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Padma Rangaswamy 17 Devon Avenue: A World Market THROUGH THE HEART ofChicago’s50thward runs Devon Avenue, carrying the commercial lifeblood of a multicultural neighborhood known as the “international marketplace.”1 Devon Avenue is the popular moniker, especially among South Asian immigrants, for what is called West Ridge in the Chicago community area maps and West Rogers Park by many Chicagoans. Devon Avenue’s international flavor is evident in its variety of shops and its 22 honorary street names from around the globe, such as Gandhi Marg, Golda Meir Boulevard, King Sargon Boulevard, Mohammed Ali Jinnah Way, Mother Teresa Way, and Sheik Mujib Way. As many as 52 languages are spoken in this area.2 Undertheinternationalumbrella,themanyethnic groups not only cling to their own cultural peculiarities but also cater to them and make a living from them in the local shops, houses of worship, and service centers. As pluralism goes, this may be the finest example of how the Many can co-exist without fusing indistinguishably into the One. Devon Avenue reflects Chicago in its demographic changes, interethnic relations, globalization , and neighborhood concerns. Demographic shifts throughout the latter half of the twentieth century brought significant social and economic changes. Immediately following World War II, the West Ridge community was occupied by large Jewish and Irish Catholic populations. During the 1970s and 1980s, the post-World War II generation departed as more racially diverse families arrived. The Asian, Latino, and black population of the district rose to 28 percent in 1990 (doubling the 1980figure),withAsiansconstituting17percent of the population, one of the highest in the city (Chicago Fact Book Consortium1995, 42–43). In 2000, 44 percent of West Ridge residents were foreign-born, twice the proportion in 1970. The shift to larger, poorer, and more ethnically diverse families affected local educational and business institutions. Schools became overcrowded and were beset by budgetary shortfalls and challenges posed by non-English speaking children. Clashes between old and new business owners, who were quickly establishing themselves as a permanent presence on Devon Avenue , produced conflict. Crime, safety, and congestion became leading issues, while businesses owners struggled to reinvent their products and services to meet the needs of a shifting clientele. The growth of Devon Avenue east of California Avenue as a major South Asian shopping center specializing in Indian and Pakistani clothing stores, restaurants, groceries, and electronic goods occurred during the 1980s and 1990s, as a result of new immigration from South Asia. Whereas the first wave of immigrants from India had consisted mainly of professionals admitted under preferential quotas of the1965ImmigrationReformAct,arrivalsinthe 1980s and 1990s were mostly nonprofessional relatives sponsored under the family reunificationclauseofthe1965immigrationlaw .Lacking the professional skills of the earlier immigrants, this second group saw a commercial opportunity to provide ethnic goods and services for an established, still-growing South Asian population . They carved a niche for themselves on Devon Avenue, a site that was convenient, 222 Padma Rangaswamy affordable, and available, thanks to the its Jewish population having moved to the suburbs. Thisclaimingofterritorybyanewimmigrant group is a typically Chicagoan phenomenon but, unlike other neighborhoods where immigrant groups could claim something approaching exclusive possession, Devon Avenue became shared territory, where diverse ethnic groups, old-timers and newcomers, jostled for space. Without a dominant voting bloc, the area continues to be represented by a non-Asian, Alderman Bernard Stone, who promotes Devon Avenue as an international rather than a South Asian marketplace. The fallout from this international identity is that City Hall has little interest in improving or reshaping the built environment since, unlike Chinatown or Bronzeville, it does not fall neatly into an identifiable ethnic category. The residents of West Ridge are well aware of these anomalies, which make them a part of Chicago but also distinguish their neighborhood from others. Devon Avenue is also part of a globalized world and, regardless of which of the more commonly understood meanings of the term “globalization ” we consider, they are all at play here. The same converging forces that have shaped Chicago over the last five decades have shaped Devon Avenue, fostering harmony along with tension.Commoneconomicinterestsdrawpeople together, but social, political, and religious institutions encourage narrow ethnic identification and pull people in opposing directions. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, Devon Avenue is a vibrant, functioning neighborhood that could become a model for urban development in a world peopled by diverse immigrants. FROM JEWISH DISTRICT TO WORLD MARKET During the 1950 and 1960s, Jews of Russian and Polish descent...

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