Bringing Nueva Vida to Aging Strip Malls

With few places to sit and little green space, strip malls are far from ideal; they're typically designed as places to park and shop, not linger and socialize. Like central plazas in Latin America, they can attract public drinking and petty crime. And the rapid conversion of a strip mall into a makeshift Hispanic central square can leave business owners who don't cater specifically to Latin American immigrants scrambling to adjust.

At Ranger Surplus, an Army-Navy outlet in a Wheaton shopping plaza now lined with Hispanic businesses, the clientele was 30 percent Hispanic just three years ago, said manager Keith Banks. Now it's 80 percent.

To adapt, the store has hired more Spanish-speaking employees, placed bilingual signs on the merchandise and adjusted its inventory accordingly -- selling fewer samurai swords, battle-axes and other collectible weapons and more work clothing. Machete sales also have picked up, with so many new customers working in landscaping.

"They buy a lot of luggage, too, since they do a lot of traveling," Banks said.

Out on the sidewalk, a line was stretching out the door of El Pollo Rico, the most popular of three South American-style rotisserie chicken joints in the plaza. Columns of BBQ chicken smoke billowed from its roof like a beacon, swirling through the parking lot and down the street.

Small clusters of men lingered along the storefronts, their hands buried in their pockets, waiting for someone to drive up and offer work. By 2 p.m., Jose Argueta and Luis Antonio Cardona had been there for more than five hours. They said they weren't worried.

"If someone wants to offer us a job, that's great," Argueta said. "But we come here to talk and pass the time more than anything." Families, futbol, home -- whatever's on their minds, Argueta said, they discuss.

The two men have been friends for about a year and half. Argueta, 50, from El Salvador, has lived in the Wheaton area for nearly 25 years. Cardona, 52, from Honduras, has been in the United States just two years and said he's gotten plenty of good survival tips on work and life in the suburbs from his friend.

Cardona recently moved to Langley Park but said he didn't feel safe there yet, so each morning he takes the bus to meet Argueta in the shopping plaza at Veirs Mill Road and Ennalls Avenue. The men said the merchants didn't seem to mind their presence, as long as they didn't sit in front of the storefronts.

The arrangement wasn't perfect, but Cardona said it reminded him a little of the Parque Central back in Siguatepeque, Honduras. "A lot of nice memories there," he said, squinting in the sunlight. "One's home town is always a pretty place."