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GOLDSEA |
ASIAMS.NET |
ASIAN AMERICAN ISSUES
Is Chicago the Most Underrated City for Asian Americans?
t may be the nation's third largest city but to many AA Chicago is terra incognita. The first question it provokes is, Why would an Asian American want to live there? They are surprised to learn that, in fact, the greater Chicago area hosts the eighth largest Asian American population. Of the area's 8.4 million population, Asians comprise 5.4% or 450,000.
Most underrated AA city?
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Chinese began settling the area in 1870. Most were railroad workers at loose ends after the last stretch of tracks were laid on the Transcontinental Railroad. More began moving out to escape the extreme anti-Asian racism raging out of control on the west coast until the mid-1940s. Their first visible community was the area now known as South Chinatown on Chicago's South Side. At its height this original Chinatown, centered around Wentworth and Cermak, was lively enough to support 170 restaurants. Now, that number has shrunk to about 43, in part due to various redevelopment projects that cut the area down to less than a quarter its original area.
The new wave of Asian immigrants that began arriving in the 60s and 70s has shifted the Asian action northward. A second Chinatown, populated mostly by Vietnamese Chinese, has grown up around North Broadway and Argyle Street. A few blocks to the west a Koreatown is emerging along Lawrence Avenue. Nearby Devon Avenue is home to thriving South Asian establishments. There's even a small Japanese enclave closer to downtown along Clark and Halstead, right alongside a budding Thai area. These ethnic enclaves give the Chicago area's Asian Americans a tangible connection to their heritages but they are home only to the newest of Asian immigrants. Most established AA have faded into suburbs like Skokie, Evanston and even Highland Park.
Enough young Chicago-area AA professionals and students cherish their cultural ties to support the nation's only Asian American Jazz Festival, a popular annual event that draws healthy crowds. Other AA organizations include the local chapter of the National Association of Asian American Professionals, the Asian American Artists Collective, an AA Film Festival and various student groups based in local university campuses.
Chicagoland AA have begun to recognize the need to organize if they are to avoid becoming political casualties and orphans as during the various redistricting battles of the early 90s. But the Asian population remains dispersed, lacking the concentrations needed to consolidate political power in the form of viable candidates. This lack of concentration is the factor most often cited to support the view that Asians remain irrelevancies in the Windy City's socioeconomic landscape.
Is Chicago really a cultural wasteland suitable only for Asians indifferent to their heritages? Or is it just the most underappreciated city among AA?
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WHAT YOU SAY
[This page is closed to new input. --Ed.]
(Updated
Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 06:09:29 PM)
I was born in New York City and
raised in Chicago. I think
Hong Kong is a more interesting
city for asians. ;-)
Asian Female
Monday, March 25, 2002 at 07:16:37 (PST)
lived here most, if not all of my life. i did spend 1998 to 2000 living in san francisco. i ended up marrying someone from the seattle (bellevue), wa. area. suffice it to say chicago is NOT as divergent or robust in asian affairs as the west coast. i know people in new york too, and chicago is WAY behind in what's available to asians...and after observing this for 40 some odd years i would have to say that here, the asians are "laid back", especially politically. with the way the populous is here....it's more a black and white and now hispanic kind of environment....if you were to hear even a hint of an asian getting into the politic of things, it surely would be big news....
mahjong
mahjongmeow1@netscape.com
Sunday, March 24, 2002 at 12:10:48 (PST)
Well, you also got Boeing.
Am Truth
Friday, March 22, 2002 at 23:25:07 (PST)
I've lived in Chicago almost all my 30 years. I agree that it's a segregated city. I've noticed an increase in diversity in the past ten years or so. Still, people are pretty down to earth and not the sophisticates that New Yorkers are - though there are attempts at hipness like in restaurants like "Red Light" - nice name for Asian fusion restaurant, eh? Owned by a non-Asian chef of course.
BTW, Lawrence is getting less Korean. Koreans have been moving northward.
AM
Friday, March 22, 2002 at 23:21:33 (PST)
Questions to be asked:
Do Asians have any political influence in Chicago?
Do Asians have any economic influence in Chicago?
Do Asians have any cultural influence in Chicago?
Are there any famous Asian personalities in Chicago?
Something tells me that the answers to all those questions is NO!
Chicago is weak!
Friday, March 22, 2002 at 16:10:55 (PST)
"Auther Anderson is a reason to be in Chicago?"
If that is the reason, I would be running from Chicago like a scalded dog.
Asian Male in Illinois
Friday, March 22, 2002 at 10:36:53 (PST)
PGY-2
Yup, Chicago is second only to Boston when it comes to quality education in the form of colleges/universities. And how could you forget Boeing, they chose Chicago over Dallas and Denver for their headquarter location last year.
biker
Friday, March 22, 2002 at 09:53:08 (PST)
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