Immigration and the University Community

The Major Minority

(Part 1 of a 2 part series. The multimedia projects follow this article.)

Take a drive to the east of College Park on Kenilworth Avenue, and it's difficult to go even a few blocks without seeing an ethnic eatery, a foreign food market or a business offering money transfer services to Latin America.

Cross over to University Boulevard, on the west side of College Park, and roll down the windows, and visitors are likely to be greeted with the smells of cooking pupusas (an El Salvadoran staple food), or the latest bachata tune to grace FM Spanish-language radio. Turn onto Riggs Road, and drivers can find more than 15 mobile kitchens offering everything from Jamaican patties to plantain snacks.

Welcome to Maryland's International Corridor, one of the biggest immigrant hubs this side of the Potomac River. It's all within arm's reach of College Park, and has largely sprung up only in the last 15 years, about the same period the university began its transformation as a top-50 national research institution. Although the areas have become vibrant ones, they've also become challenges to county officials and older, more established neighborhoods, including ones in College Park.

In such a small area like College Park, and the much smaller campus, it's difficult not to notice the impact. Although the university and College Park's demographics remained largely stagnant during the 1990s, the four areas surrounding the university increased in foreign-born residents by an average of 13 percent. In the western region, known as the unincorporated area of Langley Park, nearly 65 percent of residents were born outside of U.S., according to the 2000 Census.

But the same neighborhood has drawn attention for its high crime rates, drug trafficking and prostitution rings. It's a vibrant, high-density area with about the same number of residents as College Park, but it's also indicative of the challenges the nation faces as a whole.

"I think the immigrant community in Prince George's is absolutely our most vulnerable population," said Maj. Kevin Davis, who commands the police district where many of the immigrant communities and College Park lie. "I think they're a huge asset to the workforce, to the culture, to the churches. They're very family-oriented people, and they're new to this country just like the Italian and Irish were at the turn of the 20th century."

Davis said North College Park neighborhoods are beginning to see some of the changes seen in surrounding areas, which sometimes can cause friction between some older, established black and white neighborhoods. In areas surrounding College Park, Davis said day laborers who often loiter on corners, overcrowded housing and sometimes gang issues can put residents at loggerheads.

"I can't tell you how many meetings I've had to referee between ... older black and white communities and the newer emerging Latinos," Davis said. His message? "Come on, let's reach out to those communities, the ones you call 'they' and 'them,' and come together." He added: "You can't police yourself out of it."

Although it's only been during the past few years, the university has increasingly reached out to the communities as it becomes clear that diminished social services and poverty issues are becoming looming problems not only facing the county, but the immigrants and the children themselves.

Several student groups have engaged in gang interventions, feeding at day laborer sites run by the immigrant advocacy group Casa de Maryland and tutoring at area schools faced with not only students from poor families but language issues as well. One undergraduate class, American Studies 498J: Popular Culture, Youth and Literacy, offers credit to students who help tutor both adults and high school students in the large foreign-born population around Hyattsville.

In December, outgoing Provost Bill Destler announced the launch of the Community Partners Program, billed as "an exciting new "seed" grant program designed to encourage and fund University-community partnerships."

"CPP grants will address critical needs in the communities surrounding the University of Maryland, College Park campus, with a special focus on low-income neighborhoods," Destler wrote. Adelphi, Langley Park, Hyattsville and Riverdale are among the communities of focus, he added.

The grant process is still in process, but The Engaged University - an initiative that is one of the most recent examples of the university's outreach to the community - will be administering the grants. Grant recipients will be announced next week.

Staff writer Kevin Litten contributed to this report. Contact reporter Arelis Hernandez at hernandezdbk@gmail.com

Engaging Action

(Part 2 of a 2 part series)

Home to one of the largest foreign-born populations in the country, the Washington metropolitan area is now faced with the question of how to adapt to a huge population that experts say has far different needs than more established residents.

The area surrounding the university, including Riverdale, Langley Park, Adelphi and Hyattsville, is no different, and as the past 15 years have yielded some of the most dramatic demographic shifts seen anywhere, the university has begun reaching out in ways that serve the needs of this unique segment of Prince George's County.

Although university professor Bill Hanna and Engaged University differ in their approach, their goal is the same: offer up the resources of a world-class university to making the communities more vibrant, inclusive places. Here are their stories.

Engaged University

Most weekday afternons, Kristen Spoales can be found in Riverdale Heights, dipping elementary schoolers' hands in orange paint or digging in a community garden.

The environmental science graduate student is one of about a dozen university volunteers who dedicate their time to local youth through the newly established Maryland Multicultural Youth Center in Riverdale Heights. Located to the east of College Park, the neighborhood is made up of predominantly working-class immigrants, many of whom are Latino.

Spoales, along with several other students, is a volunteer through the Engaged University program, a cooperative that bridges the gap between university volunteers and community organizations.

This past January, MMYC moved its operation to an abandoned school building. Just up the street from William Wirt Middle School and with the help of these students, MMYC has initiated summer camps, a mural workshop, a bicycle repair shop, a soccer program and, most recently, a community garden.

"The Engaged University is about getting the university to invest more in the community, in the people who have needs in the community and getting those community members better access to higher education and university resources that are many times underused," Maureen Herman, director of the site, said. "Community building, sustainable development, all that good stuff."

For the student volunteers, working with the children who hail from all over the world further enriches their college experience.

"It almost parallels my major. I look forward to just like, learning the experience of just being with children," Angela Annecchino, a freshman art education major who is working on a community mural for Wirt Middle School, said. "It's adding to my abilities as an educator, as well as just having fun, painting and doing something I love."

Outside, in the community garden, broccoli sprouts poke through the ground where just weeks ago, elementary and middle school children along with university volunteers tilled a patch of grass. The garden debuted April 21, and though it is run by the youth center, the site also includes open plots for neighbors to play "Old MacDonald" by planting fruits and vegetables.

"Students change from being kind of 'too cool' and 'eww, worms are gross,' not wanting to work together and not feeling like this patch of dirt is really worth anything until the end of the year," Spoales said. "Then we teach them how to cook the things they grew, and they get excited about harvesting the vegetables."

Langley Park's biggest fan

On a tour through Langley Park with Hanna, every site prompts a story.

"You see that restaurant over there?" Hanna asked, pointing to Irene's Pupuseria on University Boulevard. "Irene opened her first pupuseria here, and now she has expanded to four locations in the area."

But there's nothing historical about the lesson that comes with the fruit vendors who stand on most corners, peddling zip-top plastic bags full of mango slices from borrowed shopping carts. These street vendors have been in danger of losing their businesses because of concerns brought by the county council. Hanna has been fighting to keep their stands intact.

"Even though he is not one of us, he supports us; he takes time to talk to us and worry for us," one street vendor said in Spanish. "There are always good-hearted people," she added, extending her arms toward Hanna.

Hanna, an urb?an studies and planning professor at the university, is one of the community's leading activists, having founded Action Langley Park in 1998. The organization unites community, church and law enforcement officials to bring about change conducive to the needs of residents.

It all started during a drive one day in 1994. Hanna said his curiosity was piqued when he began to see signs in different languages while he was driving down University Boulevard.

"I asked myself, 'What is going on?'" he said. Hanna said he was not familiar with the communities surrounding the university, and decided to do a needs assessment of the area. During his field research, Hanna said people were initially cold about having a big white man come to their home asking questions. But once he connected, Hanna said there was no turning back.

"I fell in love with the people in Langley Park," he said.

On Sunday, the eighth annual Langley Park Day, a brainchild of Action Langley Park, was held at the Langley Park Community Center. With the help of a number of community health and government agencies, the day-long event brought free health screenings, information about diabetes, strokes and malnutrition.

After five months of planning and endless phone calls, Langley Park Day is just one more check on Hanna's list in an ongoing mission to better the community.

"For me, Langley Park has been an opening to the world of immigration and immigrants - and an opening of my mind," he said.

Below, view the multimedia report that inspired this project, produced by editor in chief Kevin Litten in December 2006. This report centers on the work of graduate students Vinnie Bevevino and Kristen Spoales, who were working for The Engaged University with middle and elementary school students on gardening projects.