Chicago has always been a sanctuary for the dispossessed of the world.
As early as the 1830s, Polish noblemen and refugees from the Polish-Russian War of 1830-1831, who had fought to regain Poland’s independence from Russian rule, made their way to the new settlement on the banks of the Chicago River.
In the 1840s and 1850s, Irish fleeing the terror of the Great Famine settled in a city that welcomed them and employed them in, at first, poor-paying jobs. They, like so many others after them, worked their way up the ladder of upward mobility.
After the failed 1848 revolutions in Europe, emigrants from Germany, Bohemia, and other countries fled persecution and arrived on the shores of Lake Michigan. Polish, Jewish, Italian and other Eastern and Southern Europeans fleeing their homelands soon joined these Irish and German immigrants on the streets of Chicago. Many came for economic opportunity, but many fled oppression from war, pogroms and famine.
African Americans fleeing the horrors of American slavery in the South made their way to Chicago, among other places in the North, on the Underground Railroad before the Civil War. The city welcomed all of these and more. Czech intellectuals persecuted in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Polish revolutionaries, Irish nationalists fleeing British tyranny — all arrived in the city on the lake.
The history of immigration to the United States in general and Chicago in particular is filled with many such stories. These newcomers were often not trusted. How could African Americans blend into Northern white society? How could immigrants with unpronounceable names, strange languages and religions such as Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Judaism be absorbed into American society as it then existed?
Prejudice and blame side-by-side with welcome
Could these newcomers be trusted? Were they agents of some popish plot to destroy American Protestantism? Were they part of an international Jewish conspiracy? Chicagoans, like other native-born white Protestant Americans, worried about these issues.
When the Great Chicago Fire took place, it was easy to blame the Irish. Poor Mrs. O’Leary, asleep in her cottage at the time the fire broke out, was blamed for the blaze because she was Irish, an immigrant, a Catholic and a woman.
Another wild speculation was that the fire was started by French Communards attempting to revenge their lost revolutionary goals in their homeland. Why not? After all, Paris had burned earlier that year.
Today’s Chicagoans, like many other Americans, are not without similar prejudices. Witness the anti-Muslim activity after Sept. 11, consider antisemitic crimes and incidents over the last few years and the constant outrage of prejudice against Black and Brown people.
Yet the city has also provided sanctuary throughout its history. Chicago provided a welcoming place for the disenfranchised, whether from the Mexican Revolution in the early 20th century, displaced persons after World War II, Vietnamese refugees after that tragic war, or today for those fleeing violence, famine, environmental disasters or gender prejudice. Chicago has always found a place for the dispossessed, even if not all Chicagoans agreed to provide that solace. It has always been a sanctuary city.
Now Chicago faces an administration in Washington, D.C., that would do away with the very concept of sanctuary. The Trump administration, which celebrates its religiosity, has forgotten or simply ignored the basic Judeo-Christian value of welcoming the stranger.
It is paramount that cities such as Chicago, New York and all the others that are called to be sanctuaries maintain their historic posture and welcome those in need. The tradition of setting a plate for the stranger at a meal is one that spans several religious traditions. After all, we were all once strangers in a strange land — and may yet be again.
Dominic A. Pacyga is the author of several books on the history of Chicago. His latest book, “Clout City: The Rise and Fall of Chicago’s Political Machine,” will be published by the University of Chicago Press this coming fall.
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