Melting Pot Bubbles in All Corners of County
Newest Wave Of Immigrants Moves Upcounty

By Katherine Shaver
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 27, 2006

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.

Latinos make up the fastest growing ethnic group. Since the late 1990s, Montgomery's Latino population has grown annually by almost 8 percent, compared with Asians at 3.7 percent, blacks at 3.1 percent and non-Hispanic whites at a "negligible" 0.3 percent, according to the planning department.

Most Latinos in Montgomery -- 65 percent -- came from another country, with Salvadorans comprising the largest group at 19 percent, according to 2000 Census data. Many of them work hard to afford the county's high cost of living, said Barberis-Young, who is also director of mentoring and family support services for Community Ministry of Montgomery County, a private provider of social services.

"The expense of living in this county is tremendous," she said. "A lot of people are really struggling to make ends meet."

Between 1990 and 2000, the county's black population grew by 43 percent -- almost double the percentage growth in the rest of Maryland.

In the Washington region, the size of Montgomery's Asian community ranks second only to Fairfax County's. By 2000, it had more than quadrupled in the previous 20 years. Three out of four of the county's Asian residents were foreign-born. Most came from India, China, Korea and Vietnam, according to 2000 Census figures.

The county's changing makeup hasn't come without some problems and tensions. In January, police concluded that racial slurs and hate symbols spray-painted on two Gaithersburg schools, two predominantly African American churches and the historic Boyds Negro School stemmed from an organized effort. In Gaithersburg, some residents complained recently that a site chosen as an employment center for day laborers, many of them Latinos, was too close to their homes.

Some immigrants get shut out of English classes that have long waiting lists, activists say, and those seeking county services sometimes have trouble finding translators. Moreover, despite the fact that nearly half of the county's residents are members of racial minorities, the vast majority of elected decision makers are white. Still, county officials say they are taking steps to include more of Montgomery's diverse residents and to help them adjust to their new home.

Last summer, the county Department of Recreation offered a one-month tennis class for Latino youth in Wheaton and two bilingual summer camps, in Gaithersburg and Wheaton, with Spanish-speaking staff. The Gilchrist Center for Cultural Diversity in Wheaton, which opened five years ago, offers programs geared toward immigrants, including English classes and information on citizenship, basic legal aid and how to start a small business. The county also helps operate two day laborer centers, in Wheaton and Takoma Park, that assist many Latino workers.

The Montgomery police department also recently added a Spanish-speaking liaison to its media office to reach out more to the county's Latino population. Blanca Kling, who joined the office in October, said she does two programs on Spanish radio stations every month, trying to address concerns in the Latino community.

For example, Kling said, the department has worked with Spanish media to seek the public's help on runaways and suspects thought to be in the Latino community and to recruit more Latino officers and dispatchers. She said she also works to spread the word that officers will not press victims and witnesses, such as those in domestic violence cases, about their visa statuses if they turn to police for help.