Beyond Books : Recreation: In addition to selling foreign-language and specialty publications, ethnic bookstores are important networking centers.

‘I feel I’m not just selling books; I’m selling the Filipi no culture,” says Linda Maria Nietes, owner of the Filipiniana Bookshop in Beverly Hills.

Like the dozens of other ethnic bookstores in the Los Angeles area, Filipiniana has functions that extend well beyond the retail trade. Armenian, Chinese, Latino or Russian, the stores are important networking centers for new arrivals.

On any weekend, the ethnic bookstores are crowded with browsers looking for the latest romance, the newest biography, the revered classics in the languages they learned from birth.

But you don’t have to speak Tagalog, Vietnamese, or any of the other languages found in these stores to appreciate the window they provide on the dazzling cultural mosaic of Los Angeles. Most carry at least a few English books, and a bit of browsing may lead to an enriching cross-cultural exchange with the shopkeeper or patrons.

Nietes’ customers range from recent expatriates longing for a reminder of home to parents who fear their first-generation American children are growing up unaware of their heritage.

“Many of the young people are eager to learn about their culture,” says Nietes, a former Merrill Lynch manager who left the Philippines in 1984 in protest of the Marcos regime. “We’re here to help them strengthen their sense of identity.”

Filipiniana, now in its second year, is filled not only with cookbooks, histories, and novels, but also with reminders of the land Nietes and her countrymen and women left behind. Wooden carvings of the rice gods who, legend has it, guarded Filipino granaries, here guard the store from a high shelf. A kulintang, a traditional ancient gong, occupies another and colorful hand-woven tapestries decorate the wall.

And down below, visiting Filipino authors and poets often give readings, and lectures are organized regularly.

Across town at Abril’s Armenian Bookstore and Print Shop in Central Los Angeles, owner Harout Yeretzian speaks often of the importance of language to the preservation of culture.

“The language is the only thing that keeps the Armenian culture together,” Yeretzian says. Much of his business comes from supplying textbooks to the Armenian day schools in the Los Angeles area, but he also does a thriving business supplying language aids, both for recent Armenian immigrants who want to learn English and American-born Armenians who want to absorb the language of their ancestors.

Intercultural marriages also provide a fair amount of business for the stores, say Yeretzian and Nietes, both of whom have aided their share of Americans in search of peaceful relations with foreign-born in-laws.

“There’s a lot to know, a lot of traditions,” Yeretzian says with a wink, “They need some help.”

There is an underlying irony in the fact that what is bad for the native culture can be energizing to its expatriate communities.

“The first influx of Armenians here was after World War II,” says Yeretzian. “After so many years went by, the language was dying. Now with all the trouble in the Middle East, and a new influx of people, it’s been restored somewhat.”

Armenians are more partial to poetry than prose, says Yeretzian, who also tries to hold readings by Armenian poets several times a year. “Poetry readings are different in Armenia than here,” he says. “The poets don’t just read; they are trained as actors. Their performances are very dramatic and emotional.”

Khatchik Araradian, 78, is a former poet and actor who works part time in the store. “I gave one-man shows for 40 years, from Iran and Egypt, to Greece, to South America,” he says. “I also taught in the Armenian schools here. I had to stop because it became too emotional for me.” Araradian pauses, tears welling in his eyes. “The history of Armenia is a long tragedy.”

The bookstores can also be a point of access for one culture’s attempts to explore another. At the Libreria de Buenos Aires in West Los Angeles, the phone rings frequently throughout the day with calls from English speakers trying to learn Spanish.

They may be stuck on a verb tense or the pronunciation of a particular phrase, but one thing is clear to owner Bernard Hamel: the Latinization of Los Angeles has gone mainstream.

“A large percentage of our customers are actually Americans learning the Spanish language,” says Hamel, a former professor of Spanish literature at Cal State Northridge and Occidental College. He and his Argentine wife, Leonor, have been in the Spanish language book business for 25 years.

Hamel says he has noticed a change in Spanish-speaking immigrants in the last several years. “It used to be that five or 10 years ago, they’d become Americanized right away,” he says. “Now that they’re here in such numbers, they’re making a deeper imprint on the local culture. It’s whetted the English-speakers’ appetite to learn more of Latino culture.”

Hamel, whose shop carries everything from Spanish versions of Kafka to technical computer textbooks, plans to launch a literary round table next year. He recently set up a small reference corner for writers, a sort of informal library, because “not that many writers can afford this range of reference books.” Hamel also publishes his own Spanish literary magazine, El Ateneo, (The Atheneum), a journal of culture and language of the Spanish-speaking world.

Westwood-based La Cite des Livres is the only exclusively French language bookstore in the United States, according to owner Lucien Plausoles. In business since 1965, the store’s inventory also extends to contemporary French pop music, a scarce commodity in the United States.

The store’s clientele reflects the tremendous diversity of the French-speaking world, says Plausoles, who estimates one-third of his customers are French, one-third from other French-speaking nations--including Egyptians, Lebanese and Moroccans--and one-third are Americans learning French.

“We spend a lot of time in here helping people with their French,” Plausoles says. “They enjoy struggling with the language. They’ll speak French as a kind of relief.”