News Articles, 1998
  News Articles, Main Page

Some Succeed in Barrio, But All Face a Struggle

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 30, 1998; Page A19

Silvia Alfonzo has observed life along Columbia Road NW, the seedy commercial strip at the center of Washington's immigrant community, for well over a decade. From early morning until long after dark, she sits behind the cramped counter of La Colmenita, her tiny grocery store, listening to Spanish-language radio and chatting with customers.

"This is our village," said Alfonzo, a 48-year-old immigrant from El Salvador. "We have worked hard and survived. But we always have examples of what not to copy -- right outside this door."

In the course of an afternoon, a dozen Latino workmen stop by for a six-pack and a couple of cheese pupusas. Children count out pennies for chewing gum. An old Salvadoran woman wheels in a cart, selling homemade atol, a sweet hot drink. Someone leaves a shoe box in the shop to collect donations for a crippled Guatemalan boy.

But outside, the gritty sidewalk pageant never changes. Grizzled vagrants slump against the walls, arguing or panhandling. Young men hover around vendors' tables that blare competing salsa and merengue music. Police in cruisers circle the block, constantly on the lookout for drunken fights and drug deals.

Twenty years ago, this area was a mix of low-income blacks, bohemian-minded whites and small clusters of legal immigrants from countries like Chile and Bolivia. In the early 1980s, a flood of refugees from the civil war in El Salvador began moving in, eventually pushing the District's Latino population from less than 5,000 to more than 70,000.

The District's highest concentration of immigrants lives in Zip code 20009, followed closely by the adjacent Zip code 20010. These include the glitzy clubs, cafes and condominiums of Adams-Morgan but also the shabbier apartments, shops and eateries of Columbia Heights and Mount Pleasant. Thousands of Latinos, and a lesser number of Asians and Africans, live above these storefronts. They work long and hard, often sharing living quarters and sending money to relatives back home. Few, however, manage to save enough to move out of the barrio.

Salvador Paz, 27, who fled El Salvador with his family in 1984, is one of the community's success stories. His father never learned English, but Paz attended D.C. public schools, cleaned buildings at night and today owns Avignon Freres, a landmark cafe on Columbia Road.

Paz lives in Hyattsville now, and Alfonzo in Falls Church. Many other Latinos, once they could scrape together a down payment for a town house, have also moved to the suburbs. They still stop by on weekends to shop and gossip or to attend Mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church.

"When I look around the community, I feel proud and sad at the same time," Paz said. "There are more businesses here now, and there's a safer feeling, but you still see guys drinking and sleeping on the streets."

Increased investment and many public improvements, including vivid murals and mini-parks, have brightened the area. But it has never quite overcome the image of poverty and trouble spawned by street disturbances that erupted in 1991 after a police officer shot a drunk Latino man.

One factor holding Central American immigrants back is that so many came here illegally, with little education or money. Barely literate in their own language, knowing little if any English, many sank to the bottom of the economy -- and their children are still struggling to rise a little higher.

"Latinos here want [success], but they still feel hurt by the stereotype of the dirty, stupid office cleaner," said Saul Solorzano, a Salvadoran refugee who heads the Central American Resource Center. And in truth, "a lot of people are still stuck in those low-level jobs."

Latino leaders also complain that poor public services have hurt immigrants. Unlike surrounding jurisdictions, the D.C. government has devoted scant resources to helping the foreign-born. Most Latinos rely on private, nonprofit agencies for health, youth services and other assistance.

At the Clinica del Pueblo in Columbia Heights, which treats about 4,000 Latino patients a year for a few dollars a visit, about 60 percent of the clients have no health coverage and cannot afford care elsewhere.

"I'd have to give the city a D" for immigrant services, said Mario Acosta, who directs the D.C. Latino Civil Rights Center.

Community activists, complaining that police have been rude and unresponsive to Latinos, successfully lobbied to make Jose Acosta, a 28-year veteran of the force (and no relation to Mario Acosta), the commander of the 3rd District, which includes Adams-Morgan. That makes him the highest-ranking Hispanic officer in the city, but Latino activists say there is still a dire need for bilingual staff at the Department of Motor Vehicles and other government offices.

Some well-established Latinos have worked hard to promote the community, but there is an awkward social gap between old and new generations.

"These Central Americans aren't bad people, they just need education," said Pedro Lujan, 60, a Peruvian-born businessman who lives in Mount Pleasant and owns a bakery and nightclub. "The second generation is starting to move up; the community is getting stronger. But it all takes time."

In some cases, though, the second generation of Latino immigrants has not fared much better than the first. Living in crowded apartments with parents who speak little English, many younger Central Americans have had a tough time adjusting. Nonprofit programs like the Latin American Youth Center have helped, but community leaders say too many are dropping out of school, getting pregnant, doing drugs or joining gangs.

Nubia Pacheco, 18, a Salvadoran immigrant, supported herself while attending Bell Multicultural High School and graduated as valedictorian in June with a full college scholarship. But Guillermo Somarriba, 18, from Nicaragua, was already into drugs and wanted on several criminal charges in the District by the time his mother, a low-level school aide, saved enough money to rent a house in Rockville.

"I didn't realize what was happening to him, because I was always at work or school," Rosa Somarriba said. "I was so happy to [move to] a safer place. But he didn't want to go with me. The influence of the street was just too powerful."

Alfonzo is luckier. During the years she and her husband, Raimundo, worked in restaurants and garages, scrimping to buy La Colmenita (The Beehive), all three of their children made it through school. One daughter is married, another is a cosmetologist and their son is studying at a community college.

"We always taught our children to be honest and optimistic," said Alfonzo, who still works long hours behind the counter. "Thank God they listened."

On the Net

A searchable database of Immigration and Naturalization Service information on immigration is available on The Post's Web site (www.washingtonpost.com). The database shows how many legal immigrants in the years 1992-96 said they intended to settle in any county in the Washington area or any Zip code in the United States. It shows the native country of each area's immigrants and under what legal provision they were allowed to immigrate.

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