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Large Latino Population Makes Langley Park the
'15th Province' of El
Salvador
By Laurent Thomet
Series: Many Faces, One Maryland
LANGLEY PARK - It's 10:30 a.m., and Felix is sitting on a rail in the
parking lot of the Takoma/Langley Crossroads Center, eating the
microwaveable spaghetti lunch he bought at the local 7-Eleven. He didn't
find work today.
Felix, 30, who declined to give his last name, joins hundreds of other
Hispanic immigrants, many of them illegal aliens, who wait here every day
from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m. for a pickup truck to come and take them to jobs
mowing lawns or painting homes.
It's a good spot to find workers like Felix: This small section of
Prince George's County has the largest concentration of Hispanics in the
state, according to the 2000 Census. Of 5,669 people counted by the
census in western Langley Park, 80 percent are of Hispanic origin.
And those are just the ones who responded to the census.
"Oh, there are much more than that," said Guadalupe Adams of Casa de
Maryland, a nonprofit organization that helps low-income Latinos find
work, apply for legal residency and learn English.
Many immigrants, like Felix, refused to respond to the census for fear
of being deported, said Adams, herself a Salvadoran immigrant who doesn't
speak English.
"I would wager a dollar there are around 6,000 (Hispanics)" in the
western part of Langley Park, said William J. Hanna, a University of
Maryland professor of urban studies and planning. "Nine out of 10
conversations you'll hear there are in Spanish."
Census tract 8056.01 is a busy crossroads near the Montgomery County
border, crowded with strip shopping centers and two- and three-story brick
apartment buildings. The area is bounded by University Boulevard and
Quebec Street, and New Hampshire Avenue and 15th Street.
A 1995 study that Hanna co-authored, "Langley Park: A Preliminary
Needs Assessment," found that unemployment in Langley Park increases to
50 percent in the winter, that fewer than half of the adults in speak
English at home and only 7 percent of the residents vote.
More than 1,000 adults attend English classes every week at nearby
Langley Park-McCormick Elementary School, said Principal Cheryl J. Logan.
With a student body that is 70 percent Hispanic, Logan said she has to
speak Spanish with a lot of parents.
It wasn't always like that.
Langley Park was a predominantly white neighborhood in the 1950s,
Hanna said. It became an African-American community in the 1970s after
desegregation.
But since the 1980s, Central Americans, mostly from El Salvador, have
taken over the area, after escaping their civil war-ravaged countries. It
was the first Maryland suburb to have a large Hispanic community, he
said.
There is no clear reason why they chose that area. In El Salvador,
where many of the area's new residents come from, Langley Park is dubbed
the "15th province" of the small 14-province country, Hanna said. It's
known as a place where "you can make more money and have a more decent
life."
Not everybody is happy with the presence of groups of immigrants
looking for work at the University Boulevard shopping center. Some
storeowners are fed up with the crowds of men waiting for jobs, who they
say scare customers away.
"We ourselves cannot find parking," said Paul Singh, president of One
Stop Cellular, a shop in the Takoma/Langley Crossroads Center. "It's
worst for the ladies because all the men start looking at them and use
abusive language."
But at International Food across the street, where Latin pop music
blasts from the speakers, manager Andrew McDonald said most of the men
crowding the parking lots don't cause trouble.
"Most of them are looking for daily work," said McDonald, a Caribbean
immigrant himself.
Though a lot of them don't find work every day, Hispanics flock to the
area because they know others will help them settle in, said Adams, who
assists the men who wait for work every morning at the corner of
University Boulevard and New Hampshire Avenue.
Seven to eight men often share bunk beds in the one-room apartments
near the shopping center, she said. When a new immigrant moves into one
of these apartments, the other men won't ask for rent or money for food
for one month.
Carlos Ortiz, building manager of Quebec Arms Apartments on 14th
Street, said he didn't know about such arrangements. But he agrees that
about 85 percent of the tenants living in the 247-unit complex are
Hispanic.
Solidarity defines this community, he said.
"I believe that's the reason why people come to this area," said
Ortiz, who came to Langley Park from Guatemala 16 years ago. "People will
help each other without hesitation."
Copyright © 2001 University of Maryland College of Journalism.
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