The
Metropolitan Chicago Initiative (MCI) occupies a spacious office
above a bank in the heart of a small, blue-collar and increasingly
Hispanic suburb just west of Chicago called Berwyn.
The MCI is an arm of Notre Dame's Institute for Latino Studies,
which was created in 1999 to study critical issues facing Latinos
in the United States. If you think of the institute as an earnest
academic entity, then consider the MCI its gruffer kid brother.
It opened its doors almost four years ago with two employees and
now boasts a staff of seven. Its goal from the beginning was not
merely to study the Latino community around it but to improve
it.
With sleeves rolled up, officials at the MCI -- and the various
researchers employed by them at any one time -- are out on the
streets, in apartments and at school board meetings, conducting
surveys and assessments on topics from health care to job growth
to minority education achievement gaps. All this is in an effort
to bring vital social and economic issues as they relate to area
Latinos to the forefront of policy discussions.
Last year, the MCI embarked on its Chicago Area Survey -- believed
to be the most sweeping survey of a Latino community ever conducted
in the Midwest.
Throughout the summer and fall of 2003, the MCI dispatched more
than 40 researchers across Chicago and the surrounding suburbs
in an attempt to gain the most comprehensive portrait ever produced
of the Latinos in the region. The researchers helped 2,300 randomly
selected residents (1,500 Latinos, 400 African Americans and 400
Caucasians) complete a questionnaire the size of football play
book.
The resulting data, officials hope, will produce a powerful
declaration about Chicago-area Latinos and provide answers to
a host of essential questions about them: Who are they? How are
they doing? What do they want? What can they contribute? How do
they fit in?
A number of observers already are applauding the survey and
stressing a similar point regarding this growing population: It's
about time someone found out what they're thinking.
By the middle of this century, roughly one in four persons in
America is expected to be of Hispanic origin. In and around the
Metropolitan Chicago Initiative's home base, Berwyn and the neighboring
suburb of Cicero, this changing demographic has made itself felt.
Between 1990 and 2000, Cicero's Hispanic population more than
doubled to about 66,000, or roughly 76 percent of the town's total
population. In Berwyn, the town's Hispanic population jumped from
3,500 to about 20,500 and now constitutes about 40 percent of
the total population.
The changing demographics in these suburbs are apparent all
around. Just outside Berwyn's small downtown, with its sports
bar and designer coffee shop, sits a Hispanic grocery store and
several restaurants advertising Mexican dishes. Along the town's
tree-lined streets, Hispanic music emanates from passing cars,
while brown-skinned children run across the lawns outside small
brick bungalows and three-story apartment buildings.
It was in such homes that the MCI researchers would help residents
answer a largely multiple-choice survey containing more than 700
questions covering such areas as ethnic relations, living and
work conditions, and political and religious beliefs.
"It was a long questionnaire, and it took a lot of time from
everyone involved," says Tim Ready '73, director of research at
the Institute for Latino Studies. "But it was what we needed to
do to get detailed information."
MCI researchers also asked 1,000 non-Hispanic residents to complete
a separate survey that sought to capture their overall view of
their Latino neighbors. "There seems to be a lot of information
about what African Americans and whites think about each other,"
says Sylvia Puente, MCI director. "But there is not much out there
that tells us what these two groups think about Latinos. It's
all part of our effort to gain a fuller picture of the Hispanic
experience."
The MCI has enlisted the help of about 20 local scholars to
analyze the survey data and help formulate its findings. One of
those scholars is Maria de los Angeles Torres, a professor of
political science at DePaul University in Chicago.
"I'm extremely excited about this initiative," Torres says.
"There is such a lack of information about Latinos in this region.
By obtaining so much valuable data on Midwest Latinos, we're going
to provide a piece to the national puzzle that's been missing."
But will mainstream America care? Torres acknowledges the irony
that has accompanied the Latino population in the United States
-- as it continues to grow bigger, it remains largely without
power. It could be that the Chicago Area Survey will reveal that
lack of power. Indeed, one need not be a statistician to guess
that many Latinos in this country are riding a rough and bumpy
path toward their American Dream.
And yet the fact that the University would devote the time and
resources to taking the pulse of this population leads one to
an equally clear conclusion: It seems wise to learn as much as
we can about the growing Latino population right now -- so we
all can benefit down the road.
Cheever Griffin is a Chicago-based freelance writer.
(October 2004)
