Friday, July 20, 2001 | 4:38 a.m.
Most times when Las Vegas Realtor Bong Kim advises fellow Korean-Americans about where to buy a home, the first place he mentions is Spring Valley.
The quiet community in the western part of Las Vegas Valley has six Korean-American churches, which is six more than it had in 1980 when Kim moved to the area. Together with Philippine-Americans, Chinese-Americans and other descendants of the Far East, Spring Valley boasts the highest concentration of Asian-Americans in Southern Nevada.
Spring Valley is proof that Asian-Americans have moved into the suburbs with relative ease, but that is a claim that cannot yet be applied to blacks and Hispanics, based on the 2000 Census. That conclusion can be drawn from census tracts, which contain roughly 2,000 to 10,000 people in neighborhoods with common traits, such as household income.
Kim said three-bedroom homes in Spring Valley generally sell for $20,000 to $30,000 more than in the heavily Hispanic northeast valley, and there is little crime. One of its main arterials, Spring Mountain Road, is anchored by Chinatown, a restaurant and retail center.
"Chinese and Korean people like to stay together," Kim said. "This is true of their families and friends and where they go to church. This location is pretty easy to get to the Strip, and a lot of people here in Spring Valley work in the hotels."
Although the valley has fully integrated neighborhoods, those areas are mostly in the central and northeastern parts of the valley. Whites and Asian-Americans populate suburbs such as Summerlin and Green Valley in greater percentages than is true of the valley as a whole. Although Asian-Americans represent only 5.3 percent of the county's population, they comprise 11.2 percent of Spring Valley's and 10 percent of Summerlin's populations.
The reason given by most observers is simple economics. Whites and Asian-Americans historically have attained higher levels of education than blacks and Hispanics and get better jobs that enable them to more readily afford higher-priced suburban homes. Many Philippine-Americans are college-educated, said Kate Recto, president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce of Southern Nevada.
"It's just expected of the children to be able to finish high school and go on to college," she said.
A study last year by the American Council on Education in Washington backs her claim. The study found that college graduation rates in 1997 were 65 percent for Asian-Americans, 58 percent for whites, 45 percent for Hispanics and 40 percent for blacks.
Uphill battle
Blacks face an uphill battle in part because they do not support one another economically as much as do other racial or ethnic groups, North Las Vegas community activist Marzette Lewis said.
"African-Americans just don't make the money to buy those $400,000 homes," Lewis said. "You only have a handful of African-Americans who can afford that lifestyle. We have people who go out and apply for jobs, but they just don't get hired."
The area with the highest concentration of whites is Sun City Summerlin, an upscale retirement community where most residents are at least in their mid-60s. The golf course community with a sweeping view of the valley has six census tracts that are 93.3 percent to 96.9 percent white, compared with Clark County's average of 60.2 percent white.
Sun City is where politicians running for statewide and county offices debate issues that concern senior citizens, such as health care and Social Security. But the community, based on its racial makeup, does not reflect the valley's seniors as a whole. Hispanics, for instance, represent 22 percent of the county but only about 1.5 percent of Sun City.
"Based on driving around Sun City, I wouldn't question the census figures," Harvey Hoffman, Sun City Community Association executive director, said.
Stephen Bottfeld, executive vice president of Las Vegas consumer-research company Marketing Solutions, said it makes sense for today's upscale retirement communities to be predominantly white because those individuals had better job opportunities on average than minorities. Many black seniors saw their peak earning years blunted by racial segregation.
"If you take a look at blacks who are 55 to 60 and look at their economic antecedents and look at whites of the same age, there is no comparison," Bottfeld said. "White people who today are in their 60s started with a much greater economic advantage."
The greatest concentrations of blacks and Hispanics are in portions of West Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and neighborhoods east of downtown Las Vegas.
Of the valley's 46 census tracts in which the population is at least 13 percent black, only four are south of Charleston Boulevard. There are historical reasons why blacks, who comprise 9.1 percent of the county, are concentrated in the northern half of the valley.
Although some black businesses operated downtown early in the 20th century, the first significant wave of black migration to Las Vegas occurred during World War II. Blacks were recruited from rural Southern communities to work at the Basic Magnesium Plant near Henderson and in other industries that supported the war effort. But Frank Wright, curator of the Nevada State Museum & Historical Society, said that housing segregation mainly limited blacks to portions of West Las Vegas.
"When the city of North Las Vegas was founded in 1931, no blacks were allowed," Wright said. "The original advertisements said 'non-Caucasians need not apply,' or words to that effect.
"Blacks who came in the 1940s moved to the West Side (an area of the valley that is now roughly bordered by Interstate 15, Bonanza Road, Martin Luther King Boulevard and Carey Avenue), which was the most deteriorated part of the valley."
Ruby Duncan, a community activist, became part of that wave when she and her family moved from Tallulah, La., to West Las Vegas in 1952 on the advice of her uncles, who had worked at Hoover Dam. Her parents served as maids and porters because those were the only jobs available to them.
"At that time it was very Jim Crow-ish," Duncan said of local laws promoting segregation. "We could not live anyplace else."
It wasn't until fair housing legislation became federal law in the 1960s that blacks were able to move out of West Las Vegas, let alone frequent downtown and Strip casinos, which also had been segregated. Lewis, who was reared in West Las Vegas, said she was one of the first black cocktail waitresses hired by a downtown casino in the 1960s.
Even with desegregation, Lewis, Duncan and many other blacks chose to remain in West Las Vegas or nearby North Las Vegas neighborhoods. That's why the six census tracts with the highest percentage of blacks -- ranging from 42.9 percent to 85.5 percent -- are in the triangle bordered by Rancho Drive to the southwest, I-15 to the southeast and Cheyenne Avenue to the north.
Sticking together
"Most races of people want to stick together with their own race," Lewis said. "You're comfortable with your own culture."
Duncan, who has won state awards for community service, said many blacks choose to remain in the inner city because their ties to family, friends and churches remind them of the South.
Similarly, many local Hispanics choose to live together where they can speak Spanish. Twelve of the 14 census tracts with the highest percentages of Hispanics -- ranging from 56.7 percent to 83.3 percent -- are bordered by East Charleston Boulevard to the south, Bruce Street, Owens Avenue and I-15 to the west, Craig Road to the north and Pecos and Mojave roads to the east.
Hispanics comprise at least 35 percent of the population in 47 census tracts, but only four of those tracts are south of Tropicana and none are west of Decatur Boulevard. That's despite a whopping 264 percent increase in the Hispanic population locally over the past 10 years.
"First generation Hispanics tend to locate in places where it's easier to assimilate in terms of language," said Keith Schwer, UNLV's Center of Business and Economic Research director. "The second generation tends to be bilingual, and they will know a lot more about the community. They tend to have more education and don't find it as necessary to be in a neighborhood where people speak Spanish."
In the neighborhood surrounding North Las Vegas City Hall, where the heaviest concentration of Hispanics can be found, "Spanglish" is the norm. Stores have names such as "La Casa del Tile." Garages fix "mofles." Residents gather on front lawns as Mexican cumbias and rancheras blast from car speakers. A woman sells tamales in the parking lot of the Supermercado del Pueblo.
It is an area of relatively inexpensive, older homes, said UNLV professor Tony Miranda, who first moved into an apartment at Charleston Boulevard and Maryland Parkway in 1976.
"But this whole area also had all the ethnic components that attract Hispanics, like hearing Spanish spoken and finding the food we eat," said Miranda, who chairs UNLV's Anthropology and Ethnic Studies Department. "Chain migration occurs, where one person finds a job, then gets a better job and gives his first one to a relative, and so on."
Enrique Mata, who came to this country from Mexico 14 years ago, is a good example. After starting as a busboy at the Mirage, he worked hard, saved money and eventually opened four businesses on Lake Mead Drive, including the restaurant Torta Mexicana.
"Here in North Las Vegas, it's like Mexico," Mata said. "But it's a sort of transitional zone. I'm looking to buy a house near here on Hollywood Boulevard, and then someone will come and buy my house, and then they'll go and do the same."
There is optimism that the valley's suburbs will become increasingly integrated over the next 20 years. That's based on the belief that young minorities will be better educated and therefore have more housing options than their predecessors, Schwer and Bottfeld said.
"Most young people, whether they're black, white or from another group look at segregation as something that needs to creep away," Duncan said.
Eddie Escobedo Sr., publisher of El Mundo, a Spanish-language newspaper, came to Las Vegas from Mexico in 1952 and lived in a public-housing project on 28th Street that attracted many Hispanics. He has three children who now live in the valley's suburbs.
"In the next five to 10 years, Hispanics will be living in all of these so-called exclusive areas," Escobedo said.
To a certain extent, the 2000 Census maps may already be outdated, Bottfeld said. His latest research shows that a majority of Hispanics looking to buy new homes in Southern Nevada are interested in neighborhoods other than those in the northeast valley.
"The problem with census data is that it is already two years behind," Bottfeld said. "What the census is not representing is an explosion of Hispanic buyers all over the market."
Sun reporter
Timothy Pratt contributed to this story.
archive
