Change is hard. We resist it in most cases, particularly when it comes to the America so many of us know and love dearly. As an American who has grown up in a middle-class family, my experience is what the American dream promises: healthy, safe living with great opportunity for the taking and making. Like most of us, my family is the product of immigration — my families are from both French Canada and Ireland — just a few generations back.

As a local small-business owner, a mother and active Louisville citizen, I feel it is important for ordinary folks to share their perspectives. Mine is informed both by my own experiences, as well as what I’ve learned from my fellow small-business owners of every political persuasion.

Immigration is often perceived as a serious threat to what we know and love. We sense a threat to our security, our livelihoods, as well as to our comfort and peace. We cling to what we’ve known, to what has worked in the past and, as a result, we have resisted immigration reform.

What you may find surprising is that immigration reform holds a promise that is not only greater than what we’ve known before; it is the inevitable outcome of a global world that connects us more deeply, more quickly than we can comprehend.

Immigration, well managed, can provide us with amazing resources:

• We need more job creators. While immigrants are only 12.9 percent of the population, they have started 28 percent of all new businesses here.

• We need the very best talent from all over the globe to fuel our innovation. Half of the world’s engineering degrees are awarded in Asia. Only 4 percent are earned here in the United States. We need to attract the very best in science, math, engineering and technology.

• Employers are stymied by our current system, which thwarts their efforts to attract the right talent, whether it is a field worker or programmer. A system for employers that is predictable and manageable gives them the confidence to recruit and hire the BEST talent they can find. Businesses will expand as a result.

• We are shrinking! The only growth America has had in younger populations — the fuel of innovation and support for the aging population — has been through immigration. Our native population is not growing.

If America wants to truly be the home of the American dream — a place of innovation, hard work and growth — we must embrace the change the world economy has handed us.

The truth is, whether we embrace this change or not, the change is coming and it is inevitable. I urge you to support immigration reform. I choose to embody the promise of the American dream and trust we will endure.

Let the House know that a vote for immigration reform is a vote for economic growth—sign our petition today.

Maggie is the owner of SIGNARAMA Downtown and Transworld Business Advisors, and lives in Louisville, Kentucky. This article originally appeared as a Letter to the Editor in the Courier Journal.