The Right Mix; Best country to get rich: United States. Texas is the optimistic new model for an immigrant-led economy.

Byline: Michael Hastings

The etymology of the phrase "strike it rich" is pure Americana. Miners searching for gold along the vast Western frontiers first yelled those words in 1869. In the 20th century the expression accurately captured the gut-level optimism that drove the U.S. economy to an unprecedented size and prosperity, and explained why millions of immigrants picked America as their new home. Here is a place where the individual is king and has every chance to make his fortune, few strings attached.

Perhaps no state embodies America's bullish, risk-taking mentality more than Texas. It is unabashedly pro-business and very inexpensive, with the second lowest tax burden in the United States, few regulations and hardly any labor unions.

America's shrinking oil sector has been painful for Texans, but it has also prompted the state to adopt a new economic strategy that reflects two complementary trends in America. One is the huge influx of immigrants over the last 20 years, and the other is the rise of service and knowledge industries to counterbalance the demise of the U.S. manufacturing sector. Texas's population has more than doubled since 1960--and by next year it will join California as a minority-majority state, meaning more than half the population will be nonwhite. Texas's immigrant work force is increasingly bifurcated: while waves of Mexican workers labor in the agricultural and service sectors, large numbers of skilled immigrants have arrived to study in the state's comprehensive university system and take jobs at technology firms like Texas Instruments and Dell, the latter based in Austin.

Many of the educated newcomers have an entrepreneurial bent and hail from Asia, and once in business often take advantage of cheap Hispanic labor. Tushar Patel, a native of Ahmadabad, India, moved to Texas 14 years ago armed with a degree in electrical engineering from the Florida Institute of Technology. After first working in one of Austin's many tech companies, he started a successful Internet-access service in 1996, Electronic Corporate Pages. Tommy Hodinh, CEO of MagRabbit, a ...