Edgy about `yuppies'

The 1966 riots actually took place in West Town, not Humboldt Park. And as with the rioting in North Lawndale after Martin Luther King's assasination, West Town has never fully recovered. Many Puerto Ricans left West Town after the riots. By 1990, there were only 22,282 Puerto Ricans in West Town, while there were 25,666 in Logan Square, according to the census. The riots spurred an outmigration of residents that was only stemmed by a large influx of Mexican immigrants. Ironically, West Town is more a Mexican, than Puerto Rican community. By 1990, there were 27,924 residents of Mexican origin in West Town. In yet another irony, the economic resurgence that has taken place in West Town has been fueled by the very yuppies that some fear.

Ed - is this the Eduardo Camacho from Chicago, IL?

Eduardo Camacho wrote:

The 1966 riots actually took place in West Town, not Humboldt Park. And as with the rioting in North Lawndale after Martin Luther King's assasination, West Town has never fully recovered. Many Puerto Ricans left West Town after the riots. By 1990, there were only 22,282 Puerto Ricans in West Town, while there were 25,666 in Logan Square, according to the census. The riots spurred an outmigration of residents that was only stemmed by a large influx of Mexican immigrants. Ironically, West Town is more a Mexican, than Puerto Rican community. By 1990, there were 27,924 residents of Mexican origin in West Town. In yet another irony, the economic resurgence that has taken place in West Town has been fueled by the very yuppies that some fear.

First of all, Mr Camacho, the 1966 Division Street Riots did begin on Division and Damen, which is geographically considered West Town and extended all the way to California Avenue at the entrance of the actual park of Humboldt Park. However, the area beginning at Western Ave. has been considered from the beginning of the Puerto Rican migration in the 1940's until now as Humboldt Park. The power of popular collective imagination can be more powerful than many times meaningless political-geographic boundaries. Everyone knows "West Town" as Bucktown, Wicker Park, Echart Park and not as West Town.

Furthermore, the 1966 riots did not spur the emigration of Puerto Ricans from Humboldt Park and West Town, where did you get that information. Whether there were more Mexicans in West Town than Boricuas does not take away peoples power view of West Town as a historical Puerto Rican community. Also Mexicans never developed cultural and political institutions, festivities, and organizations in the area like Boricuas did, which helped solidify it as a Puerto Rican area as Humboldt Park is now despite the large Mexican, Black, and yuppie population.