Mohammed Haque, originally from Bangladesh, finds Beaverton very welcoming. His daughter, he boasts, was even elected her high school’s homecoming queen.

　　South Asians such as Haque have transformed Bethany, a neighborhood north of Beaverton. It is dense with immigrants from Gujarat, a state in India and primary source for the first wave of Beaverton’s South Asian immigrants.

　　The first wave of South Asian immigrants to Beaverton, mostly Gujaratis from India, arrived in the 1960s and 1970s, when the motel and hotel industry was booming. Many bought small hotels and originally settled in Portland, and then relocated to Beaverton for better schools and bigger yards. The second wave of South Asians arrived during the high-tech boom of the 1980s, when the software industry, and Intel and Tektronix, really took off.

　　Many of Beaverton’s Asians converge at Uwajimaya, a 30,000-square-foot supermarket near central Beaverton. Bernie Capell, former special events coordinator at Uwajimaya, says that many come to shop for fresh produce every day. But the biggest group of shoppers at Uwajimaya, she adds, are Caucasians.

　　Beaverton’s Asian population boasts a sizable number of Koreans, who began to arrive in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

　　According to Ted Chung, a native of Korea and Beaverton resident since 1978, three things stand out about his fellow Korean immigrants. Upon moving to Beaverton, they join a Christian church — often Methodist or Presbyterian — as a gathering place; they push their children to excel in school; and they shun the spotlight.

　　Chung says he and his fellow Korean émigrés work hard as small businessmen — owning groceries, dry cleaners, laundromats, delis, and sushi shops — and are frugal so they can send their children to a leading university.

　　Most recently, immigrants from Central and South America, as well as refugees from Iraq and Somalia, have joined the Beaverton community.

　　Many Beaverton organizations help immigrants.

　　The Beaverton Resource Center helps all immigrants with health and literacy services. The Somali Family Education Center helps Somalis and other African refugees to get settled. And one Beaverton elementary school even came up with the idea of a “sew in”— parents of students sewing together — to welcome Somali Bantu parents and bridge major cultural differences.

　　Historically white churches, such as Beaverton First United Methodist Church, offer immigration ministries. And Beaverton churches of all denominations host Korean- or Spanish-language services.

　　Beaverton’s Mayor Doyle wants refugee and immigrant leaders to participate in the town’s decision-making. He set up a Diversity Task Force whose mission is “to build inclusive and equitable communities in the City of Beaverton.” The task force is working to create a multicultural community center for Beavertonians of all backgrounds.

　　The resources and warm welcome that Beaverton gives immigrants are reciprocated in the affection that many express for their new home.