Archer Avenue, the diagonal street that runs through Chicago’s southwest side, from Chinatown to Garfield Ridge, may be the city’s most historic street. There is a marker, across the street from the 35th/Archer Orange Line station, commemorating the journey of Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet, who realized that a canal in the short harbor between the Des Plaines River and Lake Michigan would enable a canoeist to sailed from Canada to Florida, making Checagou the main shipping center of the continent.
“This marker, the Orange Line and all the businesses on Archer Avenue stand on an ancient Native American trail that dates back thousands of years,” Kelly Middle School teacher Mark Kinsella wrote in McKinley Park News. “It’s the road that paralleled the route of the Illinois-Michigan Canal, which brought many Irish immigrants to the area.”
The Irish have mostly left the Southwest Side. So are the Germans, Poles, and Lithuanians who immigrated to Chicago to work at the Union Stockyards, which closed in 1971. (Jurgis Rudkus, Upton Sinclair’s hero The jungleit was Lithuanian.) As Kinsella wrote, “They were the forerunners of more recent immigrants from Latin America and Asia.”
These immigrants are making Archer Avenue the scene of another historic movement in Chicago history: Latinos and—to a lesser extent—Asians are replacing once-dominant white ethnicities as an important demographic in the city’s culture and politics. In 1980, Brighton Park was 83 percent white, mostly Polish and Lithuanian. Now, it’s 81 percent Latino. In 40 years, the neighborhood’s white population has dropped from 25,000 to 3,000. Archer Heights has undergone an even more dramatic transformation, from 95 percent white to 80 percent Latino.
Andrea Ortiz’s family moved to Brighton Park from Pilsen in 1995, seeking cheaper housing and a safer neighborhood. They bought a house from a Polish family moving to the suburbs.
“There was also a Polish family across the street,” said Ortiz, who is now director of organizing for the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council. “They are gone now. You can safely say there was a lot of white flight going on. Over time it became a neighborhood for many Latinos. There was a cinema. It provided many resources. Lots of family homes that were affordable. It was much safer. Back of the Yards offered jobs in the meatpacking industry. My father worked as a mechanic and had many mechanic shops.”
Archer up and down, a visitor to the neighborhood can see remnants of Poland: the Banquet Hall of the Polish Highlanders of America and the Polish National Catholic Church of St. John’s Parish. Archer Heights Library has a Polish book club for those who hang out in the old neighborhood. But the Szykowsky Funeral Home is a great corner from Garcia Tax Service, and most of the restaurants are taquerias: Carnita Don Rafa, Paco’s Tacos. Bobak Sausage Co., once the Midwest’s premier Polish deli, closed in 2015; the building is now occupied by El Cubano Wholesale Meats.
Latinos live in the same houses, worship in the same churches, work the same jobs, and shop in the same stores that Poles and Lithuanians did a generation ago. (Zemsky’s, which has been dressing blue-collar Southwest Siders since 1958, sells Dickies pants and nursing scrubs and advertises boys’ school shoes with the hand-lettered sign “Zapato Escolar Para Ninos.”) Like the white ethnics who preceded, they are blue-collar Catholics with close ties to the Old Country.
“There were a lot of ethnic whites — Poles, Lithuanians, Irish, Slovaks, Germans — in the back yards,” said Dominic Pacyga, a Polish Chicago historian who grew up in the neighborhood. “After 1965, when immigration reform was passed, the Latino population began to grow quite rapidly.”
Increasingly, Latinos are also occupying political offices once held by ethnic whites. Taped inside the windows of U.S. Rep. Chuy Garcia’s campaign headquarters on Archer Avenue are signs for a list of candidates with Spanish names: Celina Villanueva for state senate, Aaron Ortiz for state representative, Alma Anaya for Cook County Board, Iris Y .Chavira to judge. Garcia’s congressional district covers a lot of ground, once represented by Rep. of USA Bill Lipkins. As the new chief of the Southwest Side, Garcia is building a powerful political organization.
“He’s done a tremendous job of building talent at all different levels,” said Jorge Neri, a political consultant who grew up in Little Village. “It’s really transformed what politics looks like out there.”
Garcia has slowly dismantled the power base of 14th Ward Ald. Edward M. Burke, the last of the South Side Irish machine politicians. Garcia’s defense attorney, Aaron Ortiz, defeated Burke’s brother, Dan, for state representative, then defeated Burke himself for ward committee. In 2019, Burke defeated a Latino challenger, but even his brother is encouraging him to retire next year, now that his ward — which covers Brighton Park and Archer Heights — is more Latino than ever.
“The writing is on the wall in many of these areas where you can see the growth of the Latino community,” Neri said. “Each election cycle gets closer and closer. I hope that happens next time. I think [Burke] will run again and will probably have a Latino challenger. I think it will be close.”
Elsewhere on the Southwest Side, when 23rd Ward Ald. Michael Zalewski retired, he was replaced by Rep. Silvana Tabares. When Michael Madigan left the House of Representatives after losing the speakership, he appointed Angelica Guerrero-Cuellar to his old seat. (Madigan is still Ward’s 13th committeeman, which allows him to keep Marty Quinn, his alderman-elect, in office. federal investigators over a bank loan. Mayor Lori Lightfoot handed the seat to Nicole Lee, alderman first Chinese-American, as Asians are now the largest ethnic group in Bridgeport.
Thompson’s grandfather, Richard J. Daley, presided over a political machine built by the children and grandchildren of European immigrants: Irish, Polish, Italian, Bohemian, German, Jewish. These communities have either left the city or assimilated and no longer see politics as an important tool for advancing the destiny of their communities. As the Irish were to Chicago in the 20th century, Latinos may be to the 21st century. (If Garcia runs for mayor, he would be a very strong candidate against the unpopular and inexperienced field now running for office.) You can see it happening on Archer Avenue. Or you could ask Ed Burke.
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