of Pakistan, which is sort of, I was born in the southern part, which is Karachi, the largest city on the Indian Ocean and then, but I grew up in the hall and in the northern part of Islamabad and in that area. And I come from a middle class working family with some of my uncles and relatives who were exporting rugs And I had a very normal upbringing. And in a somewhat of a conservative traditional Muslim family, but very high emphasis on education. And, my father and my grandfather were always strong proponents of education. Not just education in the sense of religious education, but more in technological and business education and that’s why we would encourage too for higher learning and higher education to go to either Europe or come to America. And that’s how I ended up in the U.S.
Denzil Mohammed: What was it like when you first moved here?
Mahmud Jafri: It was, to be perfectly candid, it was a total shock. You know, coming from Pakistan to a liberal, open California society in the early 70’s was a cultural shock. I think it would be a cultural shock for anyone even coming from Alabama. But, in my case it was another country. And I was a young man, I was only 19, 20 years old and, but, you know, my focus was education and as a result, I was insulated from a lot of the pop culture, if you would. I had to stay focused on my education and so frankly did not have that much time to have the pop culture infringe into my life or into my values.
Denzil Mohammed: I’m sure eventually that eroded a little bit
Mahmud Jafri: It did!
Denzil Mohammed: You had a sort of model coming from your grandparents and their parents when it came to the business. What was it like starting Dover Rug & Home?
Mahmud Jafri: Well, it was quite a challenge because after I finished my graduate school, I was in the financial world for a few years and I was with Prudential bait and the investment arena. It wasn’t a glass ceiling back in the day, it was a real concrete ceiling that you could see, feel, and touch and after spending a few years, I almost spent about seven to 10 years in that business. And when it became evident that there’s only so far and so much I can go, I was at the mercy of corporate culture and everything that goes with that. I realized that in order for me to go any further, I would have to do something on my own, however small or little it may be. So that’s why my first business venture was in the late 70s, early 80’s. And it started in the real estate business and then I realized that, you know, what we sometimes you don’t acknowledge and appreciate what you have. I realize that what we have is that if we can expand on that and grow that and bring that business into the retail end of things, there’s a natural barrier to entry for the competitors simply because of our manufacturing capabilities that we are able to integrate vertically that our competitors can’t work. You know, they can, but the probability of that is very low. So that was one reason that we thought that this would be a good model to have a stable, reliable supply and capitalize on the growing and emerging U.S. market and having the ability to change and stay with the times because our business has become a very fashion-forward, design-driven industry. And if you don’t have the ability to change quickly, like the rest of our accessories and rest of the industry, such as furniture and fabrics, we would be left behind and today our typical consumer would make the right decision based on so many other factors. So you almost have to be part of the conspiracy and collusion that you are at the table. So we had that ability to do that.
Denzil Mohammed: And you’ve experienced a lot of growth from the garage to a warehouse to now three locations. Guide us through how that all happened.
Mahmud Jafri: Well, it was a very organic, classic, self financed growth. We never went to an equity fund or investment banks or conventional banks to do that. There’s a natural aversion that immigrants have to debt because they come from societies where in some cases it’s socially and culturally unacceptable to be under debt. You want to own everything free and clear so that you’re able to say that look, you know, I’m not obligated to anyone, this is mine and so on and so forth, So that’s kind of how we did that instead of taking our revenues and our sales and putting them into our lifestyle. We maintain a very humble lifestyle and continue to reinvest in inventory and in expansion and in advertising and marketing and trying to get more and more of the market share. So it was just a, frankly, just old fashioned, simple debt free kind of growth that we did.
Denzil Mohammed: You mentioned earlier about a glass ceiling that you said was basically concrete. Can you describe that a little bit for us? Help us understand that?
Mohammed Jafri: You know a lot of the immigrants, including myself, when we enter into the workforce, we entered into it with, you know, stars in our eyes and a prayer in our heart and we expect it to be a level playing field and frankly, it’s not. Your color of your skin, the lineage, the legacy, all of these factors play into how convenient the road ahead is and how much of the way has been paved for you. While most immigrants don’t have that luxury, especially the first generation immigrants. Maybe the second third, they may because their ancestors or their parents or grandparents paved the way for them, but the first generation pretty much need to figure it out on the fly and when they’re doing that, the society is not very accepting of them for a variety of reasons. You know, some of them I mentioned all the way to the ancestry, the religion and all of that and whether it’s call it discrimination or being marginalized, it’s alive and well. And I’m not condemning the U.S., I mean, I think it’s all over the world. It’s the fear of the unknown, it’s the fear of the immigrants. So when I say a concrete ceiling at least, we refer to barriers to entry for immigrants or for women for that matter, as a glass ceiling that yes, it’s really subtle. Yes, you can rise up to a certain point and then you hit that glass ceiling. Well, back in the day, it wasn’t even a glass, it was concrete. That’s what I said that was there. You could see it and not only see it, but you could see that it would be very difficult to penetrate. And frankly, you know, there have been ethnicities in the U.S. The wave of immigrants that have come through New York and other parts of the country, where they started out as first generation immigrants and figure it out very quickly that their entry into the middle or the upper middle class would be either through education or professions like medicine or law or in some cases starting a business. So that’s why I think there’s a disproportionate amount of immigrants that start businesses.
Denzil Mohammed: Immigrants are twice as likely to start a business in certain parts of the country and three times as likely to start a business. Immigrants create jobs.
Mahmud Jafri: Right. Right, and they’re not afraid to hire immigrants also, you know? So, sometimes, they hire a larger percentage of immigrants because they can relate to that story. And I’m not saying that that’s discriminating against the status quo, but that just, it’s a natural, normal comfort zone that that we deal with, that we work with. So in that respect they help the immigrant community.
Denzil Mohammed: It’s something that some people struggle to understand, you know, why would a Vietnamese restaurant hire other Vietnamese immigrants? But these are people you want to help uplift, and these are people you can relate to, as you say. It’s a very natural sort of thing to do, and this idea of the fear of the unknown, I think a lot of you’re still in tropic work. It would involve in sports with education and with cultural activities, you even offer rug-making classes to elementary school students. The idea is not simply to empower people, but to connect people, right?
Mahmud Jafri: Right.
Denzil Mohammed: The idea of people learning other cultures, other, you know, where does this accent come from? You know, why do you look the way you do and why do you practice this kind of religion? Guide us through your idea behind your philanthropic work?
Mahmud Jafri: Well, you know, first of all, it’s something which was instilled in us early on in life. My grandfather and my father and my family has been very philanthropic throughout. You know, that’s an important ’cause that they believe in and then second, the very nature of my product is as such that when someone decides to buy an oriental rug, they’ve made a decision to open up a window of another culture into their home. And they have enough confidence to bring something which is foreign and appreciate it, live with it and not be ashamed of it. So it almost became important for us to be not only just the brand ambassador of our product, but also be the cultural and historical ambassadors of our tradition and our heritage because so much of that plays into the actual designs and colors that you see in our rugs. So it made sense for us to educate and connect with our community. And frankly, there’s no better group to start with than young school age children because they have an open fertile mind and when they see a window of another tradition and another culture, especially when they’re learning about Middle East history, or in some cases the travels of Marco Polo or the Silk Route, their teachers actually bring their children to one of our stores and we do this pro bono at no charge, and we connect with children based on what they’re learning and show them practical examples of what the Silk Road means and how the trade was done, because the rugs have been traded for centuries, along those lines. And in the journey that these rugs took and the stories that came out of that, love stories, war stories, you know, because it’s a form of art for that part of the world. Because of the religious influence, they could not do statues or paintings because that was almost considered idol worshiping. But rugs became the form of expression, an art form to express and then the raw materials was indigenous and were readily available. And humans are creative, you know, they’ll find a way to create something, they’ll find a way to express themselves in form of art. So the oriental rugs became a form of expression from that part of the world and we wanted to bring that message to the western societies by connecting through the art element of it and how it has bound communities together for centuries.
Denzil Mohammed: As a former member of the Governor’s Advisory Council on Immigrants and Refugees in Massachusetts, how do you feel Massachusetts has fared when it comes to dealing with immigrant issues? We are well behind certain other states in terms of access to drivers license for undocumented immigrants or in state tuition for undocumented immigrants. Do you think Massachusetts has done enough?
Mahmud Jafri: Well, you know, back when I was a member of the Council, you may remember that there was a policy paper which was published to help the governor’s and the legislature called the New American Agenda and it addressed all of these issues and for over two years we worked on that recommendation based on public hearings, meetings, talking to the law enforcement agencies talking to the legislature, talking to the stakeholders in government and in business and in immigrant communities. But what came out loud and clear even from the law enforcement side, is that look, we need to give these people their driver’s license. We need to give immigrants their drivers license, we need to know where they live, we need to know that they are qualified to drive because frankly, you cannot stop them from driving. They have to earn a living, they’re here, they’re going to work and they will go to work. And putting them on the road and not allowing us to know who they are and where they live, it really doesn’t serve any purpose. And if you bring them into the fold they become a lot more connected and lot more productive and a contributing member of the community and that goes across the board with so many other issues, in state tuition and especially the children that came here as underage children. It’s a crime, not not to be able to afford them the same opportunities as being given to the other Americans. And if you look at the contributions that the immigrants make to the society once again is disproportionately higher. They become much better citizens once you give them a clear path to citizenship and they hold a stronger family. They, economically, they become much more viable and contributing members of the community.
Denzil Mohammed: I want to bring it back to this moment of a pandemic. And as a businessman, I read that consumer spending on durables, which includes home and office furnishings, actually increased by 19 percent during the pandemic. How did the pandemic affect your business?
Mahmud Jafri: I think we were very fortunate. This pandemic forced people to work from home, spend more time at home, spend more time with their family. So it, all of a sudden, once they were confined into their home, they were able to take inventory and stock of their living conditions and in situations so a lot of the deferred decisions were met saying okay, I need to pay my own to buy a rug, you know, so on and so forth. So fortunately, we were beneficiary of that. Secondly is that the nature of our business is such that we can conduct business with following COVID protocol very easily. In a floating business, there’s never an opportunity that you’re going to be closer than six feet to your clients or to your customers. Third, it’s not a high traffic business and if we have three or four customers coming during the day, that’s a busy day for us. So, keeping all of that in mind and forth, a lot of our work can be done in a customer’s home if they call us with samples or what their requirements are, they can send us the pictures. Their ability to shop at home also helped us tremendously. And then the, this whole renovation revolution that took place that people putting up additions and renovating, new construction, flight back to the suburbs from the city. So all of those things, frankly, drove our business, so, you know, but we had our challenges. I mean, our challenges in their business and pandemic was a supply chain, that’s really where we face the challenges and frankly, you’re only as good as your weakest link. So all the way from manufacturing wasn’t so bad, but ability to get the product to the marketplace, that was a challenge. You know, because of all the shutdowns and lockdowns and the airlines trimming their schedule and so on and so forth.
Denzil Mohammed: You mentioned at the start of the interview that this was something that your grandparents, your grandfather did. But I get the sense that what you’ve been able to do in the U.S. you at that time would not have been able to do in Pakistan. What is it about the U.S.? What are the factors that enable entrepreneurship like your story?
Mahmud Jafri: You know, despite all, you know, all the complaints that people have against U.S. I still think it’s the best place on the face of the Earth. And a good example of that is what Warren Buffett once said, that if he had left me in Bangladesh 50 years ago, I would have been as impoverished as any other Bangladesh citizen. But because I’m in U.S., because I live and work in a society that has a pluralistic society I can enforce my contracts because the court system works. I have a stable banking system, it’s a stable economic system. It’s a system that I can rely and I can bank on and that’s that for starters. Until and unless you have that in a country, you really don’t even have a solid foundation to grow from. So that was one of the main reasons that we felt that for us to grow out of where we are and to expand into bigger markets.
Denzil Mohammed: Reflecting on your own experience, what do you think about an immigrant makes them entrepreneurial.
Mahmud Jafri: I think immigrants, I mean, it really starts right from the beginning. I mean, any immigrant who made the decision to leave their country, their community, their family, their culture, their language and their food and you know the list is very long. They are obviously driven people. They are also risk takers. So I think it’s those qualities in immigrants that help them propel, that drive them to greater heights because, once you make that decision, you have to understand that you really don’t have a safety net. You’re leaving your safety net behind. So here you have to create your own safety net and you, it’s, you have to work twice as hard to make sure that you create a safety net for yourself and continue to propel and continue to grow. So I think it’s that innate ability of immigrants that separates them from, you know, mainstream people.
Denzil Mohammed: Mahmud Jafri thank you for that very sobering but truthful reminder about who these immigrants are, who people like you are and the kind of qualities that you bring to the U.S. I thank you for coming to the U.S. and making an impact not just as a businessman but as a philanthropist, as a human being. Thank you so much for joining us in JobMakers today.
Mahmud Jafri: Thank you Denzil, it was a pleasure.
Denzil Mohammed: So happy that you joined us for this week’s inspiring story of another immigrant entrepreneur. If you or someone we should talk to, email Denzil, that’s denzil@jobmakerspodcast.org and please leave us a review. I’m Denzil Mohammed. Join us next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers podcast.