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September, 2007
Helen Zia traces the evolution of Asian Americans from a politically impotent ethnic group into a mature and influential voice in her new book, "Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People." The 48-year-old daughter of Chinese immigrants uses her personal journey as activist and writer to chronicle the transformation. "Our demographics and achievements, trials and tribulations,...
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September, 2007
Iris Bedenfield serves up red hots and maternal advice at Mandy's Grill, 743 S. Kedzie Ave. A divorced mother of two, Bedenfield, 41, is a longtime West Sider whose parents opened the grill in 1962. There's weariness in her voice as she talks about crime in her North Lawndale neighborhood. In April, she attended yet another funeral for a friend's child lost to violence.
"It's sad, it's...
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September, 2007
At 48, Lonnie G. Bunch is making history.
As the new president of the Chicago Historical Society, he is the first African American to head one of the city's major non-ethnic museums.
But Bunch does not emphasize the historic significance of his role. Instead, he dwells on the significance of history. For Bunch, history is a way of life.
"I'm an historian first and foremost," he...
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September, 2007
Long before the disputed election count in Florida, the year 2000 witnessed another rancorous feud over numbers. Chicago officials and the U.S. Census Bureau sparred over who was at fault for the city's sluggish start to the 22nd decennial census.
Less than 52 percent of Chicago households had mailed in their census forms by late April, worse than the 54.3 percent mailed back a decade ago....
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September, 2007
Sandra Otaka was widely praised for her legal and community work long before she became a Cook County judge. But "her first priority is that she's Jeffrey's mom, and that's what's so powerful about her," says Linda Lu, president of the Asian American Bar Association of Greater Chicago. (Photo by Christopher B. Santiago)
Sandra Otaka wasn't going to leave anything to chance. It was March 19, the...
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September, 2007
Marilyn Miller was 12 when she and her family arrived in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood during the hot and muggy summer of 1967. Looking for better job opportunities, they moved from the Lac du Flambeau Chippewa reservation in northern Wisconsin under a federal program known as relocation that offered stipends to American Indians who wanted to move from reservations into cities starting in 1952...
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September, 2007
Jeff Abbey Maldonado (Photo by Mary Hanlon)
Jeff Abbey Maldonado was 19 when he started looking for books that would help him understand what it meant to be Native American.
The problem was that he couldn't find anything about contemporary people like him, living in a city like Chicago.
"We have all this history, but what about information and writings on what we're like today–"what...
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September, 2007
Marilyn Miller (Photo by Mary Hanlon)
It is important to Marilyn Miller that her children understand, maintain and participate in their Native American culture. "It's up to us to protect our cultural integrity," she said. "We have to stand up and quit playing the victim role. We must become more active and initiate getting the services we need."
Miller, 47, whose Chippewa name is...
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September, 2007
In 1828, President John Quincy Adams wrote in his diary about meeting with a group of Cherokee Indians to negotiate a treaty. He was impressed with an elder member of the tribe named Sequoyah, who had created an alphabet for the Cherokees' spoken language. Adams wrote that Sequoyah had rendered a great service to his people in "opening them to a new fountain of knowledge."
Jill Lepore...
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