Locating the “Brown” in the Postwar Urban North: Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Chicago’s Neighborhoods

Race relations in northern U.S. cities in the 1960s and 1970s have long been characterized by social, political, and legal struggles between African Americans and whites.  African Americans’ challenges to residential segregation and demands for civil rights often elicited hostility and backlash from white residents. Struggles over housing and public space, however, were much more complex. Puerto Ricans and Mexicans began migrating to northern, Midwestern cities like Chicago in significant numbers in the postwar period, complicating the social landscape beyond just black and white. As they entered ethnic “white” neighborhoods, they tested the racial and ethnic boundaries of those communities and their presence in such neighborhoods often precipitated racial hostility, conflict with local police, and urban unrest that can not be explained through a black and white lens.  Much of the racial clashes between incoming Latino/as and existing white residents, however, was the result of demographic and generational differences—the interactions between much larger numbers of white youth and small minorities of Latino/a youth and the tension between longtime white elderly residents and incoming young families who often had many children. This paper examines the presence of Mexicans and Puerto Ricans and their social relations in inner city in the postwar era.