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Va.'s political future isn't black and white
By DALE EISMAN AND GILLIAN GAYNAIR,
© September 26, 2006
Last updated: 12:04 AM


SPRINGFIELD - To thousands of commuters who duck off Interstate 95 every morning and use Backlick Road to beat traffic, it's just another route to Washington.

Yet in the neighborhoods, churches, schools and strip malls along the way, a wave of immigration is transforming the economy and politics of Northern Virginia and beginning to be felt across the rest of the state.

"What we're seeing is the birth of a potentially powerful political movement," said Claire Guthrie Gasta?aga, a former deputy state attorney general. "People underestimate the power at their jeopardy."

South of the Rappahannock River, the traditional boundary between Northern Virginia and the rest of the state, immigrant populations remain small and politicians in both parties generally focus their campaigns on white and black voters.

In the 2nd Congressional District race, incumbent Thelma Drake, a Republican, left local immigrants off the panel when she convened an immigration forum in Virginia Beach this month - an omission that disturbed Hispanics in the audience.

Democratic challenger Phil Kellam

appeared uninformed about immigrant issues when he was invited to a meeting on the issue earlier this year.

Kellam "needs to learn more about the Hispanic population here in the area if he's going to represent us," Mavel Velasco Mu?oz, a Spanish professor at Virginia Wesleyan College, said after the July meeting. "He needs to realize the strength of the Hispanic vote." Hampton Roads' Hispanic population grew by more than 50 percent in the 1990s, according to census figures, but barely tops 3 percent of the area's total.

Politicians "should be more interested in working with us," maintained Beatriz Amberman, vice chairman of a Hispanic advisory group to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine. "But I don't think they think it's important."

Contrast that with Northern Virginia, where the Spanish-speaking population is close to a majority in some neighborhoods and a growing number of officeholders are creating Hispanic advisory groups and looking for ways to finesse the immigration issue.

In the Fairfax County town of Herndon, where more than one-fourth of the residents are Hispanic, officials agonized for months last year over plans to build a community center for hundreds of Hispanic day-laborers, many of them in the United States illegally. After the center was approved, non-Hispanic voters turned out in droves and ousted the council - a reminder that while Hispanic numbers are growing, resentment and fear about Spanish-speaking immigrants remain politically potent.

Gasta?aga, a "Latino by marriage" whose husband is a painting contractor in Richmond, argues that such anti-immigrant victories are produced by a reflexive "fear of others" and are likely to generate a backlash that will be felt as Hispanic numbers grow.

Along Backlick Road from Springfield to Annandale, signs of Northern Virginia's explosive immigrant influx are unmistakable. At Brookfield Plaza, a strip mall just south of the Capital Beltway, La Hacienda Restaurant and Sports Bar sits alongside the Shri Krishna Grocery, which in turn sits alongside Food Corner II, where the menu's featured dishes are Afghan Kabobs and Peruvian Rotisserie Chicken.

Nearby, shoppers can meander from Esther's West African Fashions to the Dong Nam Vietnamese supermarket and then on to Nataraj Books and Gifts, an Indian bookstore. A mile or so up the street, the parking lot is almost always full at el Grande Supermercado, a superstore of Hispanic, Middle Eastern and Asian cuisine.

Similar pockets of international commerce have sprung up across Fairfax County and the rest of Northern Virginia in recent years. And no wonder: Roughly one-fourth of Northern Virginia's 2 million-plus residents are either Hispanic or Asian, according to federal estimates.


"The new party in Fairfax County is you," Eric Lundberg, the county's Republican chairman, told more than 200 immigrants at a GOP "ethnic campaign rally" earlier this month. "It is crucial that we have an open dialogue with you and a constructive working relationship."

In an interview, Lundberg said he identified ethnic outreach as vital to the party's future when he took over as county chairman four years ago. The ethnic rally this month was the butt of jokes in some quarters - faux newsman Stephen Colbert mocked it on his Comedy Central television show - but Lundberg insists the Republicans are serious about expanding their base.

"The party that does the best job in outreaching to the Hispanic community is going to be the big winner... not just in these elections," said Michel Zajur, president of the Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Zajur and other Hispanic leaders suggest that the tough stand on immigration taken by congressional Republicans is helping drive the emerging Hispanic vote toward Democratic candidates.

The GOP House leadership's plan to fence off the Mexican border and deport millions of illegal immigrants "is not seen as a good solution" among Hispanics, Zajur said.

"I don't care how many fences you put up," said Marty Martinez, a city councilman in Leesburg. " People are going to find a way to get to America." The fast-growing Washington area is a particular magnet for newcomers in part because it has an abundance of jobs - landscapers, custodians, construction workers - that few whites and blacks seem to want, he said.

Andres Tobar of Arlington, chairman of the Virginia Coalition of Latino Organizations, argued that "a handful of Republicans are taking immigration and wanting to make it a wedge." The strategy may work in the short-term, he said, but as Hispanic populations grow and more Hispanics become citizens and voters, politicians who are seen as hostile or indifferent to immigrant concerns will pay a price.


Reach Dale Eisman at (703) 913-9872 or icemandc@msn.com.n Reach Gillian Gaynair at (757) 222-3895 or gillian.gaynair@pilotonline.com.





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