Moving to Chicago

[SVSeattle]

The discussion has gone on a totally different context which I have nothing to comment about. Thanks to Vasily and candycarr for your responses. I am going to look into townhomes in Naperville area and maybe the border of Aurora/Naperville. Will post again if I have any questions!

[raina starling]

Originally Posted by Vasily

What's your source for this other than your own opinion? That's not my experience. I don't see any evidence for a change in recent decades in the immigrants I've known from India, the Mideast, Asia, or Latin America. To me, they're no more or less likely to want to live near others from their culture or learn English than the Mexican immigrants in my neighborhood when I was growing up in the 1950s. Most immigrants I've known are not separatists (like for example the Aztlan/La Raza crew). It's just that the separatists tend to get the press.

The first generation tends to stay around their culture because they miss the old country. Less so for the second generation. I've also seen this in the South, where Northern immigrants tend to live near and hang around other Northerners, and seek out food that reminds them of the "Old Country". In fact, Cary, NC is sometimes said to stand for "Containment Area for Relocated Yankees". As others have pointed out, this is just human nature.

By the way, English has been a second language in India for centuries, and Indian immigrants seem to be assimilating rapidly ... There are two Indian-American governers and many Indians involved in state and local politics; see:

List of Indian Americans - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It depends on the ethnic group. As you noted, Indians tend to speak English due to colonization. So they have a different relationship to England (and by that extension, America) than, say, Mexico. Mexico, to be fair, has the whole issue of the usurping of the SW states by our government in the 1800s. La Raza may be a radical group (I am not familiar with them) but I don't doubt that many Mexicans harbor resentment towards the USA and that is carried from one generation to the next.

I lived with a large number of Mexican immigrants and went to college with a lot of them as an adult student, so I had a vantage point of observing what was up. You live in Naperville so I would imagine you don't have such experiences.

One Mexican girl I went to college with told the class that her mother had lived here for 20 years and not learned English. This young woman was stuck having to act as translator for her mother. Now this is not uncommon, IMO. And unlike Italians, Germans, and Greeks in past generations, I have found many Mexicans (usually the undocumented ones) who don't know English and don't wish to know it. Where I lived before, the Mexicans tended to do business with other Mexicans. I remember this one American-style restaurant fail and I suspected that the residents did not support it the way they did the Mexican places.

My point is that some people will not eat different foods and go to places in which they are the minority. Although I am a woman of color, my White partner attended the Bud Billiken parade several years ago in Washington Park. Although we were different from the vast number of people in the crowd, we did not feel out of place. It's good to do things that are not in line with your culture.

[Gaylord_Focker]

Originally Posted by raina starling

It depends on the ethnic group. As you noted, Indians tend to speak English due to colonization. So they have a different relationship to England (and by that extension, America) than, say, Mexico. Mexico, to be fair, has the whole issue of the usurping of the SW states by our government in the 1800s. La Raza may be a radical group (I am not familiar with them) but I don't doubt that many Mexicans harbor resentment towards the USA and that is carried from one generation to the next.

I lived with a large number of Mexican immigrants and went to college with a lot of them as an adult student, so I had a vantage point of observing what was up. You live in Naperville so I would imagine you don't have such experiences.

One Mexican girl I went to college with told the class that her mother had lived here for 20 years and not learned English. This young woman was stuck having to act as translator for her mother. Now this is not uncommon, IMO. And unlike Italians, Germans, and Greeks in past generations, I have found many Mexicans (usually the undocumented ones) who don't know English and don't wish to know it. Where I lived before, the Mexicans tended to do business with other Mexicans. I remember this one American-style restaurant fail and I suspected that the residents did not support it the way they did the Mexican places.

My point is that some people will not eat different foods and go to places in which they are the minority. Although I am a woman of color, my White partner attended the Bud Billiken parade several years ago in Washington Park. Although we were different from the vast number of people in the crowd, we did not feel out of place. It's good to do things that are not in line with your culture.

My point is just because you may live among your own doesn't mean you don't do things with other cultures.

[Vasily]

Originally Posted by raina starling

I lived with a large number of Mexican immigrants and went to college with a lot of them as an adult student, so I had a vantage point of observing what was up. You live in Naperville so I would imagine you don't have such experiences.

One Mexican girl I went to college with told the class that her mother had lived here for 20 years and not learned English. This young woman was stuck having to act as translator for her mother. Now this is not uncommon, IMO.

I grew up in Rock Island, IL in the 1950s in a mixed white/black/hispanic neighborhood. The family across the street was Mexican and probably undocumented. And I worked as a counselor in Aurora for six years, where I had many clients from Mexico. However, I don't speak Spanish so I got the English speaking clients. From my exposure to Mexicans as a child and as a counselor, I suspect there are as many differences of opinion among them as there are in other ethnic groups; this is also true of Puerto Ricans, some of whom support statehood, some of whom don't. I know of first generation Greeks, by the way, who refuse to learn or speak English, and my great grandmother spoke mostly Sicilian. End of side trail, I suppose.

[asliarun]

Originally Posted by SVSeattle

The discussion has gone on a totally different context which I have nothing to comment about. Thanks to Vasily and candycarr for your responses. I am going to look into townhomes in Naperville area and maybe the border of Aurora/Naperville. Will post again if I have any questions!

Take a look at the Stevenson high school district. Fair number of desis there and from whatever I have researched, it is neck to neck with New Trier. However, the New Trier area has very little diversity, unlike the Stevenson area which is much more multi-cultural (17% Asians in the school).