Learning About Grandma

            Though I do not have much first-hand experience of what it means to be an immigrant in this country, lately I have been gaining some insight on the European experience of immigration through stories of my grandma’s youth. While Massey and Denton explore the effects of residential segregation and all of its negative repercussions for black individuals, I was able to find a lot of similarities regarding this type of segregation between my own family’s immigrant history.

            It was the early 1900’s and my grandmother’s family moved from Czechoslovakia to Joliet, Illinois. They were very poor and moved into an almost completely black neighborhood thus were certainly considered to be outsiders. The layout of Joliet is relevant to Massey and Denton because it exemplifies the type of racial segregation of neighborhoods. There were rich areas that housed white folks and there were poorer areas where blacks (and evidently my grandma’s family) resided. Though I am not an expert on Joliet’s history, I can be almost certain this segregation came about through methods like redlining, blockbusting, and restrictive covenants which were all legal at the time. Redlining kept blacks in poor black areas through the means of banks refusing loans and insurance to redlined areas. Blockbusting is the idea that real estate agents preyed on racial stereotypes so that when a certain white block started to have one or two black families move in, the whole block quickly transitioned to all black. Although Joliet is not a major urban center, Massey and Denton note that black suburbs replicate problems of the inner city which seems to be evident.

            This meant that a high index of segregation permeated the community. In a neighborhood like my grandmother’s, this index would have been very high, probably around 90. This means that to get an evenly distributed racial makeup, around 90% of the individuals would have to move neighborhoods to achieve this non segregated layout. Furthermore, the neighborhood I have been describing was very concentrated, clustered together, and uneven. Whites typically practiced a strategy of tactical retreat so they would move when they thought black individuals would soon be entering their neighborhood. Strangely, my grandma’s family did not seem to meet these white expectations because they rooted and maintained rooted in a black community. However, this does not mean they were accepted by the community. I find the situations of this white family to be somewhat similar to those of a black family in a white neighborhood. At that time, it was unacceptable for a black family to move in to a white neighborhood and the white individuals made this well-known. They would use violence and terrible tactics to maintain their community’s whiteness. Though my grandmother’s family did not experience violence, they still were an anomaly of the neighborhood. Some community members would chase my grandma home from school quite frequently, probably because her blonde hair made her stick out like a sore thumb. Obviously, this type of occurrence is not nearly as extreme as what black individuals had to deal with but it demonstrates the lack of acceptance and camaraderie between the races despite a common socioeconomic status.

My great grandfather worked for the railroad and my great grandmother made rugs. They were very poor and, as stated, they were outsiders in their neighborhood. An interesting example helps to demonstrate the isolation experienced by individuals living in this poor area. Because my great grandmother made rugs, she needed to sell them. However, she knew that she could make more money if she sold them to richer white people. So regularly she would borrow a family member’s car and drive across town to sell the rugs in the white neighborhoods. The fact that she could not walk down the street to get to these white neighborhoods exemplifies the degree of isolation in black areas. Also apparent is the idea that white families did whatever they could to stay far away from poor, black areas. The segregation was high, even within one city like Joliet. Overall, my grandmother’s story can be considered quite strange. Massey and Denton described that while European immigrants were segregated in their own enclaves at first (which was not the case here), they were quickly able to adapt to the larger society and blend themselves into other white neighborhoods. This was not the case for my relatives. In fact, some distant uncle still lives in the same house, in the same neighborhood, which to this day is considered a very bad part of town. This shows that black neighborhoods tend to not get much better but that they decay and become decrepit without much hope for turn-around.