Millbourne a magnet for Asians

John Varghese mans the cash register six days a week at the J&J Grocery along the gritty commercial strip fronting Market Street in tiny Millbourne, Delaware County.

He sweeps the floors and wipes the counters among the shelves jammed with ethnic specialties such as sweet jaggery, anise seeds, and ginger paste.

Varghese, 64, came to Millbourne from India's Kerala province 20 years ago and now is part of a remarkable demographic tale.

With its inexpensive housing, public transportation, and reputation for safe streets, Millbourne, just one-tenth of a square mile bordering Philadelphia and Upper Darby, has become a magnet and launching pad for Indians and other Asians looking to better their standards of living.

In fact, a review of U.S. Census data shows it has one of the largest Asian majorities of any municipality in the country.

According to the 2010 census, 56.7 percent of Millbourne is Asian. The town is 30 percent Indian. Non-Indian Asians constitute more than one-quarter of the town's population.

While Delaware County's population has barely budged since 1980, Millbourne's has doubled, to 1,149.

Walking around town, one is about as likely to see turbans and saris as jeans and dresses.

"It's a real U.N.," said Mayor Thomas Kramer, who is an anomaly in Millbourne - plain, vanilla white, U.S.-born.

Up to 30 different languages are spoken in Millbourne, said Jeanette MacNeille, the only non-Asian on the five-member Borough Council.

"You'll get a cabdriver, and he'll have a Ph.D. in philosophy," said MacNeille, the council president. "His English won't be very good, but he'll be very smart."

The ethnic mix is not without tensions, said Khiet Luong, a councilman who emigrated from Vietnam as a child. "There are conflicts," he said. "I think it is a challenge for people who have been here for a while."

Safety and relatively quiet streets are what lured Augustin Oppong, 48, an airline customer-service agent, from West Oak Lane five years ago. "I always like tranquillity," said Oppong, a native of Ghana.

Alauddin Patwary moved to Millbourne from Bangladesh 12 years ago and is now a member of the council. He said the town's diversity made him feel more welcome.

One of the town's biggest assets belongs to SEPTA - the Market Street El, which has a Millbourne stop. "Immigrants love it because they're used to public transportation," said Suda Kartha, a Kerala native who is executive director of the Heritage India Foundation.

Millbourne is experiencing a "second wave" of immigrants, Kartha said, as some of the original residents have moved on to wealthier communities.

That would include Varghese, who arrived in 1991 to join his sister, who had come here in 1974 as a registered nurse. Varghese opened the grocery store in 1995, and his hard work has paid off. He was able to buy a house in Springfield, Delaware County.

Luong said the borough itself needed to be as ambitious as the upwardly mobile residents. "It presents its own challenges if we're a way station," he said. "I want Millbourne to be an amazing place to live."