A Latino Evolution in Prince George's

By Mara Lee
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, February 16, 2008

On a warm winter day, teams of Latino men play soccer behind Langley Park McCormick Elementary School. A few others sit on the swings or watch from the sidelines.

Other men walk back from the strip malls that line New Hampshire Avenue and University Boulevard, the main roads in the Prince George's County neighborhood.

Here and there, a woman murmurs to a child in Spanish as she pushes the stroller down the sidewalk. The census in 2000 found that 56 percent of the residents of Langley Park were men. You have to wonder from sights on the street if the next count will be even higher.

According to the same Census, 65 percent of the residents were foreign-born. More than three-quarters were renters.

The neighborhood sprang up in 1950. Almost every brick rambler appears identical. The large cluster of low-rise apartment buildings came later.

Selvin Cartagena has been renting in Langley Park for five years. He lives in a single-family house near the community center and elementary school.

He likes the neighborhood, he said, because it's calm, his neighbors are friendly and the rent is not too bad.

He came from Honduras to Langley Park because a friend told him about it. Since then, two of his brothers have joined him.

He said that he is happy that there are so many other Latinos in the neighborhood and that he likes the many Latino restaurants and markets in the nearby strip malls.

He has no plans to buy a house in Langley Park, however. "It's very expensive to buy a house," he said in Spanish.

But it's getting less so. The average sales price of the seven houses that sold in the past year was just under $358,000, with an average subsidy of $12,600 to cover the buyers' closing costs, according to real estate agent Ilissa Flamm. Most were built at 910 square feet, but many owners have expanded living spaces into the basements.

More than half of the 20 houses on the market have dropped from their original asking prices, on average by about $30,000. Four are short sales, which means they're being offered for less than the mortgage balance. Two are bank-owned. One of those, advertised at $334,900, points out in the ad that "previous owner paid $455,000."

Javier Molin, 21, arrived in Langley Park eight months ago because he had a relative there. He said that he likes his apartment and that if you keep your eyes open, the neighborhood is safe.

Molin, who moved to Maryland from Mexico, also said he likes that there are so many Latinos in the neighborhood. He drives to Baltimore for work, but wouldn't consider moving there, "because this neighborhood is more familiar," he said in Spanish. "It seems perfect to me how it is."

Maria Veator started renting an apartment in Langley Park eight years ago, moving from neighboring Adelphi.

"Here, you can do more if you don't have a car, and the rent was lower," she said in Spanish. "Now, it's high -- $1,100."

She called Langley Park the place where poorer people live -- and it makes her feel at home.

Veator, a native of El Salvador, has one grandchild in Langley Park. The rest live in Glenmont, outside the Beltway in Montgomery County. She said proudly that they're all U.S. citizens.

Veator was trying to sell atole, a drink, from a cooler on the sidewalk. She said that she had been looking for work for four months and hadn't been able to find any. All the jobs required English or a car.

She said that people would like to buy but are scared the police will come because she doesn't have a vending permit. "I'm not selling much," she said in Spanish.

William Hanna, an urban-planning professor at the University of Maryland, has studied the neighborhood for 12 years. He sends out a bilingual e-mail newsletter to 700 residents every two weeks and helps to organize an annual street festival, which this year will be held May 4.

He said he's alarmed by how expensive housing has gotten in the neighborhood: He hears that one-bedroom apartments now cost $825, when 10 years ago they were $485. He worries that working-class immigrants will be pushed out, especially if the Purple Line arrives at the intersection of University and New Hampshire, as is planned.

In the 1950s, the neighborhood was almost all white and heavily Jewish, he said. It became majority black in the 1970s and majority Latino in the 1990s.

Sometimes two families or a dozen single men pack into a one-bedroom apartment, he said. Others are what he called "comfortable working class."

But he said things are getting harder because a disproportionate number of the men work in construction, now in a severe slowdown.

Israel Sose, 32, watched the soccer game on a sunny Saturday. He has been renting an apartment in Langley Park for five years, since he arrived from Guatemala. He said that he likes that most everyone speaks Spanish in the neighborhood. Eventually, he plans to return to Guatemala, "but not right now," he said in Spanish.

Violet Blackstock, who moved to the United States from Jamaica when she was 40, lives with her grandsons in a three-bedroom rental house across from the school. She has been in the neighborhood more than 10 years.

"I like the area because I don't drive. The transportation will take you anywhere you want to go," she said. It's just a block and a half to major bus routes on New Hampshire Avenue and University Boulevard. "It's a good place, and this is why I live here. I love it."

Nonetheless, she was alarmed by the throat-slashings of three men sleeping in parking lots in 2005. Two died.

"I try not to go out at nights, so as not to get hurt," she said.

Almost all her neighbors are immigrants. "We are good friends with some of them," she said. "I have a neighbor, he speaks very good English, so we are good friends."

Earnest Massillon, who bought a rambler in Langley Park in 1986, thinks the neighborhood has a bit of a split personality. Massillon, a taxi driver, grew up in Haiti.

"Believe it or not, from there to down there is a big difference," he said, differentiating between the eastern and western parts of the neighborhood. "Something is always going on between the people who live in the apartments. Down here, it is much quieter."

Hanna said the statistics bear that out. "It has a bad reputation in terms of crime," he said, but most of the crime is in the commercial areas, not by the houses.

"Too many people steal money from other people," said Dave Perara, 29.

He has also been troubled by a handful of nearby murders. "Langley Park is dangerous. Everybody knows that," he said.

Still, he likes how friendly it is. People say good morning to each other, he said. "The community is good."