Telling It Like It Was... Illinois’ Elders Share Their Stories
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
State of Illinois Pat Quinn, Governor Illinois Department on Aging Charles D. Johnson, Director Telling it like it was... Illinois’ elders share their stories Printed in collaboration with Acknowledgements This work has been made possible by the contributions of many. We would like to thank the following: Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois for sponsoring the production of this booklet; The Coalition for Limited-English Speaking Elderly for researching and writing this booklet; The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum for supplying historical photographs; The University of Texas Libraries, University of Texas at Austin, for supplying maps of the countries (www.lib.utexas.edu/maps); The National Trails System - Santa Fe, National Park Service, for the “Trail of Tears” map; And the generous people who provided photographs and their personal stories. Together in Illinois Dear Friends: As this little book attests, the history of Illinois is not about just one dominant group, but rather the stories of the many groups of people who have come together to make our state strong. In reading the book, I am struck by the strength of the peoples we are. It is a many-layered strength. The strength of our state and our America is found in the singular fortitude, the toughness, if you will, of the individuals who came to this state. They came by choice and in chains; they came first-class and steerage. They came by horseback, in covered wagons and in boxcars. Others, the native inhabitants, accommodated to the newcomers. But all of them, no matter how or when they arrived, adapted with courage and grace, accepting new neighbors and new conditions with an eye on the future and a willingness to sacrifice that is awesome to contemplate. The strength of our land is found in the support that extends within families and within communities for others who are newcomers, dislocated or made vulnerable by age or circumstance. It is found in the community leaders at the top of an arduous climb who recall their own struggle by reaching down to help those who follow. It is found in neighbors who help newcomers accommodate to new ways in a new land. It is found in the family members who respectfully help their elders, and by so doing, honor themselves and their children as well. And the strength of our land is also found in the larger, diverse group that we are. The strength of our state is the strength of us, the group. It is the strength that recognizes the weakness of isolation. It is the strength that respects the commonality of good intentions. It is the strength that prays for the hope of mutual effort. Sincerely, Charles D. Johnson Director, Illinois Department on Aging Table of Contents The History of Immigrants in Illinois ............................................... i AFRICAN AMERICAN: People of Color in Illinois ............................... iii Earlmond Adams ...................................................................... vii NATIVE AMERICAN: The First to Arrive............................................ viii nu na hi du na tlo hi lu i (The Trail Where They Cried) ............. x Russell Schafer ......................................................................... xi 1 ASSYRIA 27 JAPAN Virginia Eli Margaret Yoshimura 3 BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA 29 KOREA Zlatan Buzaljko Shin Kang 5 BRITISH GUIANA 31 LITHUANIA Rev. Carlton Hyliger Jonas Kavaliunas 7 CAMBODIA 33 MEXICO Hoeun Srey Ricardo Avilez 9 CHINA 35 PALESTINE Xui Xian Chen Suliman Dawod Maali 11 ETHNIC CHINESE 37 PHILIPPINES FROM SOUTH EAST ASIA Rufina Razon Ancheta Duc Huang 39 POLAND 13 GERMANY Krystyna Nittka John Meyer 41 PUERTO RICO 15 GREECE Delia Amparo Peña Christos Thodoropoulos 43 RUSSIA 17 HAITI Sabina Pello Henry Bellevue 45 SCANDINAVIA 19 INDIA Krista Nielsen Sudha Baxi 47 SERBIA 21 IRELAND Nikola Mitic Bill Murphy 49 UKRAINE 23 THE ORPHAN TRAIN Kamiliya Morozyuk Robert Emmet Manning 51 VIETNAM 25 ITALY Qua Van Tran Francesco Cesario Ethnic Museums ............................................................................. 53 Underground Railroad Exhibits and Programs The History of Immigrants in Illinois e all came from somewhere. Most of “We all came from Wus are immigrants or descendents of somewhere…” immigrants; some more recent than others. Immigration to America occurred in three distinct “waves.” largely Asians, consisting of Vietnamese, The First Wave Cambodians, Ethnic Chinese from Southeast The first wave of immigrants came Asia, Laotians, Hmongs, Koreans, Asian largely from western and northern Europe. The Indians, Pakistanis, together with some Latin English were the main group in the 17th Americans such as Cubans, Mexicans and Century along with small groups of Dutch, Puerto Ricans. Conflicts in the Middle East Swedes and Welsh, among others. The number and Eastern Europe have resulted in a of immigrants from these countries peaked in geometric increase in the number of Assyrians 1790 and continued at a slower pace and Palestinians, as well as refugees from the thereafter. Between the 18th and mid-19th former Soviet Union and the former Centuries, immigrants of German and Scotch- Yugoslavia. The fact that some of the third Irish ancestry arrived. wavers came from pre-industrial, and even preliterate, societies presents unique problems The Second Wave in cultural adaptation and social adjustment. Millions of Italians, Slavs and Greeks came between the last two decades of the 19th Intergroup Relations Century and the first decade of the 20th Each new wave of immigrants generated Century, forming the second wave of controversy by virtue of the language they immigrants. These non-English-speaking “new spoke, the culture and customs they brought immigrants” of the 19th Century, who came with them, and the nature of their social from southern and eastern Europe, were behavior and economic adaptation patterns. predominantly Catholics, Orthodox or Jewish. Each major wave of new immigrants had to The “new” immigration peaked in the first contend with an outpouring of negative public decade of the 20th Century. World War I and opinion. The “old stocks,” those who came the Great Depression practically ended before the beginning of the 18th Century, had European immigration until the influx of mixed feelings about the new immigrants who displaced persons and refugees during and came after them. They prided themselves on after World War II brought many Poles and being the earlier people who had contributed Lithuanians, among others, to our shores. to the political and religious foundations of the new country. On the one hand, they felt that The Third Wave new immigrants had “no business to be in this Beginning in the mid-to-late 1960s, a country.” On the other hand, the new third wave of immigrants has written its place immigrants were needed as sources of cheap in American history. Unlike the “old” and the labor for the growing American economy. “new” immigrants, the “third wave” was During the ensuing years, until the beginning i of the 20th Century, religious conflict Exclusion Act — the first legislation ever to festered, especially between Protestants and legally bar a specific group of people from Catholics. The shifting patterns of national becoming American citizens on the basis of origins, and differences in language, religion race. Japanese farm labor workers were and values were sources of prejudice and brought in to replace the Chinese until their conflict. A product of this ferment was the numbers were also curtailed in the so-called concept of the “melting pot,” which was “Gentlemen’s Agreement” between the United coined to emphasize both the Protestant and States and Japan in 1907. Soon afterward the English-speaking influence over other exclusion of all persons from the “Eastern” languages and relations. To minimize eastern hemisphere of the world was enacted into law and southern European influence, Congress in 1924. passed the National Origin Act of 1924, which The 1965 Immigration Reform Act favored the native stock of the first wave of removed the racial restrictions to immigrants from northern and western immigration and gave countries of the eastern Europe. The distinction for immigration hemisphere the same quota of 20,000 a year purposes, between “Eastern” and “Western” as that given to those of the western hemispheres of the world, was thereby hemisphere. created to legally discriminate between groups who wanted to immigrate to the United The Melting Pot States. The history of Illinois mirrors the arrival Conflicts between northern and southern of each immigrant group to America’s shores; Europeans during the early 19th Century were it is a snapshot of the larger picture of ethnic soon replaced with tensions between ascendancy to power and public acceptance. “Orientals” and “Occidentals” during the late Beginning with the Irish who first came in 19th and early 20th Centuries. At the turn of large numbers as canal diggers and laborers in the 20th Century, southern and eastern 1836, immigrants and refugees left their mark Europeans were expected to melt into the on the landscape and socioeconomic life by American melting pot with the aid of public virtue of their unique ethnic adaptation schools, ethnic churches and temples, patterns and occupational achievements. settlement houses and other civic and The changes that have taken place in voluntary associations. Asians, however, Illinois are best exemplified in Chicago’s particularly the earlier Chinese immigrants, historic Maxwell Street area. Here, Polish were considered “unmeltable.” Hostility sausage shacks and Mexican taco stalls are toward the “Yellow Peril” took several forms, found next to Chinese luggage vendors, where including the imposition of the Foreign Kosher shops and authorized circumcisers Miner’s Tax—originally passed to once stood. Nearby are storefronts once owned discriminate against Mexicans—on Chinese by blacks, now managed by Korean retailers. immigrants in the 1850s. Mob violence Not too far away the store signs for wholesale occurred in several western states until finally, and retail produce carry polyglot Greek, in 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Italian and Jewish names, punctuated by Chinese characters and Spanish words.