Customer Reviews

Passport's Guide to Ethnic Chicago

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This book does not feature very much information on all the ethnic neighborhoods. The writer of this book ignored many Irish establishments in Chicago. He also focused only on Bridgeport as Chicago's Irish neighborhood. He didn't look at other southside Irish neighborhoods such as Beverly, Canaryville, and Mt. Greenwood. His listings for Irish attractions in Chicago were not good. He listed only a few good spots and then mostly tourist/yuppie bars. There are many Irish bars, restaurants, butchers, and other establishments on the South Side and the rest of Chicago that he could have listed for the Irish.

This unique travel guide blends contemporary cultural attractions, parades, festivals, banquets, cotillions, tours, and ethnic museums, with a comprehensive dining and shopping guide. It also tracks the progress of diverse ethnic groups throughout their tenure in Chicago, one of America's most culturally diverse cities. Because of the natural and man-made barriers in this spacious city (25 miles long and ten miles wide), including railroad embankments, expressways and three branches of the Chicago River (extending 50 miles across the landscape), over the years different ethnic groups have lived in relative seclusion from each other, even when there has been as little as a few hundred feet between them.

This 378-page trade paperback has no index, but there is a clear table of contents listing these topics: (1) Native Americans, French traders and settlers from New England, (2) Irish Chicago, (3) German Chicago, (4) Swedish and Norwegian Chicago, (5) Jewish Chicago, (6) Czech and Slovak Chicago, (7) Baltic Chicago, (8) Hungarian, Serbo-Croatian, and Romanian Chicago, (9) Ukrainian Chicago, (10) Polish Chicago, (11) Italian Chicago, (12) Greek Chicago, (13) African-American Chicago, (14) Chinese Chicago, (15) Asian Chicago, (16) Latino Chicago, (17) Indian and Pakistani Chicago, (18) Middle Eastern Chicago, (19) Appendices with information on: multiethnic festivals, useful phone numbers and addresses, and a bibliography of suggested reading; (20) 18 maps of different areas of Chicago.

This book is not just for tourists, though they will certainly find it very useful. Anyone interested in the rich multicultural heritage of Chicago, both residents and visitors alike, will find much to appreciate in this book. I highly recommend it.

I've had this book now for several years and I refer to it often. The book is divided into ethnic chapters. Each chapter features an indepth history of the ethnic group, plus a listing of restaurants, shops and annual events. I've used this book as an aid in research for my own book "A Barfly's Guide To Chicago's Drinking Establishment." Mr. Lindberg's book has led me to many ethnic taverns in Chicago. His information is extremely valuable for anyone interested in exploring Chicago's vast ethnic neighborhoods.

I picked up this book because I was curious about what it said about Pilsen/Little Village (primarily Mexican neighborhoods now). It was very dissapointing. It didn't point out any of the real places you should visit as far as restaurants and it didn't even talk about the murals or other cultural markers which are the more prominent attractions to this neighborhood. One thing that also stood out was how the author gave a literal translation of Little Village to be "Pueblo Pequeno". Little Village does actually refer to itself by its Spanish name commonly: La Villita, and here's Spanish 101-- the addition of "ita" diminuative of, as attached to Villa (village), would result in La Villita, to mean little village. No one in Chicago will send you to a good Mexican restaurant in Pueblo Pequeno, they'll send you to La Villita.

This guide can't tell you everything, but it does a nice job of telling you where to look. It gives a map for each ethnic "main drag" in the city. When I lived in Chicago, I used to take it and go on a walking tour of a neighborhood, sampling Lithuanian pierogies on the far South Side, for example. It'd also be a great source of cheap, fun dates, since the restaurants are rarely expensive.