Julian Jarmuz — An Immersive Week in Chicago
Immersion week didn’t really spark anything deep within me personally at first. I’m white, grew up in a quiet home in a quiet neighborhood, and have neither the experiences or familiarity with what these communities and people are facing to really understand their need to keep their neighborhoods alive and in balance with their cultures. My neighborhood, my home, will probably be the same in 50 years, but the same cannot be said for the communities we visited over the past week. But it is through seeing these fights to preserve communities that I’ve gained a greater sense of appreciation towards my home and where I grew up, as well as opened my eyes to the importance of defending who you are and where you came from.
Humboldt Park, I felt, had the most obvious clash between “white savvy neighborhood” and “preservation of Boricua”. That’s where the battle to preserve identity is happening now, unlike Wicker Park or maybe even West Garfield where its either too late or not there yet. And thus, it felt different than the other neighborhoods, in both the tours and when visiting them after. It felt like Humboldt Park is its own little world, but with a Death Star looming closer and closer to it. Upon visiting Humboldt Park over the weekend at their music/food festival, it did not come as a surprise to me that everyone had a flag over their shoulder, and I even got to listen to a speech by both the mayor and a community representative about the importance of keeping Humboldt Park as the center of Puerto Ricans in Chicago.
Getting to see this sort of sparked a long-lasting internal debate about who I am and where I’m from. I’m a first gen American in my family from Poland and have never really known how to identify myself. I’m not the greatest Polish speaker, or reader, or writer, and so I never really recognized myself as a real Polish person. Then I see this community, a lot of whom have been born in the area or in the States in general, waving the Puerto Rican flags like they’ve been living there their entire lives. And so, I think, maybe it is okay to be proud of your heritage even if you never got to directly experience it. Maybe it is okay to be proud of not just where YOU are from, but where your roots are from. My biggest takeaway from seeing such a community like Humboldt Park and its people in action is that my culture has played a bigger part in my growing up and sense of being even if I was never even in Poland, and it’s okay to accept that. I’ll probably be visiting Chicago’s Polish events more often, as even if it feels like I’m a bit of a half-blood there, chances are a good chunk of the people are just like me.
