The apartment was cheap -- just $700 a month for two bedrooms. And it seemed so spacious to Margarita Velasquez, a Mexican immigrant whose family of four had been jammed into a $900-a-month efficiency in Mount Pleasant.
True, the new place lacked a few things. A floor, for instance. But Velasquez and her relatives knew construction. They set about laying tile and carpeting in the decrepit ground-floor apartment and painted the walls a bright turquoise.
David Velasquez, 13, walks into the kitchen.
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And so the family joined one of Washington's most unusual migrations: Latinos moving east of the Anacostia River.
Velasquez's new neighborhood, near Fort Dupont Park in Ward 7, is one of several new Latino communities that have popped up in unexpected areas around the city, as rising rents drive residents from the traditional immigrant enclaves in Mount Pleasant, Adams Morgan and Columbia Heights.
Gustavo Velasquez, director of the mayor's Office on Latino Affairs, said most Spanish-speaking immigrants still are clustered in Wards 1 and 4. But his office has recently been in contact with new Latino communities, such as the one east of Fort Dupont Park, and another in the Brookland area, in Ward 5. Latinos make up about 8 percent of the District's population, according to the 2000 Census.
"We certainly are moving into a more geographically diverse community, when it comes to people who speak Spanish," he said.
The migration is changing the flavor of some neighborhoods, with predominantly African American schools getting English as a Second Language teachers, and stores beginning to offer tortillas and cans of jalapeños. The change is also presenting some challenges, since many services for low-income Latinos are based in the Columbia Heights area.
"There are no programs or official initiatives oriented to the Latino population," said David Marquez, a Bolivian religious leader in the Fort Dupont Park area. "The Latino community is trying to develop a voice."
More than 300 Latinos live in Ward 7, according to Norberto Martinez, community outreach worker for the mayor's Office on Latino Affairs. Many, including Margarita Velasquez, are clustered in two apartment buildings in the 4400 block of Texas Avenue SE, in the midst of a working-class neighborhood of brick homes and low-rise apartment buildings near Fort Dupont Park. Residents say the migration began years ago, when the owner of the apartment buildings married a Latino woman.
"The main attraction here is price. You can get a one-bedroom apartment for $500. And a two-bedroom for $700," said Marquez, 50, who also lives in the apartments.
In the last few years, the Latino community has grown big enough to leave a mark on the neighborhood. At the nearby Plummer Elementary School, 17 of 327 students are Spanish-speaking, according to the principal, Otassa Boston. The school now has a part-time English as a Second Language teacher.
At Jones Deli, about a block from the apartments, owner Cho Myung said dozens of Latino immigrants send money each week through his Western Union service. The Korean immigrant has started to stock Hispanic foods in his cramped store.
"Every time, people and people come in," Myung said in broken English, referring to his new clientele. "They buy eggs, tortillas, black beans. And they buy hot pepper. I got Spanish drink, too," he said, pointing to a refrigerator where cans of mango juice were lined up alongside soda and frozen dinners.
The newest sign of the growing population is a Latino youth center that Marquez is setting up at Greater Deliverance Christian Center Church in Christ, a large church with a predominantly black congregation across the street from the apartments. There, Marquez is planning to offer language programs and a computer lab.
