”Where else but Uptown can you find evidence of so many diverse groups of people!”
Thus exclaims Rev. Peter Tran, associate director of the Indo-Chinese Catholic Center and an Uptown resident since 1981.
The Vietnamese-American cites writer Studs Terkel`s similar impression of Uptown. ”He called it the `United Nations of Chicago.` Here you see all races and nationalities-Hispanic, white, black, Asian, American Indian. We are one community the best way we know how,” Father Tran says.
Father Tran, 35, is himself nationally diverse. His paternal grandfather and father, both North Vietnamese carpenters, and other family members fled to Laos in the 1940s to escape Communist rule. But followed by religious and political oppression, the devout Catholic family moved to Thailand. ”It was sort of a forced, `Go west, young man,` ” the multilingual priest says of his family history.
During this same period, Father Tran`s mother`s family escaped Vietnam by the same route. In Thailand, defined in Thai as ”land of the free,” his mother and father met, married and reared five children. He is the third of four sons.
As a teenager, the Thailand-born Vietnamese felt a vocation to minister to the Southeast-Asian community in which he lived, and to bring honor to his family by joining the priesthood. But in 1971, while he was studying at a Thailand seminary, violent new political conflict broke out and the Tran family decided to leave the country.
This time they moved farther west than either set of grandparents had ever dreamed-to the United States, through the help of various charitable agencies. Two years later Father Tran resumed his religious studies. By 1981 he had earned a degree in theology from Holy Redeemer College in Waterford, Wis., and a graduate degree in human services from Mt. St. Alphonsus, a seminary in Esopus, N.Y. He was ordained in 1981.
By then he spoke fluent English in addition to Thai, Laotian and Vietnamese. His linguistic skills made him a natural choice to help provide pastoral and practical services to the waves of Southeast Asians who had been pouring into the U.S., especially after the fall of Saigon in 1975.
He was assigned in 1981 to St. Michael`s Church, 1633 N. Cleveland Ave., and, at the same time, to St. Thomas of Canterbury Church, 4827 N. Kenmore Ave., to aid the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago in offering spiritual and practical help to thousands of Indo-Chinese immigrants and refugees being settled in Uptown by charitable organizations based there. Most Indo-Chinese refugees were so-called boat people, who fled by boat to places such as Hong Kong, Macao, Thailand and Australia after escaping through the jungle or swimming across the Mekong River. Other immigrants left under an orderly departure program approved by the government.
Many live in Uptown and contingent neighborhoods because prospects of affordable housing and jobs seemed better there, says Virginia Koch, administrator of international refugee services at Travelers & Immigrants Aid, a nonprofit private agency that helps settle refugees and immigrants. New groups of immigrants followed the late 1970s influx, to be near friends and relatives already living in the area. ”It`s easier to network among your own people, those who speak your language and know your customs. Every group of immigrants and refugees does the same thing,” Koch says.
This opportunity for people to live among their own also has been Uptown`s attraction for at least four decades. ”The American Indians started to group here when the U.S. government moved them off reservations in the 1950s,” says George Atkins, chief of staff for Ald. Helen Shiller (46th).
”Appalachian coal miners followed each other when mines shut down between 1960 and 1974. Blacks, Uptown`s largest population, and Hispanics moved here for affordable housing when gentrification pushed them out of the West Side in the mid-1970s.
”It`s one of the few integrated areas in Chicago where people with different backgrounds can feel comfortable.”
To be nearer its Uptown flock, the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago established the Indo-Chinese Center at St. Thomas of Canterbury Church in 1985. At that time, Father Tran, as associate director, became part of a team of four-one other priest and two lay people-to help counsel Indo-Chinese Catholics having difficulty starting a new life in America.
”Because of my own experiences I know the backgrounds of the major Indo- Chinese communities. I can work with Laotians, Hmongs, ethnic Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai, many of them (former) village people. I speak their language. I know what`s going on,” says Father Tran, whose missionary work takes him to small towns throughout the Midwest where immigrants and refugees were settled.
Amid economic disappointments and the difficulties of keeping a family together in a place with no semblance of Southeast Asian culture, most refugees have found religious events a stabilizing influence among
uncertainties, as well as a way to feel visible in a strange country. For example, Father Tran points to the May Crowning, a yearly event which has taken on a new meaning in their new land.
”Adults and children in traditional costumes parade through Uptown walking and singing and carrying a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They feel strongly that her intercession helped them get here, and their devotions to her add a thankful religious flavor,” he explains. He notes that the fervent thankfulness often reminds Americans that these are freedoms they`ve always enjoyed.
More constant signs of Asian influence in the neighborhood are the small restaurants and grocery stores filled with ethnic rice, fish sauce, lemon grass and tropical fruits. ”Asians are creating a market for tropical fruits: durian, mangos, lychees, papaya. Right now there are close to 6 million Asian refugees in the U.S. and close to 25,000 in Illinois,” Father Tran says.
A walk along the streets of Uptown will show this Asian influence-indeed, the influence of all the community`s ethnic groups.
Many store windows display at least one ao dai, a form of a traditional dress made of cotton, or a sinh mai, a silk shirt. Both are worn by Laotian and Cambodian women. (Generally, men wear western garb except at some religious celebrations, Father Tran says.) Another store is filled with American Indian crafts, such as pottery, beads and pictures. Such unique items as a flywhisk woven out of horse hair are for sale in the Ethiopan Community Association headquarters, 4554 N. Broadway. Cotton is woven into cloth on a loom and turned into fashion and household accessories also for sale at the Laos Service Center, 4750 N. Sheridan Rd.
”I have asked the Laotians to make my prayer shawl,” says Father Tran, who appreciates their fine handiwork.
On New Year`s Day fireworks chase away demons and colorful dragons dance. This event is celebrated at least four times in Uptown: the traditional Jan. 1, in February by Vietnamese, in April by Laotians and Cambodians and in September by Ethiopians.
The music heard in the community is as diverse as the population, from the gospel music ringing out in black churches to the plucking of a karaf in the Ethiopian community.
”Characteristics of each Asian group are so different from one another there is no one word at present to represent them except perhaps `serious-minded` or `loyal` or `family-centered,` words you can use to describe other groups living here, too,” Father Tran says.
Looking back at seven years of working in Uptown, he sees the slow process of acculturation from what Indo-Chinese themselves have acccomplished. ”Many people who were at the beginning of a new life, yet anguished over the past like a child, are doing quite well economically. They are concerned citizens helping not only their own but others.”
Many people still live in poverty, hang on to the past and refuse to face present problems, Father Tran says. But he also can cite people like Souma Phosaraj, manager of the Uptown Recycling Station, 4716 N. Sheridan Rd., as someone from one of the oldest cultures in the world who has adjusted to one of the newest.
Four years ago the Laotian refugee began bringing aluminum cans, old newspapers and glass to the nonprofit organization, which had been set up as a resource of work and cash for the poor. ”Now he runs it and knows by name the people of all colors and religions who come in,” Father Tran says.
”Working there has been good for him and for the community at the same time. That`s what acculturation and neighborhood are all about.”
