Leaders in Oak Lawn and Evergreen Park daily are proving that diversity is not a threat, but rather a reality to be embraced if a community is to prosper and grow.
“We are becoming, both as a nation and a region, an increasingly diverse place comprising primarily people considered racial minorities,” said John Lukehart, vice president of the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities, an open-housing advocacy group in Chicago.
Far too often people identify diversity and its effect on long-standing white communities as a breakdown in the levels and kinds of standards and amenities that were once taken for granted, Lukehart said.
“Communities that are proactive about building bridges . . . are more successful than those who . . . don’t address the issue [of living among diverse populations].”
The challenge of building those bridges is being addressed in Oak Lawn and Evergreen Park, where the status quo has been shifting in a number of ways.
“When I came here in 1994, the community was just beginning to change demographically, and the biggest change was not the one everyone talks about, which is white to black. It was from old to young,” said Pastor Joseph Alfred, who heads Immanuel United Church of Christ, 9815 S. Campbell Ave., Evergreen Park. He is a member of the Evergreen Park Ministerial Association, an organization of church leaders from different faiths. The Ministerial Association was founded in 1990 by the Evergreen Park Chamber of Commerce, said Art Hornberg, a former chamber.
Another change has been the integration of both communities — whose residents primarily were white and of European ancestry — with African-Americans, Arab-Americans, Asians and Hispanics.
Comparisons between racial breakdowns in 1990 and recent local projections illustrate a slowly changing population. According to the 1990 U.S. Census, Evergreen Park’s population was 96.5 percent white, 0.4 percent African-American, 2.1 percent Hispanic and 1.1 other racial/ethnic categories. Oak Lawn’s numbers were similar: 96.5 percent white, 0.1 percent African-American, 2.2 percent Hispanic and 1.2 percent other.
These numbers have shifted some over the last 10 years, with the greatest change happening in the last two years, said Evergreen Park Mayor Anthony Vacco.
Evergreen Park doesn’t have updated census information yet, but Vacco believes the number of residents who are African-American and Hispanic has increased.
In Oak Lawn, an updated census taken in 1999 reflects the following community composition, said Jeanine Shotas, the village’s Community Development Block Grant administrator: 98 percent white, 0.2 percent African-American, 1.5 percent Asian and 2 percent Hispanic.
Shotas added that these numbers do not represent some minorities completely because Arab-Americans are usually counted as white in a census.
In 1980, Evergreen Park created a community consortium to help residents old and new make a peaceful transition.
“There was high anxiety regarding the race issue, and the Evergreen Park Ministerial Association . . . a group of clergy and lay people, got together to address the demographic changes of the community. An important part of that was race,” Alfred said.
“We are a changing community, and we had people moving in who we felt might not feel comfortable — maybe because of their race or political affiliation — approaching us. We wanted to open things up,” said Jim Sexton, Evergreen Park village clerk.
Sexton and members of the association created a number of avenues through which longtime and new residents could meet, ask questions, voice their concerns and dismantle their assumptions.
An information fair, called Evergreen Insights, was set up for new residents. Businesses, banks, schools, churches and some area organizations convened to welcome new residents and show their commitment to the village. Representatives from each village department were on hand to tell new residents how best to access city services. The association also fashioned activities resembling the unity dinners created by Chicago’s Commission on Human Relations. Evergreen Park called its dinners Community Conversations. There have been four since 1997.
“We wanted to raise the issues, address the fears and dispel the stereotypes by putting together a number of people from various races, ethnic groups and cultures,” said the Rev. Dale A. Lawson, the oncology chaplain at Little Company of Mary Hospital and a member of the alliance.
The only rules for the dinners are honesty and reconciliation, Lawson said.
“We talked about relationships with neighbors, schools, taxes and other things that make Evergreen Park a good place to live,” Alfred said.
Evergreen Park’s non-solicitation ordinance was yet another tool that village officials used to protect residents from the “block-busting” tactics often associated with rapid racial turnover.
The ordinance protects residents who have signed a statement on the back of water bills or who have sent notice to the village of their participation. Any salesperson or company who places a cold call to a participating resident will be advised to cease further contact or risk legal repercussions.
“I believe a home is a person’s castle, and things have gone overboard with all the calls from salespeople trying to sell a mortgage, home improvements or some other service,” Sexton said. “It’s not just Realtors, though they are the ones taking us to court.”
The village’s non-solicitation ordinance is being contested by the South/Southwest Association of Realtors in Palos Heights, which declined to comment on the dispute.
Oak Lawn wanted to open the community to people of diverse backgrounds but preferred to forgo the legal headaches of a non-solicitation ordinance, Shotas said. The village also wanted to qualify for Community Development Block Grants and other federal and state funds that often flow more freely to diverse communities.
The village accomplished both goals in 1991 when it established a Fair Housing Commission. The commission was created to level the buying, selling, and leasing field for people of various backgrounds and abilities.
The commission’s primary function is to demystify for landlords and real estate agents the web of housing laws, said Chairwoman Mary Ellen Stalker.
Once a year, the commission holds seminars to enlighten buyers, renters, landlords and real estate agents about their rights and obligations according to federal fair housing laws.
The churches and schools in Evergreen Park and Oak Lawn also reach out to their ever-evolving communities.
St. Bernadette Catholic Church, 9343 S. Francisco Ave., Evergreen Park, has a large number of Filipino parishioners. The first Wednesday of the month, the Rev. Kurt Boras holds a mass for this community. The mass usually is said in English, but the choir frequently sings hymns in Tagalog, the official language of the Philippines.
St. Bernadette’s also hosts a Christmas ceremony called Sambaing Gabi for its Filipino parishioners. During Sambaing Gabi, parishioners tour nine area parishes, dine on pot-luck meals and worship in a bilingual mass conducted jointly by Boras and another priest of Filipino descent.
The Lighthouse Church, 9841 S. 55th Ave. in Oak Lawn, has never been anything but multicultural in its 23 years of existence, the Rev. Dan Willis said. “We live in a contemporary environment,” Willis said. “People, be they black, white, Hispanic or otherwise, no longer elect to raise their children or live their lives in segregated communities. Those walls are down, and people are coming together.”
Willis’ congregation, which holds three services each Sunday, has an ever-growing youth presence and a mentoring program to serve them.
It’s not unusual, Willis said, to find a white youth being counseled by an African-American adult or vice versa. Youth are matched to the most appropriate coach based on the needs of the child and the experience of the adult.
The church also is home of the Lighthouse Pentecostals of Chicago Mass Choir, a multicultural group. Educators at Evergreen Park Community High School and Oak Lawn Community and Harold L. Richards High Schools in Oak Lawn say their diversifying communities of students stress the need for two priorities: helping students feel comfortable with their differences and teaching them to be tolerant of those differences.
Each school holds a festival to honor all students and their ethnic backgrounds. A respect for America’s diversity of colors and cultures also spills over into the curriculum at the schools.
