Melting Pot Bubbles in All Corners of County

Newest Wave Of Immigrants Moves Upcounty

Children in Montgomery County public schools speak 134 different languages. Cricket players from Jamaica and soccer players from Latin America fill county parks and athletic facilities. Almost half of Maryland's Latino and Asian populations call Montgomery home.

Once a mostly white, wealthy bedroom community to Washington, Montgomery now boasts one of the most culturally, ethnically and economically diverse areas in the region -- a trait that many residents say drew them here and keeps them here.

The international feel is no longer limited to communities such as Silver Spring and Wheaton, home to many of the county's early immigrants. In the past few years, affluent, highly educated immigrants have increasingly filled mini-mansions in North Potomac and Rockville, while many of those struggling with the county's high housing costs have moved upcounty, sparking a boom in ethnic food stores and specialty restaurants in Gaithersburg and Germantown.

Monica Barberis-Young, 51, said she's seen the county soak up the increasingly international flavor. When she moved from Ecuador to the White Oak area of Silver Spring 40 years ago, she said, hers was the only Latino family she knew of in the area.

"You never heard another accent," said Barberis-Young, who is first vice president of the Montgomery County Latino Lions Club. "It was a very white county. Now there's nowhere you can go without hearing different accents and seeing ethnic restaurants and stores and hearing ethnic music. It's a tremendous culture. It's a very different world in the county."

People from other countries are drawn to Montgomery for the same attributes that have attracted residents for years: a top school system, robust job growth, good medical care and abundant services such as libraries and parks. As the different ethnic communities have grown in recent years, activists say, so too has Montgomery come to feel more welcoming.

Lisa Lee, 32, estimates that about half of the people who live in her Germantown subdivision are Asian. In just the past few years, Lee said, she's noticed the county adapting to the Asian population's booming growth, particularly in the northern reaches. Niche Asian restaurants now specialize in everything from Shanghai cuisine to Cantonese food to dumplings. Two gourmet ethnic food stores, carrying both Latino and Asian foods, that opened in Germantown and Gaithersburg over the last few years seem to do a brisk business, Lee said.

For many Montgomery children, Saturdays mean classes at one of about 75 Chinese language and cultural schools, while Chinese seniors can take advantage of painting and dance classes in their native languages.

Lee said her parents, whose Mandarin Chinese is far better than their English, have no trouble getting by in Montgomery.

"They don't even need to speak English," said Lee, community liaison for the Upcounty Regional Services Center and an active volunteer in several Asian community organizations. "They have plenty of services in their language -- doctors' offices, attorneys, hair stylists, accountants."

The changes that Barberis-Young and Lee have seen are supported by census data. In 1980, non-Hispanic whites comprised 83 percent of the county's population. In 2003, the year of Montgomery's most recent census update survey, they made up 60 percent. The survey also found that almost half of the residents who had arrived in the previous five years spoke a language other than English, according to the Montgomery County Department of Park and Planning.

Montgomery attracts more immigrants than any other county in Maryland, planners said. Of residents who moved to Maryland from other countries between 2000 and 2003, almost half -- 47 percent -- chose to live in Montgomery.