Thread: VA:Loudoun Neighborhood Wrestles With Immigrant Presence

Sterling Park's Identity Crisis
Swept Up in Area's Demographic Shift, Loudoun Neighborhood Wrestles With Immigrant Presence

By Sandhya Somashekhar
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 14, 2007; A01

In some ways, Sterling Park is the same as it was 40 years ago, when it was founded as Loudoun County's first suburban-style planned community -- a place where working-class families could find jobs, affordable homes and a piece of the American dream.

In other ways, though, the community has never been so different. One recent morning, Spanish ballads blared from the open door of Pepe's Mexican Restaurant. A cadre of Latino children zoomed along the sidewalk on scooters in front of Sterling Elementary School, where a sign urging parents to register their children was printed in English and Spanish.

For decades, the conservative, largely white neighborhood of a few thousand families was isolated from the sweeping demographic changes that transformed Northern Virginia into one of the most diverse regions in the nation.

Today, Sterling Park is on the front line of that change. The number of Hispanics has surged since 2000 in Loudoun, the Census Bureau reported last week, with many of them settling in Sterling Park. The community is at the heart of an intensifying debate over illegal immigration that led the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors to join Prince William and several other Virginia jurisdictions last month in approving resolutions promising to crack down on illegal immigrants who use county services or commit crimes.

Many Sterling Park residents have praised the board's action, saying the newcomers have brought with them a flood of illegal immigrants, whom they blame for everything from run-down houses to what they perceive as an increase in crime.

Immigrant advocates agree that the aging neighborhood -- where nearly every block has a house with peeling paint or an unkempt yard, and gangs are a persistent problem -- has seen better days. But they say the critics, and the politicians who have responded to them, are connecting a jumble of issues that have nothing to do with illegal immigration.

The debate has sharpened largely because of a backlash among longtime residents upset by the changes in the town.

"People I talk to are very concerned about degradation of their neighborhoods, property values, overcrowding, lack of maintenance on homes -- that type of thing," said state Del. Thomas Davis Rust (R), who represents Sterling Park and nearby Herndon and supports the resolutions. "Most people that have talked to me blame illegal immigration and believe there is a direct link. Do I have proof that there's a link? No. But that is what people believe."

One such resident is Fran Brocke, 76, of Ashburn, who lived in Sterling Park for 43 years but moved in October because her neighborhood, she said, was being "taken over by illegal aliens." She is a member of Help Save Loudoun, a group that opposes illegal immigration.

"It really breaks my heart," said Brocke, recalling the brick split-level house on Church Road where she raised her five kids. "People thought I'd never leave. But it just got to the point where I didn't feel safe anymore."

Defenders of the immigrants say many of the criticisms are not supported by statistics.

For instance, although there is a widespread perception that crime has increased in Sterling, sheriff's office data show that nearly every kind of crime has decreased since 2000. Last year, Sterling Park saw a few high-profile shootings and gang-related incidents. But according to the Loudoun sheriff's office, only one in 20 gang members in the county is in the country illegally, and most are U.S. citizens.

Brocke and others say Sterling has been plagued by illegal boarding houses that rent rooms in single-family homes to illegal immigrants.

From July 2006 to June 2007, officials received 198 complaints of overcrowded homes, said Keith Fairfax, head of the county's residential overcrowding enforcement office. Only a few turned out to be boarding houses in which landlords rented homes to more than a dozen people, he said.

The county doesn't track what percentage of inspections turn up violations, Fairfax said. The most common examples of violations were people sleeping in basement rooms with windows that were too small under Virginia law or three people sleeping in a room considered big enough for only two.

Often, inspectors found Bible study groups, people coming by to assist sick relatives, well-wishers visiting newborn babies and similar get-togethers, Fairfax said.

Laura Valle, executive director of the Hispanic advocacy group La Voz of Loudoun, agreed that Sterling Park has seen better days. But she has a different explanation for the changes. Since the community was founded in the early 1960s, the buildings are beginning to show their age, she said. And in a county where the average single-family home costs $660,000, Sterling Park has less expensive, relatively affordable houses that attract people for whom survival, not household maintenance, is a top priority.

That includes new immigrants, especially Hispanics, who were attracted to the construction jobs that proliferated in fast-growing Loudoun during the past decade, she said.

Valle believes there could be a connection, though tenuous, between some of the problems the residents complain of and illegal immigration.

"There is a connection to the extent that if you are an undocumented immigrant, your capacity to improve your economic situation and integrate into society is greatly reduced," she said. "But in the scope of things, that's really insignificant. Even if you were to miraculously deport every undocumented person, these issues wouldn't go away."

A 37-year-old Sterling Park woman, who asked that her name not be used because she came to Virginia illegally from Mexico last year, bristles at the suggestion that her neighborhood is run down and overrun with gangs.

The Sterling Park home she rents from a relative is modestly furnished but tidy. A sprinkler sits idle in her yard. Four cars are lined up in the driveway, and the lamppost is wound with Christmas lights. She said she and her husband, their three children and three other family members live there.

"All of us -- my kids, too -- we work all the time, and it's sometimes hard to keep up with the house," she said with the aid of a translator. "But I think it looks pretty good."

Some activists believe the longtime residents' concerns reflect a desire to return to a time when their community was more homogenous.

The Census figures released last week show Loudoun's minority population is one of the fastest-growing in the nation. Sterling Park, in particular, has seen a striking increase in the Hispanic population: Last year, one in three students at the neighborhood's Park View High School was Hispanic, compared with about one in 10 in 2000, according to the state.

"The community has been changing very rapidly, and maybe much to the unhappiness of some residents, many of those new people are not lily-white," said Mukit Hossain, president of the Virginia Muslim Political Action Committee, which is based in the Sterling area and has been organizing opposition to the resolutions. "There has been an influx of a lot of immigrants into this area, which I'm sure makes some people nervous."

The residents who called for the county's action say they are not racist; they are simply fed up with those who show up uninvited and then treat the community with disrespect.

"The issue is coming over here illegally, staying illegally and doing things illegally. It's about the rule of law," said Larry Wilber, 61, a remodeling contractor who has lived in Sterling Park for 11 years.

Mike Amos, 32, a paralegal who grew up in Sterling Park, said, "I've seen my home town completely transformed from what it used to be, and not for the better."

The strong anti-illegal immigrant stand among longtime Sterling Park residents is not surprising considering its political history. Until 2005, when Democrat David E. Poisson was elected in his place, Richard H. Black (R) represented the Sterling area in the House of Delegates for four terms. He was known as one of the state's most conservative politicians.

The area's representative on the Loudoun Board of Supervisors is Eugene A. Delgaudio (R), executive director of an anti-gay organization based in Falls Church. Delgaudio, who is up for reelection in November, was the main sponsor of the Loudoun resolution cracking down on illegal immigrants. In a note to constituents last month, he warned of "invasions of illegal aliens who turn safe neighborhoods into filthy, crowded slums."

The rhetoric disturbs Jeanne West, his Democratic opponent. She believes illegal immigration is a distraction from the real problems of the neighborhood: its age and the lack of attention paid to it by elected officials.

"I don't want to be this Pollyanna who says this it is not a problem, but I don't want to lay all of it at the feet of illegal immigrants," she said. "This is still a nice family neighborhood. Something needs to be done to make sure we get the amenities and the resources so we can keep the neighborhood desirable."

Brocke, Wilber and others say that they're not without compassion and that they welcome those who are in the country legally. It's those who flout the law that bother them, they said.

"I don't want someone coming to my country and building another dang country inside of it," Wilber said. "It's like if you came home and found someone in your house and you said, 'What are you doing here?' And they said: 'Oh, the door was open; I just came in. By the way, I'm going to change some other things in your home, too.' "

Researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... eheadlines

You said it Wilbur! These illegals are not coming here to live the American dream, they want to turn our neighborhoods into a mirror image of Mexico -that means no gringos allowed. It's obvious the illegals have no desire to assimilate and no respect for the laws of this land. The Mattell recall is another eye opener for us. How much is a human life worth -and that shouldn't be measured in product units. Is cheap labor worth losing what our forefathers gave us? At this rate we will be at war in our own country, all because our elected officials are selling America out. Why are we supporting our own demise?..

Mr. Wilber says it like it is!
I am SO tired of hearing these immigrant groups calling names and making snide comments like the one in this article about -not everyone moving in is lily-white,what is that crap?The lady that moved out said it was because the neighborhood wasn't safe anymore.That sounds like an excellent reason to move if you ask me.




Head 'em up,move 'em out Rawhide!