The Melding of Cultures in Rogers Park: West Devon Avenue
Exploring how Indian and Pakistani Cultures & Western and Eastern Cultures Come Together on West Devon Avenue
I come from a world of heavily embroidered clothing, have more gold jewelry than all of my friends and their parents combined, and my name is Sanskrit. But that is as far as I identify with classical Indian culture. Growing up in the United States, I have lost many aspects of my ethnic heritage. When I was younger, my parents tried to pass on their ethnic traditions, from the Indian dinner parties and frequent temple visits, to the classical singing and dancing. However, as my sister and I got older, they allowed us to assimilate into mainstream American life. As an Indian-American, I have always been interested in this idea of a mixed culture that many second-generation immigrants are faced with. What defined life for our parents and grandparents is very different from what defines our lives. Not only are the experiences that the two groups go through drastically different, but the prejudices the groups feel and the history they identify with also seem to differ.
Born and raised in America with Indian roots, I always had to make the choice of which culture I wanted to activate. There were periods of my life that I desperately wished that I was fully American, so I could learn ballet like all my friends from school, rather than the Indian classical dance of Bharathanatyam. Yet, there were also times that I was proud of being Indian, that I had customs and traditions that many of my Caucasian friends only dreamed about, and wished I had been more involved in my culture growing up.
However, my grandparents, who were only separated from me by two generations, had a vastly different experience. They grew up and spent a good portion of their lives in India, but made the choice to immigrate to America and establish themselves here. Yet, experiencing life in India at the height of the Indian-Pakistani tension has forced them to hold a grudge. They feel a sense of uneasiness when Pakistanis are brought up in conversation and make it clear to those around that they are Indians, not Pakistanis. Observing this as I grew up, I was intrigued. I had never experienced this animosity and did not understand how two groups who lived in such close geographical proximity, who shared much of the same history, language, and racial features, could feel such a strong sense of distaste towards one another.
Thus, I decided to study the “Little India” neighborhood on the far North Side of Chicago, in the area of West Rogers Park/West Ridge.
There were two major focuses of my research. The broader focus was to identify if and how the Indian culture that immigrants brought to the United States has mixed with the ever-present American culture to create a dynamic Indian-American culture. How does the hyphenated American label, “Indian-American” visually manifest itself in this Indian neighborhood along West Devon Ave? How does this differ from the classical Indian culture of immigrants’ ancestors?
The secondary focus of my research was to see how the Indian and Pakistani enclaves on West Devon Avenue have fused together. How does this differ from the history of animosity between the two groups?
I planned to answer these questions by observing the visual manifestations of these relationships in cultural objects as well as the environment overall while visiting this neighborhood of West Ridge.
While this research is focused on South Asian immigrant groups on West Devon Avenue, specifically Indians, there are aspects of the research that can be applied to other groups of second-generation immigrants in similar contexts. The specific background and experiences, and thus the specific issues are often different, but they all experience some form of assimilation and change as a result of immigrating to a new country, i.e. the United States.
I conducted my research on the last weekend in February, on Saturday, February 28th, 2015 in the early afternoon. I spent my time walking up and down both sides of the street (see map above for walking route), going into stores and restaurants, and observing the people and culture overall.
When I first arrived on West Devon Avenue, my goal was to identify cultural objects, what Wendy Griswold defines as a “socially meaningful expression that is audible, visible, or tangible” along West Devon Avenue that showed this mix of cultures (2013:11). Within my research, I defined “cultural objects” not only as physical objects I found within stores and restaurants, such as clothing or food, but signage for stores that identified this mix of cultures, as well as more subtle observations such as the music that was playing and the types of people that worked in these establishments.
Part 1: How have American and Indian Cultures Combined to form a Dynamic Indian-American Culture?
Before I began my research, I had some clear expectations of what I would see. Throughout my years living in the United States, I had yet to truly experience an area that fully reminded me of my trips to India. There were always aspects of Indian neighborhoods, restaurants, and shops that reflected the American culture of the United States that clearly separated them from the culture I experienced in India. I therefore expected to see a mix of these two (Indian and American) cultures as I walked down West Devon Avenue, whether this was through restaurants that sold a true fusion of foods or shops that sold both classical Indian clothing as well as Americanized versions of them. In addition, preliminary research, both photographic as well as literary, of the area showed a variety of examples of this melding of cultures. In her study on ethnic identity, Nazli Kibria (1997) argued that second-generation immigrants from China and Korea, two Asian countries, experience an assimilation into mainstream American culture, using the topic of intermarriage as an example. While the individuals that she studied shared somewhat similar beliefs to their parents regarding intermarriage, their upbringing in the United States and the new beliefs and values they were thus introduced to, influenced these views as well (1997). Kibria may have had a narrow focus in her research, but her findings can be applied to myriad situations, such as this situation in West Ridge. Therefore, using this data as evidence, it can be inferred that as the Indian Americans in this area, who compromise a mix of primarily first and second-generation immigrants, spend more time in the United States and amongst mainstream American culture, their beliefs change. While they will keep their basic roots, it is difficult to do so in a culture fairly different from the one that they are used to. Jean Leslie Bacon (1996) supports this argument, and discusses another reason why this may have been the case. She argues that when Indians first came to the United States, they came in such small numbers that they needed to cling onto their Indian roots to prevent themselves from getting dragged into mainstream American culture. However, as immigration rapidly picked up, these Indian immigrants now had a strong South Asian presence in the United States. They no longer needed to stay attached to their origins in order to keep their beliefs and values alive because there was now a great population to help them do that. In addition, as time went on, these individuals realized that many of the struggles that they had with American culture were also struggles that much of the population had as well, such as preventing their children from sex and drugs. The idea of an “Indian-American” identity thus started to be looked on more positively as they increasingly identified with it, causing them to assimilate into this American culture (1996: 24–26).
The historical photographs of West Devon Avenue below highlight this assimilation and melding of cultures as well:
When I arrived in this Indian neighborhood of West Devon Avenue, the first set of cultural objects that I set out to observe were signs for stores, restaurants, boutiques, etc. that showed a mix of this American and Indian culture.
Below are a variety of these storefronts that I observed. I noticed a pattern with these storefronts— they either showed this mix of cultures through the different products they sold, advertising, for example, both pizza and namkeen (an Indian snack), or through the incongruence between the names they chose for their restaurants or stores and what they sold, for example, selling American foods such as steak, but naming the restaurant a classic Indian name.
Storefronts that advertised both American and Indian products:
Ali’s BBQ (top left- two photos) advertised “Fine Pakistani and Indian food” as well as BBQ and classic American fast food staples such as chicken burgers, cheese burgers, chicken nuggets, and fries, with the characterization of the meat sold as “Zabiha Halal.”
Sukhadia’s (top right) advertised homemade ice cream, a classic American food staple, as well as traditional Indian pastries. Not pictured is the rest of their storefront, which describe their full offering of American and Indian desserts.
Royal Sweets (bottom left) advertised pizza, a typical American dish, as well as chat, a typical Indian snack food.
Spinzer (bottom middle) advertised fast food, sweets, ice cream, and BBQ, all classic American staple foods, as well as namkeen, an Indian snack.
Chopal (bottom right) advertised steak, a well-known American dish, as well as kababs, a classic Indian (and Pakistani) food.
Storefronts that showed this mix of cultures through their names:
Patel’s Café (left): Patel is a common Indian last name. However, the restaurant sold typical American food, as can be viewed from the word “Sandwiches” on the awning in the photo.
Angaara Steak and Grill (right): Angaara is an Indian name (not common, but found a decent amount throughout India). However, the restaurant sold steak and classic American grilled favorites.
After walking down and back along Devon Avenue from N. Talman to N. Bell, I decided to go into some of the stores whose storefronts I had photographed previously. During this portion of my research, I set out to observe physical cultural objects, i.e. tangible objects that clearly represented a certain racial/ethnic group, and the juxtaposition between them.
In an Indian/Pakistani grocery store that I entered, I observed products that showed both the Eastern influence of India (and Pakistan) as well as the Western influence of the United States. There were classical Indian (and Pakistani) products sold, such as dates and dal (lentils), as well as packaged Kraft cheese product and American candy. These products were often placed side-by-side, mirroring the interspersion and mixing of Indian and American cultures prevalent on West Devon Avenue.
The photographs below show this juxtaposition:
In the photo on the left, Corned Beef is displayed next to Pakistani Fig and Apricot Jam, which is displayed next to Kraft Pasteurized Processed Cheddar Cheese.
In the photo on the left, which I took in the same Indian/Pakistani grocery store, Quality Street chocolates are sold alongside traditional Arabic chocolates and sweets.
In an Indian grocery store, Awami Bazaar, a few blocks down, this mix of products was prevalent as well. This grocery store had a much stronger focus on Indian products, but there were a few striking American Products placed amongst the Indian ones. The main two were Nesquick Strawberry Milk, a strawberry flavored drink powder commonly used amongst American children, as well as Tang, an orange flavored drink powder commonly used in the summer. These were juxtaposed between a variety of Indian food products. This can be seen in the photograph below:
There were a few other observations I made relating to this mix of American and Indian cultures on West Devon Avenue:
- When I went inside the Dollar Store, the employees were all of Indian descent and the music playing was classical Bollywood music, but all the products sold were American products (I was unable to find an Indian product).
- When I went inside a general purpose store, the employees were all of Pakistani descent and Muslim, given the traditional Muslim garments they were wearing, but there were no Pakistani or Muslim products in sight, only American products.
After my trip to West Ridge, analyzing all of my field notes, as well as the photographs that I took, I have come to a general consensus about this idea of an “Indian American” culture on West Devon Avenue. While a good portion of the part of West Devon Avenue I explored seemed to focus solely on Indian (and Pakistani) culture, there was a definite presence of Indian (and Pakistani) assimilation into mainstream American culture. Before I conducted my research, I thought I was going to have to go and look for this mix of cultures, but it was extremely prevalent from the moment I arrived. The mix of an American and Indian presence in and amongst many of the stores on West Devon Avenue shows that the Indian culture of immigrants often gets changed or modified as a result of mainstream American culture when they immigrate. This supports the arguments of both Nazli Kibria (1997) and Jean Leslie Bacon (1996) relating to the assimilation of immigrants into mainstream American culture.
Part 2: How have the Indian and Pakistani Enclaves on West Devon Avenue Fused Together?
Similar to the first focus of my research, I had some clear expectations of what I would see in relation to my second research focus: the Indian and Pakistani coexistence and fusion along West Devon Avenue. However, these expectations were not as strong as those for the first part of my research. I had only travelled to West Devon Avenue a couple times during my youth, and was never old enough to truly digest and comprehend my surroundings. Thus, many of my expectations came from photographic and literary research of “Little India” on West Devon Avenue.
Lowell W. Livezy:
In one of the chapters in his book, Lowell W. Livezy (2000) describes how the myriad ethnoracial enclaves of the area of West Rogers Park/West Ridge seem to coexist with one another (albeit with little interaction), despite the differences amongst them. He did not specifically study Indians and Pakistanis, but rather a variety of religions including Hindus and Muslims, which are closely related to Indians and Pakistanis. He showed that while many of these groups are vastly different in their beliefs, values, practices, etc., they all seem to get along in this small area of Chicago (2000). Thus, despite the animosity that historically exists between Indians/Hindus and Pakistanis/Muslims, they seem to get along just fine, if not well, in Rogers Park.
Ishan Ashutosh:
Ishan Ashutosh (2008) had similar findings to those of Livezy (2000), but his research focused specifically on the Indian and Pakistani groups in West Ridge and explained why this coexistence was the case through the interviews he conducted. His interview subjects tended to believe that there was not too much inter-group interaction between the Indians and Pakistanis on West Devon Avenue. One of the people he interviewed stated “There isn’t too much (inter-group) contact, except for the fruit and vegetable markets,” while another stated that West Devon Avenue was a place where different “groups can keep to themselves” (2008: 237). However, he observed that the Indian and Pakistani areas were dispersed and interspersed within one another, and argued that as a result of that, referring to this area of West Devon Avenue as “Indiatown” created an insignificant identity for the other groups in the area (2008: 237). His research also argued that the “cultural manifestations” of South Asia on West Devon Avenue were “produced through both the memory of the Indian subcontinent as well as the experiences of migration and the creation of transnational South Asian diasporic cultures,” which explained why there seemed to be a mixing of Indian and Pakistani cultures on West Devon Avenue (2008: 234). Another reason for this connection between Indians and Pakistanis was the result of their shared identity. Initially, when a Muslim mosque Babri Masjid was burned in Adyodhya, India and a Hindu temple was built on top of it, many Muslims on West Devon Avenue were upset because there were rumors that Hindus from the area had contributed money to help build this temple. However, when 9/11 occurred, both Indians and Pakistanis felt the pressures of being immigrants, and thus banded together (2008: 237). One of the people he interviewed after 9/11 stated “‘Whatever happens to India, we feel it. Whatever happens to Pakistan, we feel it’” (2008: 239).
Benjamin F. Tillman and Chad F. Emmet
In their study on the spatial succession of sacred space, Benjamin F. Tillman and Chad F. Emmet (1999) show that in places such as Chicago where there are a variety of ethnic, racial, and religious enclaves, many ethnic and religious groups that have little in common coexist as a result of spatial succession of sacred spaces. They even directly say that in the area of West Ridge, “Pakistani shops exist adjacent to Indian restaurants…” and “part of the road is named in honor of Mahatma Gandhi of India and another for Mohammad Ali Jinnah of Pakistan” (1999:22).
Given this information and the mix of the Indian and Pakistani cultures prevalent in the photographs below, I expected to see a true coexistence and potential fusion of the Indian and Pakistani cultures in Rogers Park.
When I first arrived on West Devon Avenue, the first set of cultural objects I set out to observe were signs for stores and restaurants that highlighted this coexistence and fusion of Indian and Pakistani Cultures.
Below are some of the storefronts that I observed. These storefronts tended to explicitly state that they were “Indo-Pakistani,” “Indian and Pakistani” or some form of those words, though a few showed the mix of the two cultures by advertising that they sold items relating to both, i.e. the photo on the middle right shows a sign advertising calling cards for both India and Pakistan.
After walking down and back along West Devon Avenue, I decided to go into a few of the stores that had caught my attention previously to look for juxtaposed tangible objects relating to each culture that could be used as cultural objects to show this mix of cultures. I wanted to see if the stores that advertised products from both cultures actually sold them, whether they were clothes, food, etc., that related to each of the different ethnoracial groups.
In the same Indian-Pakistani grocery store that I discussed previously, I found many distinct Indian products as well as distinct Pakistani products, housed together, amongst other items, under one roof. The photographs detailing this are below:
Indian Products:
Pakistani Products:
I saw this same phenomenon in the other Indian-Pakistani Grocery Store that I entered, Awami Bazaar. There was a plethora of both Indian as well as Pakistani goods housed under one roof. This is shown in the photographs below:
Indian Products:
Pakistani Products:
After my trip to West Ridge, and analyzing the photographs and notes I took, I have come to a general theory about the coexistence and fusion of Indian and Pakistani cultures in West Ridge. I found that it was hard to find a solely Indian or solely Pakistani establishment; the two seemed constantly intertwined. Given all of the information that I gleaned, it seems to me that there is a true coexistence amongst the two cultures, something that is diametrically opposite from their existence amongst one another in the East. While my data was inconclusive on whether there was a true melding of the two cultures, there was more than just mere proximity and peace between the two groups. This complicates Livezy’s (2000) argument slightly. He found that the two groups inhabited a similar area without any hostility, but did not find much overlap between the two cultures, though I observed a fairly clear overlap when I visited the area. However, the data supports Ashutosh’s (2008) argument slightly more, since he did find that the cultural manifestations of South Asia on West Devon Avenue were the result of Indian heritage as well as the overall South Asian diaspora and migration that both the Indians and Pakistanis went through. Moreover, he found found that 9/11 had helped band the two groups together. In order to fully, or at least more sufficiently, answer the question of whether or not there is a true melding between the Indian and Pakistani cultures on West Devon Avenue, one would need to do interviews to see how the population views this issue as well as a deeper sociology of the area, recording aspects such as whether the food at the Indian-Pakistani restaurants was both Indian and Pakistani or a fusion of both.
Reflexivity/Possible Biases:
While there are aspects of my background that help me identify with the topic I studied, there are also aspects of it that make me an outsider. Both of these need to be considered when judging my research, as they could have caused certain biases.
As a second-generation Indian immigrant, I have experienced this assimilation into mainstream American culture firsthand, and can attest to its reality. Thus, coming from a background where I know this amalgamation exists, I may have been drawn towards cultural objects that showed it, unintentionally ignoring the cultural objects that proved my beliefs and theories false. In order to truly answer the question that I started out with, significant further research needs to be done. This can be achieved through interviews with members of the community, hearing their beliefs on whether or not a true Indian-American culture has formed, as well as a more detailed and comprehensive visual sociology of West Rogers Park/West Ridge.
While I may be of Indian descent, I am also a college student that goes to Northwestern University, whereas many of the individuals that inhabit or frequent the area of West Ridge are low-income or low-educated middle-aged individuals. Thus, given my outside perspective, what may have seemed like coexistence amongst the two cultures may not actually exist in reality. Finding my way further inside this enclave and conducting interviews is the only solution to attempt to answer this question.
Final Thoughts:
As I stated earlier, this research may focus on the specific neighborhood of West Ridge/West Devon Avenue and second-generation Indian and Pakistani immigrants, but it can be applied on a much larger scale.
Transnationalism is defined as the “multiple ties and interactions linking people and institutions across the borders of nation-states” (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization). The data obtained from this visual sociology of West Devon Avenue is evidence in favor of this social phenomenon. The clear mix of cultures in this area, from American and Indian cultures to Indian and Pakistani cultures, shows that the barriers that hold nations apart or pit them against each other are coming down. For the latter, this may not be as evident in India or Pakistan itself, but the fact that the Indian-Pakistani ties are being mended in the United States shows that we are on track for further transnationalism. As we move into the future and these barriers continue to fall, the world may fully evolve into a melting pot without distinct ethnic or racial identities.
In addition, this research shows the unique situation that faces many immigrants to the United States. They often have to adapt their beliefs, values, prejudices, etc. to the new environments that they are a part of in order to escape the inherent immigrant feeling of being an outsider or to fully thrive in this new place, ultimately causing assimilation and a hyphened American identity to be formed.
Information about this research: This research was conducted for a ten-week seminar on the Visual Sociology of Chicago at Northwestern University by a college freshman. The purpose of the research was to study an aspect of a neighborhood in Chicago that seemed particularly interesting using visual sociological methods.
Works Cited:
Ashutosh, Ishan. 2008. “RE-Creating the Community: South Asian Transnationalism on Chicago’s Devon Avenue.” Journal of Urban Geography Volume 29 (Issue 3): 224–245.
Bacon, Jean L. 1996. Life Lines: Community, Family, and Assimilation among Asian Indian Immigrants. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Griswold, Wendy. 2013. Cultures and Societies in a Changing World. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Inc.
Kibria, Nazli. 1997. “The construction of ‘Asian American’: Reflections on Intermarriage and Ethnic Identity among Second-Generation Chinese and Korean Americans.” Ethnic and Racial Studies Volume 20 (Issue 3): 523–544.
Livezy, Lowell W. 2000. Communities and Enclaves: Where Jews, Christians, Hindus, and Muslims Share the Neighborhoods. New York, NY: New York University Press.
Tillman, Benjamin F. and Emmett, Chad F. 1999. “Spatial Succession of Sacred Space in Chicago.” Journal of Cultural Geography Volume 18 (Issue 2): 79–108.
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. “Trans-nationalism.” Retrieved Mar. 15, 2015 (http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/themes/international-migration/glossary/trans-nationalism/).
