| As many here have heard before, I'm first generation American. My mother came here after WWII when she was five with her parents. My grandparents fled their native Poland when the economy was in shambles during the war after resorting to bartering even jewelry with the local farmers just for basic food. There were so many like this the Germans set up work camps by nationality. My grandmother remembered the first bit of payment, and I mean bit, wasn't enough to buy an ice cream. After the war they were sponsored and came to Chicago. In kindergarten my mom learned english and helped teach my grandparents. Last week, I interviewed my grandmother Story Corps style to get those stories and more down before even I forgot them.
I say this not to brag that my family did learn english but as background to make three points.
My grandfather had a friend from the German work camps we called Uncle Frank. As a kid I knew a lot of aunts and uncles who weren't actually related to me. Uncle Frank never learned english. I don't doubt that he tried, he just never became fluent.
Second, when studying French I would often never use it to speak with other Americans when I had a choice (when not in class). When the task is communication, the most efficient form would always win - my native tongue. So, I can understand why entire neighborhoods continue to stay in their native languages.
Third, below is a picture of the apartment my family first lived in when they came here which I took last week:
The neighborhood, called Pilsen, was predominantly Polish at the time despite the German or Czech sounding name.
Here's the updated cornerstone of the Catholic school down the street, where my mom first learned english:
To reference a time somewhat before that, here's the original cornerstone of the church connected to the school: Notice the likely ethnicity of the Reverend?
The school and church are now called:
And yes, in that previous photo the folks in the background have brown skin. Just a little reminder that today's Latinos were yesterday's Polacks and Italians who were the day before that's Irish and Chinese. While the same attitudes seem to continue today, the only difference is we currently have a broken immigration system used as a convenient straw man by folks like Mad Tommy which he doesn't really want to fix because it continues to get him support and donations. |
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