WHO'S MOVING IN NEXT DOOR?; IMMIGRANTS PURSUE HOMEOWNERSHIP DREAM : RUNNING HOT WATER.

Byline: Sherry Joe Crosby Daily News Staff Writer

If you want to know who's moving into the Valley, just look at the 13800 block of Cohasset Street in Van Nuys. It's home to Armenians, Russian Jews, Filipinos and Cubans who have immigrated to the area from all over the world.

``We have a United Nations,'' said Yvonne Anderson, who has lived in the neighborhood since 1965 and has watched it become increasingly diverse.

Despite a projected loss of 61,168 residents from the San Fernando Valley from 1990 to 2000, 31,419 people are expected to move into the region, according to a Cal State Northridge population study.

Census blocks around Panorama City, San Fernando, Burbank and the West Valley are growing by as much as 50 percent as minorities and immigrants replace largely white, middle-class homeowners moving to new subdivisions on the edge of the Valley.

The Kims were the first Korean-Americans on their Granada Hills block.

At the time, prejudice was the trade-off for a better life.

Younsil Kim, the mother of the family, still remembers the stares and the unsmiling faces when she and her family moved into the brand new housing subdivision n 1980.

``There was prejudice I could feel,'' she said, recalling the day she entered a neighborhood market to ask for directions. The store clerk ``just looked at me with this funny face,'' she said.

Grocery shopping was tough as well for Kim, who was forced to travel to Koreatown to buy ingredients for dishes such as kimchi, a spicy mix of pickled cabbage, peppers and garlic.

``It took a long time to get used to the shopping around here. There were only American markets, and the cashiers weren't friendly,'' she said.

But things have changed since then.

From 1980 to 1990, the population of Asians and Pacific Islanders has grown from 4 percent to 8 percent of the Valley's population.

The change hasn't been lost on Kim.

``We've conquered the area,'' she said, laughing. ``They've had to get used to us.''

The Kims' arrival in the neighborhood is an example of how the Valley has changed.

Girdled by pricey new housing developments, the Valley floor has evolved into an older downtown area that provides affordable housing for a new wave of homeowners, demographers said.

``You have one type moving in that is replacing others moving out,'' said Peter Morrison, a demographer with the Rand Corp., a private research firm based in Santa Monica.

To be sure, whites still compose a majority in the San Fernando Valley, but minorities are increasing in the east and central areas of the region, demographic studies show.

From 1980 to 1990, Latinos jumped from 18 percent to 32 percent of the population, while African-Americans increased from 3 percent to 4 percent. The percentage of whites, however, dropped from 74 percent to 57 percent.

Among the Valley's recent arrivals are Karine Rastkelenyan who moved to Van Nuys' Cohasset Street in 1989 after she and her family escaped political turmoil in Armenia.

Down the street, Juan DeArmas Jr. enjoys weekly strolls with his parents and sister and now has only dim memories of life under Fidel Castro's communist government in Cuba.

And Nesa and Alex Lisker, Russian Jews who moved to the neighborhood in 1988 to flee religious persecution in their homeland, said they've finally found their heaven on Earth.

Rastkelenyan loves her new house on quiet, tree-lined Cohasset Street where modest two- and three-bedroom homes sit behind neatly manicured lawns.

Equipped with a front porch and sizable back yard, the house offers plenty of room for her newborn son to run around as he grows older.

But what she likes best about her new house is the hot-water tap, a luxury in her native Yerevan, the capital of Armenia.

``We didn't have any hot water. We had only cold water,'' said Rastkelenyan, a 33-year-old check-processing clerk at Bank of America. ``Now I have only to open the faucet and hot water comes.''

Rastkelenyan came to Los Angeles in 1988 with her family to escape war-torn Armenia amid the breakup of the Soviet Union.

``We decided it was time to move,'' she said. ``People were fighting for a small piece of land. There were political demonstrations, and tanks were going through our city.''

Her father also had four sisters who lived in Glendale, Van Nuys and Hollywood. After months of wrangling to obtain the necessary traveling documents, the family members arrived in Hollywood, where they lived with relatives for 10 months.

Then Rastkelenyan got married and moved to Cohasset Street where she met Yvonne Anderson, her next-door neighbor.

``When I first moved to the Valley, I was afraid to speak to her,'' Rastkelenyan said. Little by little, their hesitant hellos evolved into complex conversations.

Now the Armenian woman considers Anderson her best friend. ``She taught me how to speak English,'' she says simply.

Better opportunities

Dreams of a better life brought DeArmas and his family from Cuba to Cohasset Street 20 years ago.

With the help of relatives already in Van Nuys, the family was able to secure permission to leave the island nation and enter the United States.

For the first month, they lived with relatives in a small house in Van Nuys. It was tight quarters but a small sacrifice to pay in comparison with the limited opportunities and endless poverty of Cuba.

To make ends meet, DeArmas worked two jobs as a waiter and as a production supervisor in a garment shop in Sun Valley.

Within nine years, he had scrimped and saved enough to put a down payment on the three-bedroom house on Cohasset Street.

``We liked the neighborhood, we saw the house and we bought it,'' said DeArmas, a 41-year-old X-ray technician.

Now all the family members are American citizens.

``This is a free country. You can't compare it to Cuba,'' DeArmas said. ``We really like it over here.''

Sabbath candles

For the Liskers, moving to the United States meant freedom to practice Judaism.

In Russia, synagogues were banned, and speaking Hebrew was forbidden. Families quietly celebrated the Sabbath without lighting the customary candles.

``In Russia, it was not so good for Jews. You didn't have freedom,'' said Nesa Lisker, a 54-year-old nurse who now attends a synagogue in Los Angeles' Fairfax district. ``Everything had to be done quietly and done behind closed doors.''

That changed forever when the couple got a letter from a friend in Los Angeles.

``Here Alex is a good place to live,'' the friend wrote to Alex Lisker.

With the help of family and friends in Los Angeles, the Liskers moved from Russia to a cramped apartment in the Wilshire District where police sirens and helicopters lulled them to sleep. Now they live on Cohasset Street where Alex Lisker, who grew up in Siberia and didn't see a plant sprout from the earth until he was 18 years old, tends a garden of roses and trees laden with peaches, lemons and tangerines.

The couple has no plans to move.

``From the day we stepped here, everybody was helping us,'' Nesa Lisker said. ``We have good neighbors. If I ask for help, nobody would say no. I can't complain. I'm happy.''

Big Apple to Tinseltown

Sarah Zinsser wasn't fleeing religious persecution, political oppression or harsh winters when she moved from New York to Cohasset Street in December. She wanted to be in pictures.

``I'm an actress,'' Zinsser said. ``This is the place to be for acting.''

Four years ago, Zinsser and her family moved from West Los Angeles to New York to start a newspaper and to escape from the smog and traffic of Southern California.

After the newspaper failed and a series of lackluster acting jobs, the family moved back to Los Angeles.

So far, the move has paid off.

Since she's been in Van Nuys, Zinsser has appeared in Howard Stern's film ``Private Parts,'' a commercial and two plays.

And Zinsser's husband, Steven Markus, who commutes to a postproduction company in Burbank, said traffic has improved considerably since he's returned.

``You had to spare an hour to get to West Los Angeles when we moved away,'' said Markus, who attributes the improved traffic flow to increased speed limits and carpool lanes. ``Now I'm routinely doing 70 mph just keeping up with traffic.''

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos, 2 Charts, Map

Photo: (1--Color) Younsil Kim, her husband, Steve, and sons Duke and Derrick were the first Koreans on their Granada Hills block in 1980.

Evan Yee/Daily News

(2-Color) Russian immigrant Alex Lisker, left, gets help from Michael Altman with a favorite activity - improving his Van Nuys home.

David R. Crane/Daily News

Chart: (1-2--Color) VALLEY BREAKDOWN

Population of San Fernando Valley, 1980, 1990

Map: (Color) SAN FERNANDO VALLEY POPULATION CHANGE