Chicago city of immigrants

City of Immigrants

by * Curtis Black 

[November 2007] 

Chicago has always been a city of immigrants, and the distinctive ethnic flavors of its neighborhoods are among its strongest attractions. Following large migrations of Irish and Germans in the 1840s and '50s, the city was one-half foreign born in 1860, and with Southern and Eastern Europeans flocking here subsequently, by 1890, 79 percent of Chicagoans had been born abroad. 

As the Encyclopedia of Chicago History points out, travelling down Halsted Street from its northern point in 1920 meant encountering neighborhoods that were distinctly Swedish, then German, followed by Little Sicily, Greektown, Jewish Maxwell Street, Bohemian Pilsen, Irish Bridgeport, Lithuanians in Back of the Yards and more Irish in Englewood. 

The native-born establishment reacted with hostility, in 1855 electing an anti-immigrant "Know-Nothing" mayor who banned immigrants from all city jobs; but Chicagoans later supported the German-born reformer John Peter Altgeld as governor in 1893; and Anton Cermak, native of Bohemia, put together the modern Democratic Party in the '20s, joining Irish and Eastern Europeans with African Americans. Mayor "Big Bill" Thompson taunted Cermak as a "Bohunk" before Cermak defeated him in 1931. 

The Chicago area continues to attract immigrants from all over the world. In recent decades the number of immigrants from Mexico has climbed steadily, especially from the state of Michoacan; after Mexico, Poland and India send the largest numbers. The highest concentration of newcomers in the metropolitan area is on Chicago's far north side, a port of entry for Africans, Asians and South Asians, Latinos and Eastern Europeans. 

But the 2000 Census was the first time there were more immigrants counted in the suburbs than in the city. Recent numbers show 984,000 immigrants (including 459,000 naturalized citizens) in suburban Cook and the collar counties, compared to 590,000 in Chicago. As demographer Rob Paral notes, Latinos have settled in older suburbs like Cicero and Berwyn, on a century-old path from Pilsen west, and in older satellite cities ringing Chicago - Waukegan, Elgin, Aurora, Joliet - which have become ports of entry in their own right. Northwest Cook suburbs near O'Hare and DuPage County are receiving immigrants of Asian and European origin. 

More affluent areas receiving foreign-born professionals have incorporated them relatively smoothly, but declining working-class towns receiving (and often being revived by) working-class Latinos have often reacted with hostility and fear, sometimes deploying selective enforcement of housing codes and passing discriminatory ordinances. In the 1990s Cicero, Waukegan, and Addison entered court settlements after they were sued by the Justice Department for anti-Latino housing policies. Recent anti-immigrant measures in Carpentersville and Waukegan have attracted attention as part of a nationwide backlash against proposed immigration reform. 

In fact most immigrants come here legally; about 31 percent of immigrants to Illinois during the 1990s are estimated to have lacked legal documentation (amounting to some 432,000 Illinois residents in 2000) including as much as 75 percent of Mexican immigrants. Studies by Paral and others (for example: pdf)have attributed this to a complete disconnect between U.S. immigration policy and the demands of the U.S. economy (more at robparal.com). 

Immigrant groups have marched in great numbers in support of immigration reform, and they have mobilized for statewide measures like access to drivers licences and higher education. Meanwhile they are working with the state's New Americans Initiative promoting citizenship, and immigrant rights groups have registered tens of thousands of new voters in recent years - with the warning that the days when anti-immgrant demogoguery is an effective electoral strategy are numbered. Altgeld and Cermak would be proud.