Unique Nationalities in Chicago
There’s no doubt that Chicago’s character includes major influences from its Mexican, African-American, Polish communities and more who have long been around in huge numbers. But where do we stand out in terms of populations otherwise not found very often across the United States?
I spend a lot of time in New York, a city which I afford a great deal of respect despite its mild rivalry with Chicago. Once you get past some obvious aesthetic differences between the two places, it’s easy to pick up on various ways in which they possess cultural similarities. Perhaps above all, both cities feel like they’re in a unique position with regards to defining what it means to be American, as they have historically relied on waves of immigrants hailing from every corner of the Earth to keep our economic engines running.
While both cities have a higher percentage of foreign-born residents than the US as a whole, New York outperforms Chicago in this regard, and the cultures of nations such as Guyana and Uzbekistan are only well-represented in the former city. Whenever I’m on one of my frequent visits to our bigger cousin I enjoy going on adventures, particularly in the extremely diverse borough of Queens, to see how these communities have adapted to a dense megacity environment and try flavors that are hard to find in the Midwest.
Now that I host my mom when she wanders back to the heartland, I’ve ended up responsible for the reverse task: figuring out cultural experiences for which the Chicago area provides the greatest comparative advantage. I’m a bit of a nerd for demography and a lover of virtually every global cuisine, so this has hardly been a painful chore in my book. I personally know people from all of the following backgrounds - the population estimates I cite factor in both official estimates and anecdotal accounts given that said official statistics tend to undercount these communities quite a lot.
📍Kyrgyz Community Center (Arlington Heights)
Kyrgyzstan
Population: ~10 thousand
Mentions of Chicago’s surprisingly large Kyrgyz community usually elicit a confused response that necessitates a quick geography lesson. In all fairness, it’s not exactly intuitive that people from an extremely mountainous nation of only 6 million in the center of Asia would have a proclivity to end up in ultra-flat Chicago. The community is nonetheless rapidly expanding - while most have historically come from Kyrgyzstan itself, recent aggressive attempts to draft Russia’s ethnically Kyrgyz minority into the ongoing Ukraine war have led to an influx of political refugees. There is no specific neighborhood with an overwhelmingly Kyrgyz presence (yet), but they are primarily located around the city’s far north side and various suburbs. Many are involved in transportation, such as long-distance trucking for which Chicago is a geographically ideal base.
📍Consulate of Belize (Evanston)
Belize
Population: 10-40 thousand
Belize has one of the smallest populations of any country with a land area greater than a handful of square miles. There are only around 400 thousand residents in the country, a fraction of the population of Chicago just within its city limits. And yet if you’ve spent a lot of time in the Rogers Park neighborhood or adjacent Evanston, we wouldn’t blame you for thinking that at least a few million people must hail from the place. Tons of residents on either side of Chicago’s northern boundary come from this interesting multicultural nation at the crossroads of African and native Mesoamerican influences. Belize is the only country in Central America to have English as its official language, which may partly explain why their history of labor in Chicago goes back so far. They get along well with Jamaican-Americans in particular due to many shared aspects of the two groups’ cultures and similar residential patterns.
📍Assyrian Cultural Foundation (Lincolnwood)
Assyria
Population: 50-100 thousand
No, that’s not a typo - Assyrians possess a culture quite distinct from typically Arab conceptions of modern Syrian identity. While they are from a region spanning modern-day Syria and Iraq, their culture centers around very long-standing Christian practices and a unique language only distantly related to the likes of Arabic and Hebrew. Their first major wave of arrival in the Chicago area occurred in the early 20th century, with horrible atrocities through the course of World War I incentivizing many to flee their homeland. The existing community has further expanded with unfortunate contemporary conflicts in the Middle East, although the wealth of local institutions serves as a great benefit for integrating new arrivals. Many Assyrians live in the extremely diverse neighborhood of West Rogers Park, although nearby Skokie is often considered the heart of Assyrian culture in Chicagoland and arguably the US as a whole.
(Some of) The Balkans
Population: ~200 thousand
Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin are four “languages” often counted separately for demographic purposes but which are nearly the same as one another when spoken colloquially. To add to the confusion, many people in Chicagoland hail from one of these countries but identify ethnically with a different one. While each identity is considered distinct enough back in Europe to have caused unfortunate bloodshed in recent decades, the good news is that these hostilities have hardly carried over to the Midwest besides the occasional joke made with one another. If there’s any business realm where you’re most likely to see Balkan representation, it’s in the field of property management - no, we’re not sure why, but the names are unmistakable. You can also see the mark that the community has left on our landscape in the form of some beautiful churches. Holy Resurrection Serbian Orthodox Cathedral near O’Hare Airport is one of the largest Serbian houses of worship around, while Saint Jerome Croatian Catholic Church is accessible much closer to the Loop in an area near near Chinatown.
Palestine
Population: ~100 thousand
There are population pockets and plenty of Arab-run businesses scattered across the whole of Chicago. Arabs used to live in large numbers in Southwest Side neighborhoods such as Chicago Lawn (AKA Marquette Park) and Gage Park. Today the largest residential community exists outside city limits in the not-so-distant southwest suburb of Bridgeview, a sign of the community’s impressive upward mobility through a diverse set of commercial ventures. These Arab-Americans are primarily of Palestinian origin, although blurry national divisions mean that Lebanese and Syrian-branded enterprises are certainly not out of the question. On the other side of town, there are many Palestinian food shops alongside Persian ones on Kedzie Avenue in Albany Park. There is a noteworthy presence of both Muslim and Christian Palestinians in Chicagoland. The immigration of Muslims began unusually early in the 20th century, considering the prevailing norms of that time.
Rohingya
Population: 2-5 thousand
Similarly to Assyrians and Palestinians, the Rohingya people do not have a very well-recognized state back in the Old World that represents their identity. They are a Muslim minority in the country of Myanmar who share many cultural traits with neighboring Bengali people in Bangladesh, but as a result they have been heavily persecuted by the Myanmar government which claims - and acts on the belief - that they are not rightful citizens of the latter nation. Those who have managed to flee such oppressive circumstances have often had to undertake hectic journeys across several countries in order to find any sort of stable refuge. I’ve learned a lot about the world from my Rohingya peers due to their experiences, as language learning and cultural awareness come by necessity when you’re thrown into a bunch of strange new places. Unsurprising for a relatively new group of people in Chicago’s ethnic mosaic, Rohingya people can largely be found in West Rogers Park at the city’s northern end.
Is this an exhaustive list? Not exactly, but some waves of immigration are either so old or so new that they haven’t been recorded well in recent years. This list could look very different in a matter of years, but none of these people groups are likely to abandon their contributions to Chicago’s incredibly complex urban fabric.