David Olson

MOVIN' ON UP Visiting a growing Latino enclave in the midst of Chicago's ritzy North Shore David Olson Drive north from Chicago along the Lakefront and you'll pass some of the nation's wealthiest suburbs. But, about fifteen miles north of the city, the million-dollar homes and exclusive boutiques are suddenly replaced by modest apartment buildings and houses, and simple stores with names like Novedades Quetzal and Tacos El Norte.

This is Highwood, which has been a working-class enclave on the North Shore since its founding more than a century ago. As before, many town residents work on nearby estates, or at the North Shore's elegant restaurants or country clubs. But today those workers are more likely to be Mexican immigrants, for Highwood, a town of about 5,000 long known for its large Italian population, is now perhaps half Latino. Highwood is hardly the only Chicago suburb experiencing an influx of Latinos. From Waukegan to Cicero to Wheeling to Villa Park, Latinos are an increasing presence.

There are no exact figures as to how many Mexicans and Mexican-Americans there are in the suburbs, but Dante Gomez, who coordinates the communities abroad program for the Mexican consulate in Chicago, estimates that nearly half of the more than one million people of Mexican ancestry living in the Chicago area reside outside the city.

According to the 1990 Census, 24 percent of Highwood's 5,300 residents were Hispanic, but Highwood Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Bruno Bertucci says that, today, about half the residents are Latino. La Union supermarket on Sheridan Road is one of the centers of Mexican immigrant life in Highwood. Mexican food products, Spanish-language magazines and keychains bearing the symbols of Mexican soccer teams line the shelves and racks, tacos are sold from a counter, and colorful pinatas hang from the ceiling.

Hilda Pina, 40, immigrated to the area from the state of Chihuahua in northern Mexico two decades ago. Two years ago--after having worked on an assembly line--she opened La Union. At one time, she had thought of returning to her small town in Mexico, but she eventually bought a house in Highwood and now plans to stay.

"There are more opportunities for my children here," she says, alluding to her son, 18, and daughter, 12. And Pina prefers Highwood to Chicago. "There aren't drugs or alcohol in the schools, and there aren't any gangs here like in Chicago," she says. "The schools are very high-quality and help the Hispanic students a lot."

A smile spreads across her face; Pina says that her son recently graduated from Highland Park High School and will attend the University of Wisconsin at Madison this fall.

Guadalupe Miranda, 33, likes Highwood for the same reason. "I want my daughter to get a good education," says Miranda, who has a 6-year-old daughter and works as a baker at a Highland Park grocery store. Miranda arrived in Highwood from a small town in the southern state of Guerrero ten years ago.

Like Miranda and Pina, most Mexican immigrants in the Chicago area come from small towns or rural areas, Gomez says, and moving directly from an isolated Mexican village to a bustling traditional port-of-entry neighborhood in Chicago such as Pilsen can be a severe shock.

Highwood, though, "is much more tranquil [than Chicago]--it's more like home," says Maribel, 24, who declined to reveal her last name because she is undocumented.

"It's much safer here than in Chicago," adds Javier Solorio, 29. "You can walk around here late at night with no problem."

Of course, the primary reason most people emigrate from Mexico is to escape poverty. "There's more work there, and you earn a lot more money here than there," says Victor, 34, who also is undocumented. Like most other Mexican residents, he heard about Highwood from family or friends who were already working here--in his case, from his cousins. Victor--who is from a small town in Guerrero--works as a dishwasher in an area restaurant and sends money to his parents and wife in Mexico.

"People come in every day to send money to Mexico," says Estela Ramos, 40, a personal banker at Firstar Bank in Highwood who herself emigrated from Mexico in 1971. "They all have families back in Mexico, even if they have their immediate family here." Ramos' father came to Highwood because of the plentiful landscaping work on the North Shore. Initially, he went back to Mexico each winter. But today, most Mexican residents live in Highwood all year, says Antonio Galvan, who, as president of the Highwood Library Board, is the highest-ranking Latino government official in town.

"There's still a group [of landscapers] that comes here in the very early spring and starts to clean up and works through the winter, until they can't do anything outdoors anymore," Galvan says. "But most now stay year round."

In general, more and more Mexican residents are buying homes and settling down in Highwood, he says. And some immigrants are opening their own businesses. "My father and his brothers had their own landscaping business."

In addition to holding her bank job, Ramos owns Estela's Clothing, a store she opened in Highwood three years ago. Mexicans are following the same path as the Italian immigrants of the early 1900s, says Bertucci, the chamber of commerce executive director and the town's unofficial historian.

"It's so similar--it's identical," he says.

Just like the Italians who began coming to Highwood in the early 1900s, Mexicans usually arrive with limited education and little or no English, so they must settle at first for low-paying positions as gardeners, landscapers, dishwashers and buspersons. Gradually, Mexicans are moving into more skilled professions--such as electrical work and plumbing--and opening their own businesses, Bertucci says.

A desire to improve themselves economically, tight-knit families and a strong Catholic religious faith are hallmarks of many Mexican immigrants--as they were of Italians before them.

Some Italians were even "migrant workers," coming to Highwood each spring and summer from their homes in downstate Illinois and in Iowa and Missouri, and going back each winter, Bertucci says. And, he says, just as Mexicans leave their country to escape economic difficulties, Italians left Italy for the same reason, and they migrated to Highwood from small Midwestern towns because the closing of coal mines left them unemployed or underemployed.

And the changes in Highwood's ethnic make-up are nothing new, says Highwood Mayor John Sirotti.

"The Swedes first settled Highwood, and then came the Germans and then the Italians, and now Mexicans are coming here," he says. "I think it's really great that we have so much cultural diversity. To me, it's an advantage."

"You get to know more about different cultures and different people," says Sheila Carani, 54, as she carries a roast chicken to the counter at La Union. "Why live in your own narrow little world?"

Al Pierantoni, 81, thinks some Mexican immigrants don't assimilate enough. But, he says as he works in his front-yard garden just down the street from several businesses catering to the Mexican community, "it's not unlike when my parents came over [from Italy]. They couldn't speak the language well and had a hard time adjusting. There is an overcrowding problem [with Mexican immigrants]--a lot of time you'll see two [entire] families living in two rooms--but it was a problem in my folks' time, too.

"If you get to know them," Pierantoni adds, "they're wonderful, sociable people."

Mexican residents say they feel accepted by Anglos in Highwood. "In general, the populations get along pretty well, and they're trying to understand each other, to acknowledge and recognize each other," says Ramos.

But there have been allegations of insensitivity. A previous city inspector seemed to single out Latino residents for housing-code violations, Galvan says. And the police don't "value" Latinos as much as other residents, he charges. He points to a recent incident in which police did not file a written report about a bar fight in which a Latino resident was hurt. And, he says, there are other, similar incidents that have occurred.

Highwood Police Chief Paul Kolessar acknowledges that a case report was not drawn up on the fight. He says the department is "looking into" the matter," and "if any actions were inappropriate, positive corrective actions will be taken." But there was "an extensive on-the-scene investigation" of the fight, he adds.

And Kolessar says he "would have to categorically deny" that his officers do not treat Latino residents as well as Anglo residents. Shortly after he became chief about six months ago, Kolessar says he began requiring all officers to take cultural diversity classes, and he encourages officers to learn Spanish.

"There are no Hispanics among the eleven full-time police officers, but four of the eight part-timers are Latino," he says.

Kolessar also says that the department is currently recruiting new officers and hopes to have Hispanic officers in the future. But Galvan says the problems go beyond the police department. He is the only major Latino appointed official in Highwood, and there has never been a Latino candidate for elected office. Though Galvan acknowledges that this is largely because relatively few Hispanics vote--many are not citizens, and, thus, are not eligible to vote.

But change will come, he and others agree. Italians, after all, didn't control the town's government until long after they had started moving in large numbers to the town. Both Galvan and Sirotti agree that it's only a matter of time before Mexicans become a force in Highwood's government.

(09/07/2000)


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