Asian American Empowerment - 'Koreatown' Image Divides A Changing Annandale

By David Cho
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 14, 2005; Page A01

When a contingent of Annandale's civic leaders named their downtown "The Annandale Village Centre," they were aiming to re-create the experience of Old Town Alexandria, where people can walk to specialty shops on brick sidewalks along quaint streets.

The Annandale Chamber of Commerce's Web site and brochures published by Fairfax County try to convey old-fashioned charm, with photos of downtown scenes: a Civil War-era church, a rustic barn and a farmers market.

In reality, the face of downtown Annandale -- a collection of aging strip malls and low-rise office buildings -- has changed from white to Asian, and its unofficial, oft-invoked moniker is Koreatown.

Although a visitor wouldn't know it from the Chamber of Commerce fliers, signs with large Korean characters -- subtitled with tiny English words -- fill Annandale's urban streetscape. They advertise a wide range of businesses: electronic stores showing off the latest gadgets from Asia, plush lawyer and realty offices, incense-filled medicine shops, pulsing karaoke bars and dance clubs and 39 Korean restaurants.

The Giant Directory -- one of four Korean telephone books in the region -- lists 929 businesses in Annandale that cater to Koreans, nine times as many as in 1990 and about one-third of all Korean businesses in the Washington area.

Still, the term Koreatown offends some members of the area's civic associations who are mostly non-Asian and who protest whenever their hometown is referred to as a Korean enclave, especially because relatively few Koreans live there.

"Koreatown is a divisive word," said Eileen Garnett, a civic leader who has lived in the neighborhood for more than three decades. "We can be more than that, and we don't want to become that. . . . We like to see this as an inclusive place."

Yet many Koreans who work in the Village Centre and who run more than half its businesses said they feel slighted by such comments and ask: Why shouldn't the area be known as Koreatown? After all, many Korean business owners said, the downtown was faltering before they came along. Today, it is thriving.

"Many Korean Americans will say Annandale is Koreatown, but I don't think that should make anyone upset," said Young Kim, president of the Korean American Association of Greater Washington. "I understand why [non-Koreans] don't like that. I just hope they understand what Koreans have done for Annandale."

The naming issue that divides the Korean retail community and its predominantly white retail counterpart illustrates the tensions that have developed across the region as large-scale immigration transforms neighborhoods into ethnic enclaves. Strained relations are well-documented along residential streets, where immigrants have moved into neighborhoods. But if anything, those tensions are more keenly felt along Main Street, which often is the public face of a community.

Some longtime residents in Annandale say their downtown no longer feels accessible to them. In many shops, English is a second language. In some restaurants, menus are only in Korean.

"You don't feel you aren't needed here, but you definitely feel they can get along without you," Mark Mills, 46, a lifelong Annandale resident, said of Koreans.

Some Korean store owners say there are so many Koreans in the region -- 66,000, according to the 2000 U.S. Census -- that their businesses can prosper without serving the surrounding neighborhood or other ethnic groups.

Kay Kim, who runs CeCi Fashion along Little River Turnpike, said having a Korean sign outside her store is more useful than displaying an English one. About 90 percent of her clients are Korean and her supplies are imported from Korea, she said. The appeal of her shop is that it offers clothes that better suit Asian bodies, she said.
"For Korean women, it's hard to find clothes that fit in American stores," she explained.

Like some of her Korean commercial neighbors, Kim said she has no reason to join the Chamber of Commerce. She spreads word of her shop through Korean churches or friends or by advertising in some of the area's 14 daily and weekly Korean publications.

Korean Christian bookstore owner Rosa Eun said: "I'm trying to get the Korean signs out there so Korean people can realize this is a Korean religious book place. It's better for business."

For the immigrants, having a Koreatown is a source of pride and comfort. The enclave took off in the early 1990s, as a collection of restaurants, dry cleaners and stores -- evidence of the ethnic group's burgeoning presence.

Koreans have newer outposts in Centreville, Rockville and other suburbs. There also are now billion-dollar Korean business chains, such as the supermarkets Lotte, Super H-Mart and Grand Mart. There are 51 South Korean-based companies that have opened branches in Fairfax, more than from any other country.

In Annandale, wealthy Korean ventures are snatching up prime commercial properties. In July, the downtown's largest shopping center -- which houses the Kmart on John Marr Drive -- was purchased for about $9 million by a U.S.-Korean partnership led by Gaithersburg lawyer Brian Kim.

"I think Annandale is going to be one of those Koreatowns like in Los Angeles or New York, whether the chamber of commerce likes it or not," Kim said.

Many of the landowners started small and saved big.

John Chung and his wife owned several liquor stores in the District and Maryland, often working as long as 14 hours a day, seven days a week. The family saved what it could and invested the money in small real-estate deals. In 2001, it had enough to purchase the Great World Plaza, a strip mall in Annandale, for $6.2 million. All but one of the shops there are Korean.

The emergence of such a strong Korean business base has sapped clout from the Annandale Chamber of Commerce, some city officials said.

"It has been a struggle to get Koreans to join," said Robert Vaughn, the chamber's president and the director of continuing education at Northern Virginia Community College.

"They spend a lot of long hours working their business, and they don't have time to come to our meetings," he said. "We have to let people know that Annandale has an awful lot to offer other than the Korean business establishment. . . . That's the most visible because when you see signs and you see the businesses, then you can get an impression from that. . . . But that's not what makes Annandale what it is."

Civic leaders also noted that few Koreans live in Annandale. Less than 7 percent of Annandale's residents are Korean, and whites make up the majority with nearly 65 percent, according to the 2000 U.S. Census. That residential divide has made it difficult to fulfill the new-urban vision -- now popular with planners -- for a pedestrian-friendly Village Centre that serves the neighborhood, officials said.

Language and cultural barriers also have proved difficult to overcome. A few years ago, several civic leaders and Supervisor Penelope A. Gross (D-Mason) invited Korean business owners to a rare joint meeting to urge them to participate in an initiative to spruce up Annandale's downtown.

Gross said she remembers a lot of culturally mixed messages. In many cases, the Korean shopkeepers, most of whom were working more than 12 hours a day, said they were too busy to be active in the beautification effort.

In response to the idea that Annandale needed a "walkable" downtown, "someone started suggesting that we build a shopping plaza underground and that was something that he [had] in Korea, and those of us who were not Korean were sort of aghast," Gross said. "That's not the way we do it here, but it gave me the sense that we are dealing with some real cultural differences."

Not all Koreans in Annandale believe the community should be called Koreatown. Paul Im, who runs a hardware store, said the label encourages Koreans to isolate from the rest of society.

"We have to assimilate ourselves into an American way of life and become part of the country, rather than creating a Korean community," Im said. "But even if Koreans are living here, they say, 'Korea, Korea, Korea, we have to teach our children the Korean way of life.' But I'm more American than Korean. . . . Because of how I feel, I don't mix too well with them."

Young Kim, the Korean American Association president, said he believes "it's time for Koreans to join the mainstream." He said second- and third-generation Koreans will lead the way.

"What I'm afraid of right now is that in Koreatown in Los Angeles, some people don't have any problem living without speaking any English at all," he said. "I don't want it to be the same here because Annandale is not just for Korean Americans."