Although Native American Chicagoans play a central role in the social fabric of the city, relatively little attention has been directed to documenting the experiences of racial discrimination and inequities for Native American Chicagoans. In this report, we examine the state of racial justice for Native Americans in Chicago. Our report is organized across five substantive areas, Population, Housing, (Mis)Representations of American Indians in Popular Culture, Education, Economics, and Justice, each focusing on a different aspect of racial equity. In each section, we draw on available data to describe the current conditions and experiences of Native American Chicagoans, including areas where they are thriving and areas where they are negatively affected by the legacy of racial exclusion as well as ongoing discrimination.
Relatively little attention has been directed to documenting the experiences of racial discrimination and inequities for Asian Americans in Chicago. In this report, we examine the state of racial justice for Asian Americans in Chicago. The data in this report illustrate the diverse and often divergent experiences of Asian Chicagoans who have to navigate the complexity and contradiction of model minority and forever foreigner stereotypes. Asian Americans are both imagined as hard working and high achieving, and at the same time are often treated as permanent outsiders. A central finding of this report is that while diversity is a defining characteristic of this pan-ethnic group, racial inequities affect the opportunities and life experiences of all Asian American Chicagoans.
Chicago’s largest racial and ethnic groups—blacks, Latinxs, and whites—each makes up roughly one-third of the city’s population. As this report reveals, these groups generally live in separate neighborhoods and have divergent experiences when it comes to housing, economics, usage of bad credit loans, education, justice, and health. Capturing life in Chicago today is in many ways a tale of three cities.
The central finding of this report is that racial and ethnic inequities in Chicago remain pervasive, persistent, and consequential. These inequities affect the lives of Chicagoans in every neighborhood; they have not just spatial but also deep historical roots and are embedded in our social, economic, political, and cultural institutions; and they have powerful effects on the experiences and opportunities of all Chicagoans.