A Day in Dutchtown

The colorful hijabs and elaborate hookahs displayed in the window entice Nasrulla Hazrat’s customers to come into his store, the Afghan International Market. Located on Grand near Chippewa, the grocery and housewares store sits in the Dutchtown neighborhood of St. Louis. But you don’t see too many of the community’s first residents, the Deutsch, or Germans as we know them, around anymore.

“Most of the people who come here are refugees,” said Hazrat, an Afghani national. “People who live around here or study English at the International Institute.”

The International Institute is steps away. Established in 1919, the nonprofit organization provides adjustment services to immigrants and is key to the development of St. Louis’ thriving immigrant population, which stands at 8 percent of the citizenry and includes the largest Bosnia population outside of Bosnia.

Dutchtown itself is home to a large Asian population that includes Chinese, Vietnamese and Indonesian. There are also people of Mexican heritage, and immigrants from Africa and India along with African-Americans and whites.

It’s a hodgepodge of humanity that is in your face. A tour of the neighborhood will uncover an Iranian grocer, a Vietnamese restaurant and an African clothing and hair braiding establishment. It’s not uncommon to see Arabic or Chinese lettering on store signs. And a woman wearing a burqua or a man in a Buddhist kasaya robe is just as normal to see as a kid with his underwear peaking out of a pair of baggy jeans.

Back in the Afghani International Market, a variety of languages fill the store as owner and customer negotiate prices. Hazrat says he speaks both Pashto, the Afghani national language, and Dari, a Persian dialect spoken by Afghanis. But today, he is speaking English to a Liberian customer, who barely speaks it herself. She wants a better price for a rug. Somehow, through gestures, eye rolls and smiles, she gets it.