Arrivals...There Goes the Neighborhood

As Chicagoans, we pride ourselves on being integrated and "color blind" and anything else we might say to boast about acceptance of many different races and cultures. But we couldn't be more wrong. 

          To look at our city and say we're integrated is mind-blowing to me. When someone says "south side", what do you think? Do you think, oh yeah south side, what a nice neighborhood, I remember when those little girls sold me girl scout cookies. No! You think the ghetto, the bad neighborhood, that's where all the black people shoot it up. And it's the same thing for north side, to a lesser extent. North side is where all the white people live, it's clean and perfect and nothing bad ever happens. Both of these stereotypes are incredibly wrong, of course, and I can say I understand that but that doesn't mean I can help but think them anyway. 

          And no one can. These are things that have pounded into us since birth, maybe not intentionally but they've been there. We've all been little kids making racist jokes (we probably still do) and repeating what we've heard our parents saying as if we know we know what we're talking about.  I was raised in a pretty mixed environment, being mixed myself my family is very accepting. I went to a diverse elementary school and now I'm in a diverse high school. Walking around the city you can people from so many different places. I was never really exposed to segregated neighborhoods or "real" racism. My friends and I talk about racism like it was thing from 50 years ago, completely unaware that it still lives and in our own city no less. 

          Before we bought a house, my mom and I lived in a three floor town house in a mostly Puerto Rican neighborhood. I remember my mom walking into the house with one of the last small boxes from the car. Two older women walked by speaking in Spanish and they kept glancing at my mom and me on the porch. I don't speak Spanish but I understand it a little so all I caught was "them moving in" and "just the beginning of". My mom does speak Spanish because she needs to for her job and she had obviously understood all of it. She stopped short and looked down at the box. The look on her face was unforgettable. The women saw that my mom heard them and they quickened their pace past our house and stopped talking.  

          As Chicagoans we pride ourselves on being mixed and accepting even though when you take a step back you can see the neighborhood boundaries. We think of ourselves progressive and to an extent it's true. But we actually spread ourselves out, every time someone moves in who doesn't look like us, all can we can think is "there goes the neighborhood."