I must confess. I’m a total Asian market junkie. More often than not, you can find me lingering around the colorful array of fresh produce in an effort to persuade myself to buy one of those giant durian fruits and finally see what all the fuss is about.

Even in this economy, people launch businesses. For instance, Jack Nasser of Henrico County dipped into his savings and opened a used-auto dealership in Ashland last year. If past experiences hold true, many of those fledging businesses in Virginia and the nation will be started by immigrant entrepreneurs such as Nasser, who moved to the U.S. from Singapore in 2005 with his wife, a native of the Richmond area.