Serving Up a Medley of Cultures

The Vietnamese market, with its instant natural seaweed, sweet taro buns and a host of other Asian delicacies, is such an attraction that twice a month Nguyen drives nearly four hours each way from his home in Clarksburg, W.Va., to stockpile his freezer.

"We come to eat and shop," the manicurist said. "There's so much here."

As the inner suburbs of Washington attract increasingly diverse pockets of ethnic cultures, some of its older strip shopping centers have been transformed into veritable international bazaars of goods, services and restaurants.

Walk into the Eden Center and one can easily remember the vibrance and commotion of Saigon that so many Americans remember from the Vietnam War. Drive through Annandale and Korean becomes the language of commerce in many shopping areas. Stop in Langley Park in Prince George's County and the Latino presence becomes obvious. One short stretch of Rockville Pike in Montgomery County has Greek, Brazilian, Indian, Japanese, Chinese and Mexican markets and restaurants.

At the Culmore Shopping Center between Baileys Crossroads and Seven Corners near the Fairfax-Arlington border, a mixture of cultures has taken hold. There's a Vietnamese physician with a family practice, a Honduran pediatrician, a photo shop operated by a Chinese immigrant and a vacuum-cleaner shop run by a native of India. Elsewhere in the shopping center there's an Iranian market, a Thai restaurant, a Chinese and Vietnamese grocery store, and a Vietnamese toy and curio shop. Nearby is a Salvadoran international-courier business, a Vietnamese restaurant and an Afghan-run dry cleaners.

Though Koreans operate many corner grocery stores in the District and other ethnic businesses have long been located in the city, it is in the inner suburbs -- Arlington, Fairfax, Montgomery and Prince George's counties -- where most immigrant shopkeepers have settled. Immigration experts say this phenomenon is common to other areas of the country but more pronounced in this region.

It is also a trend that's likely to continue, according to those who have studied local immigration patterns. Once established, immigrant enclaves tend to attract more immigrants from the same country. Start-up businesses are often financed through a rotating credit system that is self-contained within the ethnic enclave. High-quality suburban schools are also an attraction for parents hoping to give their children a boost in their new land.

Washington, as the national capital and home to international agencies and a burgeoning high-tech industry, also attracts highly educated immigrants, many of whom start their own businesses after having amassed some capital working for others.

Susan Martin, director of the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University, said many immigrants "see small-business ownership as a means of economic mobility, as a way of moving up the economic ladder. The Washington area is a major destination for immigrants. And once they're here, it's self-perpetuating, with more immigrants wanting to come."

She said the pattern of suburbanization in the Washington area has helped foster the growth of immigrant retailing. The shopkeepers who owned inner suburban stores, and even some first-wave immigrant store owners, have often moved to outer suburban frontiers, leaving older shopping areas to newer immigrants to start retail ventures in search of an economic toehold.

"Their starting a small business becomes a very attractive way of starting a new life," Martin said.

Such is the story of Ben Phan, 30, who emigrated from Vietnam when he was 9. Now, along with his mother, Hien Kim Van, he operates the 88 Market grocery at the Culmore Shopping Center. The name, he said, comes from the fact that 88 is a lucky number in Chinese culture.

"The latest wave of immigrants are no different than the Irish, Italians and Germans" who came to the United States in the last century, said Phan, who has a history degree from George Mason University. "It's just a matter of assimilation."

The 1990 census showed that more than seven times as many immigrants live in Washington area suburbs (425,562) as in the District (58,887), according to Robert D. Manning, a visiting sociology professor at Georgetown who has studied the multicultural composition of the region.

More recent estimates indicate that the influx of immigrants into the Washington suburbs has continued unabated during this decade as well, but that won't be fully documented until next year's census. The Immigration and Naturalization Service said more than 91,000 immigrants settled in the area from 1995 to 1997, the most recent period for which statistics are available.

While California, New York, Texas and Florida typically draw the most immigrants, Virginia and Maryland rank among the top 10 states, with Virginia usually attracting more. It also appears that more immigrants have established stores and restaurants in Northern Virginia than in suburban Maryland.

Immigrant store owners say they can, with long hours of work, make a living in their adopted land, a conclusion that Manning said his research has shown as well. In addition, he and others said that some ethnic groups have come to be identified with certain trades, such as Koreans with dry cleaning, Indians with doughnut shops, Vietnamese with cosmetology, and Latinos with construction and landscaping. Each group has its own set of restaurants.

Manning said some Korean store owners, who tend to be highly educated when they arrive in this country, have advanced up the economic ladder, from perhaps operating a wig shop, then, in order, a manicure business, a small grocery or retail shop, a restaurant and finally a liquor store. But Manning said the American-educated offspring of the store owners typically take up occupations other than running the family-owned shops.

In the meantime, he said, "As long as immigration increases, you're going to see more ethnic stores that survive catering to their own ethnic group."

That's the case of Shakil Ahmad, a 27-year-old Pakistani who since 1994 has operated the Super Halal Meat store at Brookfield Plaza in Springfield.

He said his customers, with the exception of a few Americans, are Pakistanis, Afghans and Indians.

"We're doing good," he said. "Halal means meat specially killed for Muslims -- beef, chicken, veal."

Across the parking lot at Brookfield, Vinod Mahajan operates Nataraj Books, where he says he has 5,000 books stacked along crowded aisles, all of them from India. He said about half of his walk-in customers are Indian with the other half Americans and people from other countries, but that the majority of his business is mail-order, serving American universities and public libraries.

At the Culmore center, Farid Nawab and his wife, Samireh, said 80 percent of the customers at their Iran Sara grocery are Iranians.

Samireh Nawab recounted a process that occurs at many older strip centers in the suburbs: "When an American closes another store, Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese, Arabs, Pakistanis, foreign people take over and make businesses.

"But it's hard work," she said. "You have to work maybe 70, 80, 90 hours a week.."

A short distance away at the Eden Center, Ly Lai, 30, one of four sisters who help run the Huong Que Vietnamese restaurant with their father and mother, Kim Lai and Thanh Tran, said about 60 percent of their customers are Asians.

She recalled that in 1982, when she first came to the United States, if one "saw a Vietnamese grocery you were so happy," which is why the Eden Center is flourishing, particularly after Falls Church stationed police at the center a couple years ago to curb gang crime.

But Lai, like numerous other immigrant entrepreneurs, cited the long hours it takes to run a successful business.

Her father had a bicycle parts store in Bien Hoa and the family had no experience in running a restaurant. But now, she said, "We're here 12 hours a day. . . . You have to work harder here because you come over with nothing. But if you're willing to work, you will be successful."

CAPTION: At left, Ly Lai, who helps run the Huong Que Vietnamese restaurant at the Eden Center in Falls Church, serves lunch. Shakil Ahmad, below left, a Pakistani, works at the Super Halal Meat store at Brookfield Plaza in Springfield.

Salvadorans make up the largest population of new immigrants in both the District and Virginia; in Maryland, the largest is Indian.

Number of new immigrants

District: 3,784 (0.7% total pop.)

Salvadoran

557

Vietnamese

350

Chinese

209

Nigerian

194

Virginia: 21,375 (0.3% total pop.)

Salvadoran

1,689

Filipino

1,446

Vietnamese

1,437

Indian

1,208

Maryland: 20,732 (0.4% total pop.)

Indian

1,421

Nigerian

1,209

Salvadoran

1,173

Chinese

1,095

NOTE: Figures are for 1996, latest available.

SOURCE: U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service