The Changing Face Of Arlandria

Walking down Mount Vernon Avenue, signs advertising pupusas for $1.50 and telephone calling cards are written in Spanish. English is rarely spoken. The window of a travel agency advertises trips to El Salvador and Guatemala. A half-dozen Latinos in dusty jeans and sturdy workingman's pants walk into the local cambio de cheques establishment to cash their paychecks and send money to their families in Central America.

A little farther down the street, a woman fries plantains in La Feria Bakery's narrow kitchen. The bakery sells the fried fruit and sweet breads and employs about a dozen people. This year, the Uruguayan owner of La Feria opened another kitchen to bake and package fresh Salvadoran bread and sweets for mercados, or markets, throughout the area.

At the Chirilagua salon, a woman angles a pair of scissors to clip a man's short, brown hair, while a Latina waits her turn in the sparse waiting room. The salon employs seven stylists and says it takes in $2,000 a week. At Huascaran, the ceviche -- a cold dish of flounder, shrimp and scallops prepared with salt, pepper and lemon -- draws Peruvians hungry for home. A plate costs $12.95.

"We have to do what the neighborhood can afford," Coleto said.

A few non-Hispanic establishments predate the influx of Hispanic businesses. City planners point to RT's Seafood Kitchen, a Cajun restaurant that opened in 1986, as one of the businesses that draws most of its customers from outside the neighborhood. Former president Bill Clinton ate there. Christopher J. Wells, the restaurant's manager, said RT's hasn't really benefited from the Latino influx because most of its customers are non-Hispanic.

Wells said he likes the way the neighborhood is evolving but thinks it "could use more improvement." He said he supports the city's plans to improve the neighborhood but knows that some Latino business owners are wary.

Economic development experts say that as Latino businesses lose some customers to non-Hispanic competitors, they must learn to appeal to other customers.

"It's great that Latinos sell to the Latinos, but there is more than that," said Alvaro de Moya, a professor at Montgomery College's Hispanic Business Institute and an economic development planner who works with Hispanic business districts in Montgomery County.

It's about marketing, de Moya said, citing a few small businesses he has worked with that have changed their decor and marketed themselves in English to attract non-Hispanic customers.

City officials say that the first test of its efforts to bring non-Hispanics to the area will be a large, city-sponsored street festival Sunday. For years, this annual community celebration has been held in a soccer field nearby, but this year, the streets will be closed for a real fiesta. City officials say they hope non-Hispanics will come to Little Chirilagua to dance to salsa and merengue music and buy the pupusas, Central American snow cones and yuca con chicharron, a starchy potato served with fried pork.

Coleto, of Huascaran, said she had her own plan to woo non-Hispanics. She has applied for a permit to open a second restaurant in Arlandria called Spectrum.

"It will be international, not only Latino, with Mexican and Italian food, mostly seafood," she said. "It will bring in outsiders and more business. Absolutely. We need multiculturalism."