Humboldt Park - No longer a Puerto Rican nieghborhood (Chicago: to move, suburbs)

[packmanbears]

Originally Posted by James_Carmona

Humboldt Park is no longer a prodimenietly Puerto Rican neighborhood. I grew up around Austin on the other side of the tracks from Humboldt Park. I'm from Puerto Rican decent myself so I can tell you from experience. When I was growing up I remember that it looked so much different from what it does today. I remember you could walk down Division and North Avenue and almost every store had a Puerto Rican flag in it. Spanish advertisement, Puerto Rican music. But that was way back in the late 80s. Now ever since around the mid and late 90s the neighborhood has changed so much its amazing. The neighborhood is alot cleaner, alot nicer, the park is cleaned up, new buildings, less open lots, less crime. Ever since around that Ive known literally hundreds and hundreds of Puerto Rican families who have left the area, and every year hundreds if not thousands more leave.

Today, I read somewhere that Puerto Ricans make up only around 10 percent of the neighborhood, when a decade ago they used to be the majority. Today Mexicans and Whites are flooding into Humboldt Park. Back than I couldn't remember that many Mexicans in Humboldt Park and you almost never saw a white person. But today Mexicans outnumber Puerto Ricans by a couple thousand, and whites are starting to outnumber Puerto Ricans as well.

My opinion is, its amazing how so much changed within a decade. I honestly don't really care much about Humboldt Park being Puerto Rican or not since its not really the greatest place to live in anyways.

Where has the puerto rican population gone, have they left the city and gone to the suburbs?

[Humboldt1]

Many puerto ricans have gone to subirbs like elmwood park and other inner burbs.

I think puerto ricans are around 10 percent but whites are not more than 5-10 percent, with most east of the park.

Humboldt Park is fairly segregated by race, with hispanics mostly north of grand and almost all black south of grand. The densest parts of humboldt park are the hispanic areas.

There are almost no vacancies on my block just east of pulaski near north avenue. 2 vacant buildings on the entire block with one building in the process of being rented out.

Around chicago and avers it is a totally different neighborhood. While my block is over 90 percent hispanic (even mix of puerto rican and mexican and central american)

I don't see Humboldt Park having significant white population anytime soon. What I do see happening is more and more mexicans and fewer puerto ricans. Humboldt Park has strong puerto rican population but is more mexican now.

[mas23]

Question: How many have moved to Aurora?? Seems like Aurora has quite a few Puerto Ricans. They even have a Puerto Rican Festival there in the summer.

mas23

[James_Carmona]

Originally Posted by Chicagoland60426

I will guess Humboldt Park is about 20% Puerto Rican

Here are the zip codes and demographics that covers Humboldt Park, Logan Square, and West Town(Wicker Park). This is 10 year old data btw

60651(I think Austin and Humboldt Park)-77,583

70.6% Black
13.5% Mexican
10.3% Puerto Rican
2.4% White

60622(most/all of Wicker Park and the park of Humboldt Park)-76,015

40% White
23.8% Mexican
16.3% Puerto Rican
10.9% Black

60647(Logan Square and a little bit of Humboldt)- 98,769

33.4% Mexican
24.2% Puerto Rican
23.1% White
9% Other Latino
6.8% Black

So it looks like Mexicans are the largest hispanic group in all of Chicago, even in self proclaimed Boricua HP. I think the reasons its consider Puerto Rican because of the PR flag poles and the festivals.

That being 10 years ago those percentages for Puerto Ricans has dropped at-least by 5 percent in each category if not more, and the white and Mexican percentages have gone up.

As a Puerto Rican myself from Chicago, from the Austin neighborhood. I've seen that alot of Puerto Rican families have moved to the East Coast, some went to Milwaukee, some went to different areas of the city like Avondale or more North Side, some went towards South Side, alot of them have migrated to the suburbs, and Ive known some that have also moved back to Puerto Rico.

Even with all that Puerto Rican migration out of Humboldt Park, the Puerto Rican community still has a presence there today, even though its not as it strong as it once was.

[Chicagoland60426]

Originally Posted by mas23

Question: How many have moved to Aurora?? Seems like Aurora has quite a few Puerto Ricans. They even have a Puerto Rican Festival there in the summer.

mas23

According to 2005-2009 estimates, Aurora has 2,700 residents of Puerto Rican heritage. But apparently them estimates for Aurora population is wrong and the city has 25,000 residents more in 2010 census than 2009 estimates. There are about 82,000 hispanics in Aurora and probably at most 4,000 of them are Puerto Rican. East Chicago, IN estimated to be 8.5% Puerto Rican; the highest I can find outside of Westside/NW Chicago. Waukegan and Cicero have a Puerto Rican presence in the same numerical range too, along with a Central American(primarily from Hondura) population in the thousands as well.

I have been wondering for a minute why Chicagoland is so dominated by one Hispanic nationality(Mexican)? Even though NYC is known for being a Puerto Rican hub as far as latinos go, in reality they only make up no more than one-third of the city and state latino community. Same with Miami and Florida in relations to Cubans. For being in the Midwest, Illinois have a helluva lot of Mexicans, the most outside the Southwest/west region. There are 2.027 million hispanics in this state and about 78% of them are of Mexican heritage. Its to the point where whenever I meet a hispanic, my initial assumption is he or she is Mexican. Only if the person has visible African traits, then I assume he or she is Puerto Rican or simply a product of a black/white IRR. I know it stereotypical, but what the hell. A near 80% chance I'm going to be right.

[Irishtom29]

Originally Posted by Chicagoland60426

I have been wondering for a minute why Chicagoland is so dominated by one Hispanic nationality(Mexican)?

Simple enough, there are a great many Mexicans: the population of Mexico is the largest of any Spanish speaking nation (including Spain). And Mexico is close and poor. There's an old saying "Poor Mexico; so far from God and so close to The United States".

[HeyItzKenKen]

Originally Posted by James_Carmona

Today, I read somewhere that Puerto Ricans make up only around 10 percent of the neighborhood, when a decade ago they used to be the majority. Today Mexicans and Whites are flooding into Humboldt Park. Back than I couldn't remember that many Mexicans in Humboldt Park and you almost never saw a white person. But today Mexicans outnumber Puerto Ricans by a couple thousand, and whites are starting to outnumber Puerto Ricans as well.

Well what ever you read isnt accurate at all because as far as anyone who's lived in Humboldt Park such as myself knows that Puerto-Ricans still make the majority and Whites a very small minority.

[Chi-town Native]

Originally Posted by Irishtom29

Yeah, but now they're calling Wicker Park "Humboldt Park East".

Worth an extra "ha!"

[Humboldt1]

More Mexicans in Humboldt Park than whites. Sizable black population and very small white population. More Mexican as you go west of the park, especially by pulaski.

[quigboto]

There has, however, been an upswing in hipster sightings in the area west of the park. And no, they were not being hunted like wild game (yet)