The mix of ethnic groups in Chicago has varied over the history of the city, resulting in a diverse community in the twenty-first century.
(Its members may belong to any race; 21.4% Mexican, 3.8% Puerto Rican, 0.7% Guatemalan, 0.6% Ecuadorian, 0.3% Cuban, 0.3% Colombian, 0.2% Honduran, 0.2% Salvadoran, 0.2% Peruvian)[2] The Guatemalan and Peruvian communities have grown substantially in the 2000s, and some estimates give higher percentages.
Many of them are students and professionals who came to the city to pursue an advanced degree or work for an employer that sponsored their entry into the United States.
[52] Propelled by a desire for economic and political change from hardships in the Russian Empire, Latvians began arriving in Chicago in the late nineteenth century.
It is located at 1618 West Devon Avenue, two blocks east of the Assyrian Pentecostal Church.
[60] In the late 19th century, people from Ottoman Syria, including Muslims from modern day Palestinian territories and historical Palestine and Christians from modern-day Lebanon and Syria, moved to Chicago; at the time people in all three groups were called "Syrians".
In 1893 Syrians who wished to sell products at the Columbian Exposition began arriving to Chicago.
30 Syrian families lived in Chicago at the time World War II started.
[54] Until World War II Muslims from the Palestine area living in Chicago were almost all male, and they sent money to relatives in the Middle East and returned to their mother country to retire.
In the 1970s Muslim Palestinians settled Chicago Lawn and Gage Park, and by the 1980s moved into the following southwest Cook County communities: Alsip, Bridgeview, Burbank, Hickory Hills, Oak Lawn, and Palos Hills.
Iranian ethnic groups represented include Persians, Kurds, Turks, Azeris, and Lurs.
[57] Israelis began coming to Chicago in the 1970s during a period of military conflict and economic issues in Israel.
The Chicago Tribune stated that British citizens are scattered throughout the metropolitan area rather than being concentrated in a particular place.
A Baird & Warner real estate agent, Jim Kinney, stated that suburbs to the west were popular with "middle management" while higher levels of employees had preferences for the Chicago North Shore.
[72] Other European ethnic groups in Chicago are Slovaks,[73] Macedonians,[74] Estonians,[75] Latvians,[76] Slovenes,[77] Dutch,[78] Spaniards[79] and Norwegians.
As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the 10 suburbs with the highest percentages of Asians were South Barrington, Oak Brook, Hoffman Estates, Glendale Heights, Schaumburg, Vernon Hills, Buffalo Grove, Hanover Park, Streamwood, and Naperville.
As of that year 17,500 people of Japanese descent live in the Chicago metropolitan area suburbs such as Arlington Heights, Evanston, Hoffman Estates, Lincolnwood, and Skokie.
By that time many Koreans began moving to northern and northwestern Chicago suburbs, settling in Glenview, Morton Grove, Mount Prospect, Niles, Northbrook, Schaumburg, and Skokie.
[56] In 2011 Chunho Park, a resident quoted in the Chicago Daily Herald stated that, as paraphrased by journalist Ashok Selvam, "Many Koreans are drawn to the area around Golf Road and Milwaukee Avenue" in the Niles area, in proximity to the Super H Mart.
Suburban cities with Filipinos included Glendale Heights, Morton Grove, North Chicago, Skokie, and Waukegan.
Many Filipinos live in close proximity to hospitals or near Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) elevated lines.
The first group of Filipinos had to work as laborers in hotels and restaurants, for the post office, and for Pullman's menial jobs due to discrimination.
[92] As of 2006 there are about 114,000 Indian-origin people in the Chicago metropolitan area, a population of Pakistan-origin people fewer than one-sixth of the Indian count, and a growing Bangladeshi population ; together they make up about 30% of the Asian Americans in the Chicago area, and it is the second largest combined population of Indians, Bangladeshi and Pakistanis in the U.S. after that of New York City, and the fourth largest in North America after that of New York City, Toronto and Vancouver.
[96] Chicago suburbs with significant populations of Indopak people are Des Plaines, Downers Grove, Glendale Heights, Hanover Park, Hoffman Estates, Mount Prospect, Naperville, Oak Brook, Palatine, Schaumburg, Skokie.
As of 2006 many more recent immigrants, after arriving, start work as office workers, janitors, and taxicab drivers; they are from lower income backgrounds.
At first produce was transported by aircraft from Bangkok since some Thais had difficulty in eating American food.
[92] Romani people first came to Chicago during the large waves of Southern and Eastern European immigration to the United States in the 1880s until World War I.
Many live in the same areas as Laotians and Vietnamese, while some who had gained economic status after arriving moved to the suburbs.
It previously offered a larger amount of social service support, but the establishment of Native Americans lead to a scaleback of these programs.
The AIC's executive director, a Wyandotte woman named Heather Miller, stated that the Native American presence in the area gave the community the nickname "Redskin Row".