Ask older residents of historic North Brentwood their recollections of the town, and they go into a reverie about kids playing house-to-house and about how the town was self-contained with businesses and shops. Mostly, it was black, and the generations who had lived there gave the place its essence.
But "change comes," said Eleanor Traynham, 71, who was born and raised in the town, in Prince George's County, and returned in 1992. And "you have to be able to adapt to change."
On a late afternoon, children run across the lawns of modest three-bedroom homes, young mothers carry groceries, and fathers in coveralls arrive home from work. These families are Latino. A few yards away, much older residents are checking mail or working on their cars or greeting each other with late-day banter. They are black.
In a town changing without overt rancor, they are neighbors without the neighborliness, separate groups leading lives that don't touch, even though their property lines do. It's a new challenge for this historic place -- re-creating community.
It's a challenge that plays out against a backdrop of seismic demographic shifts. In 2003, Latinos overtook African Americans as the nation's most populous minority. Fueled by a boom in construction and low-wage service jobs, the Washington region had the ninth-largest Latino population gain in the country from 2000 to 2004.
In Prince George's, most of the Latino population, which doubled from 1990 to 2000, is concentrated inside the Beltway in the northwestern part of the county. As more Latinos graduate to homeownership, the relative affordability of housing in communities there has accelerated the pace of change.
In North Brentwood, population nearly 500, off Rhode Island Avenue just outside the District line, these shifts play out door-to-door. Since 2000, the historically black town has become 25 percent Hispanic.
Worries over changes
Some black residents are concerned about what these changes mean for their community, even as they worry about seeming intolerant. Newer Hispanic residents say they get along with everyone, and if there is subtle awkwardness to their brief hello-goodbye exchanges with black neighbors, they're too busy working and raising their families to notice.
Originally settled by black Civil War troops, North Brentwood became the first incorporated black town in Prince George's -- and one of the first in the state -- in 1924, a thriving hamlet of single-family homes and businesses.
It had a tavern with a dance floor where such stars as Pearl Bailey performed. In 2003, the town was put on the National Register of Historic Places. Today, along leafy streets, small cottages border towering home construction and wide new additions.
One recent late afternoon, Santos Benitez, 27, a construction worker, was caring for his four children, ranging from 3 months to 10 years old, while his wife worked. The Salvadoran immigrant moved from a house in Northeast Washington two months ago. "This house is a lot bigger," said Diego Benitez, 10, who was skating in the driveway with his brothers Jonathan, 6, and Brian, 7. Santos Benitez said his neighbors didn't talk much, except when one came over to complain about his dog.
Hiawatha Crank, 55, a plumber and diesel mechanic originally from South Carolina who moved to North Brentwood in 1980, said the community feel reminded him of home. He noticed the first Latino family five years ago. "Man, it seemed like after that happened, the sky broke loose, and they came from everywhere," he said.
Spike in home prices
His Latino neighbors seem all right and don't bother his family, he said. Still, he said that a spike in the price of homes, which now sell from $200,000 to $400,000, is putting Brentwood out of reach for many working-class blacks. Crank attributes the price spike to the Latino influx, even though property values across the county have risen sharply in the past five years.
He pointed out single-family homes he said housed multiple Latino families. Recent data for the number of residents per household were not available for North Brentwood. Nationally in 2005, Hispanics composed about 11 percent of U.S. households but made up more than 50 percent of households deemed crowded (more than one person per room), according to the Census Bureau's American Housing Survey.
Nearby, Crank's buddy Charles Cuffie, 62, a retired bus driver, voiced a commonly held suspicion among black residents that Latinos sometimes pretend not to speak English to avoid conversation.
"Things change," said Crank's daughter, Tammi Crank, 20, a security officer with the federal Department of Homeland Security. "I just never thought it would happen in my neighborhood."
The influx is driven by housing prices that are cheaper than in Fairfax and Montgomery counties and real estate agents who steer Latinos into certain neighborhoods, said Audrey Singer, an immigration fellow at the Brookings Institution.
The learning process
Decades ago, the county was roiled as it shifted from majority-white to majority-black. Peter Shapiro, a former Town Council member and County Council chairman, who is white, has seen friction between blacks and Latinos in other Prince George's neighborhoods. Perhaps because of its strong sense of identity, Shapiro said, North Brentwood seems determined not to repeat those mistakes.
Lillian K. Beverly, 77, who has lived in North Brentwood most of her life and been mayor since 1995, said she had fielded complaints about Latino residents parking on lawns or growing corn in their front yards -- relatively small problems that have been fixed. She knows that some residents feel wistful for bygone days but asked, "How can we as black folks always complain about being discriminated against if we're going to do the same?" She said the North Brentwood Memorial Garden and the planned Prince George's African American Museum and Cultural Center in North Brentwood will ensure that their legacy survives, even if their numbers continue to dwindle.
William A. Campos (D-Hyattsville), 32, who moved with his family from El Salvador to Hyattsville when he was 9 and represents North Brentwood on the County Council, said: "We're still learning one another in this area. It will take some time."
Campos said Latino residents don't always recognize that parking on the grass doesn't play well with neighbors. "The norm in a residential area here is not the norm for what we were doing back home," he said.
He said the notion of Latinos feigning ignorance of English was often a misunderstanding. Newcomers often pick up only a few words at a time, Campos said. "Why would you purposely not speak or want to understand the world that you live in? Sometimes you don't have that ability," he said.
Campos agreed that Latinos often pool resources. "It becomes very natural to help each other sustain the house and at the same time be with the family," he said. It's an arrangement that he said some African Americans have told him they recognize from their own family histories.
Copying from black tradition
Traynham, the North Brentwood resident, who is black, concurred. "Basically they are only doing the same thing African Americans did years ago. When African Americans migrated from the South, they always had a place where family members could come and stay," she said.
Valentín Peña, originally from El Salvador, said, speaking in Spanish, that blacks often wave, but neither group ever starts a conversation.
Peña said he understood that black residents might feel threatened, but his nephew, who wouldn't give his name, disagreed, in English. "I listen to Martin [Luther King]; he had a dream."
When Ever Diaz opened his auto repair shop in 1990, he spoke English, introduced himself to residents and attended community functions. It's a model for other newcomers, he said. "I didn't quit, and I didn't get angry," he said.
On a cold afternoon, Diaz introduced himself to Ramondo Lara, 38, a maintenance engineer who is married with two young sons and moved to North Brentwood three years ago. "Everybody says, 'Hi. How are you? I am fine,' " Lara said in halting English. Lara and Diaz joked that they should open a Salvadoran embassy. People have to get used to Latinos being here, Diaz said.
"Like everyone else, they are just looking to move up," he said.
Staff researchers Magda Jean-Louis and Meg Smith and El Tiempo Latino reporter Luz Lazo contributed to this report.