Immigrants find a home, despair in rich Va.

Reuters via Boston Globe ^ | March 11, 2002 | Alan Elsner

[sarcasm]

AILEY'S CROSSROADS, Va. - In a small enclave of Northern Virginia, surrounded by upscale shopping malls and affluent, manicured suburbs, immigrants speaking a total of about 70 languages struggle to build new lives in the face of poverty, overcrowding, and crime.

[angkor]

a few years back about the Asian gangs and violent crime over in the shopping center where the Ames is at Seven Corners

That would be Eden Center, and whatever gang crime there was a few years back, is no more. There's a Fairfax County PD in the mall, and they've removed the Hispanic nightclub (huh!?!?) that was plopped right into the middle of the 100 percent Vietnamese shopping area several years ago (who had that brilliant idea?).

People tell me Eden Center has really improved over the last 3-4 years. There is little to no crime there, aside from the occasional swiping of cell phones from unlocked vehicles, and some minor juvenile delinquincy I've read about. But there was a fellow killed there about two years ago. He apparently urinated on a VN flag in the midst of a political demo (pro-RSVN, pro-USA), and was pummled by the crowd. No suspects were arrested.

On a regular basis, Eden Mall has probably the most ardent patriotic displays and events in all of Northern VA.

[xsmommy]

St Anthony's, other than the left wing Father Tuck, who is pastor there, is great. All of my kids were baptized there, as it was our parish until a few years ago. i have friends whose kids attend the catholic school there and have had no problems in that neighborhood.

[xsmommy]

you are absolutely right, it is Eden Center, i drive past it daily. They have a very nice banner up, praying for the victims of 9/11, and have ever since it happened.

[Clemenza]

Speaking as one who has lived most of his life in New York, with the remainder being spent in Chicago and South Florida, I have seen both the best and the worst when it comes to immigration. I do believe, however, that although I believe that the laws on the books must be more strongly enforced (INS is a joke), the anti-immigrant zealots on this board need to calm down and take a more balanced approach (the same can be said about the "open all the borders crowd," but they are not present on this site). The "old stock" immigrants included many criminals and many hardworking people, their presence caused property taxes to go up (think of all those public schools that needed to be built in New York in the late 19th/early 20th century) and they, for the most part, voted for the party of government. These were the worst things about my great-grandparents wave of immigration and they are happening again. (Don't give me that BS about that artificial cold-war created entity known as "the third world." The avereage Mexican or Central American is, thanks to television and shopping centers in his own country, just "westernized" than his illiterate Italian counterpary a century ago).

If I were a California WASP, maybe I would be shocked by the effects of immigration and move to a compound in Idaho. In Chicago and New York, immigrants are merely entering areas settled and vacated by other ethnic groups. In South Florida, immigrants are merely replacing Senior Citizen Liberal Democrat transplants from New York. My only objection to the new immigrants is that they vote for the American Socialist Party, as did all of the old members of my family. If we 1. end family reunification and 2. enforce existing law, much of our "problems" will disappear.