In between construction, guitar, photography, the essence channel, and writing a family history book, I throw too many ideas out there and am inconsistent with them all, except for showing up to work every morning. The monotonous hammering nails and pulling measurements, all backbreaking work, isn’t the only daily accomplishment if I stay persistent in other aspects. I thought I’d add a little inside stuff from outside the channel on this day. It’s Chicago-related.
My maternal great-grandparents all came from Lithuania. Half of them came from Scotland, which was a sanctuary and refuge from the Russian Empire that was killing, imprisoning, and trying to wipe away the language and culture of various peoples(Lithuanian) in the region at the time, from late 18th to early 20th century, and my ancestors finally made their way to Chicago in the 1900s.
My paternal great-grandfather was from Michoacan, Mexico. Purepecha roots, which he may have spoken, that ancient language with Spanish, but I don’t believe he ever learned English. Nobody who ever met him could tell me if he ever spoke English to them, nor can anyone ever remember any conversation about him besides a few funny stories about him being caught cheating on his cheating wife, who was of English and Polish descent.
I have a lot of the ancestral immigration documentation. I also found 4 generations back in Mexico, all of whom have lived in the Chicagoland area since the early 1900s.
My Mexican grandfather had a few kids with a woman who was still married to a Sioux Indian. They lived in what is now Chinatown. The street they lived on had a lot of Italians and other Europeans on the same block as he was. There was a black family living in the apartment downstairs from them, and his mother-in-law living on the bottom floor. Chinatown was initially farther north and later moved to its current location for lower rents, but it was quite a diverse neighborhood in the beginning. My Mexican grandfather lived with his white wife in one apartment next to a black family(a man and his daughter who was a waitress), then Italians and Chinese in other apartments in the area. Although it wasn’t as peaceful as it sounds. My grandfather’s brother used to tell stories about how he and his brother, when they were kids in the 1920s and 30s, used to fight Chinese kids in the street and beat them up. The Chinese had a dangerous gang that was known throughout Chicago at the time, similar to how people think of the Latin Kings in Chicago these days. The Chinese gang was called the Tongs. They were quite dangerous, just as much as some of the other ethnic gangs (Bohemian, Italian, Polish, etc.) in Chicago at the time. There were lots of Chinese prostitution, drugs, and crimes during those times, which my family had been exposed to at various times, but not terribly as it is in modern times. They would import Chinese women to America and hold them as prostitutes to pay their share for whatever time was at hand. Men never had to try hard to look for women back then because prostitution happened more often. My grandfather got a blow job from a girl when he was a taxi driver in the 1940s or so.
My Mexican great-grandfather married a showgirl. Her mother worked in a brothel. A lot of widows and women who lost a lot of opportunities resorted to either prostitution or holding a boarding house. My Mexican great-grandfather was a boarder who had kids with his landlord, from whom I am a descendant.
My mother’s maternal grandparents from Lithuania moved to Springfield, Illinois, to raise their kids. Most of the kids moved to Chicago. When Victoria’s coal-mining husband died sometime in the 19teens, she became a widow and held boarders. She sold moonshine and rented rooms to boarders. There are family stories about how the officials came knocking at her door to investigate the alcohol during prohibition in the 1920s. Victoria had all of her daughters run and pour out all of the bottles of alcohol before they could answer the door. When they opened the door to the police, they acted like they didn’t speak English and didn’t understand the cops’ questions. When the cops were searching the house, they found one bottle of alcohol, but the broken English Europeans said “dats me-da-cine”. The cops left them alone then. The daughters grew up and moved out and would visit from Chicago frequently by train. They remember one boarder who became a permanent boarder at Victoria’s place by the 1950s or so.
I have all of their immigration papers and their census reports. But an interesting fact is that my great-grandma, who was the daughter of Victoria, who was born in Lithuania, moved with her family to Scotland to flee russian oppression, witnessed the birth of her sister there, then they moved to America. Victoria took the 3rd class ride on the ship to America. Her husband and daughter (my great-grandma) took first class. Great-grandma had poor eyesight as a child. She was almost blind. America wouldn’t let immigrants into America who had any problems where they weren’t able to function in society or work, so my family had to get her past immigration. First-class passengers cleared immigration on land because they were vetted on board during the first-class trip. Her eyesight eventually was fixed over time, but they wouldn’t have allowed her when her condition was bad.
Years later, sometime in the 1940s or so, I found documentation of her pledging allegiance to America and renouncing her former native land, so she was naturalized in America.
With all of the immigration taking place just after the turn of the 20th century, all of my family were proud Americans who practiced their ethnic cultural roots heavily up until the 1990s or so when families started to break apart, eventually blocked each other’s phone numbers, and embraced Americanism, leaving behind the old language, food recipes, traditions, and other cultural norms. Now, the majority of them are either proud Americans or proud American haters who disown each other due to their opinions or political preferences. At least they are proud of something.
All of this is happening while other ethnic proud immigrants who stick together are erasing the now broken America that early Europeans were proud to give up their former cultural roots for.
The Essence of Chicagoland Areas 