The other day in my American Studies class we looked at an excerpt of Studs Terkel's "Division Street America." Although unable to read the book in its entirety, the small excerpt we looked at really stood out to me. Terkel interviews different members of the Chicago community, and hits on themes such as racial and class segregation of different Chicago. In the introduction Studs mentions that there are some wealthy northern suburbs of the city referred to as the "North Shore." Studs mentions how the North Shore suburbs "give or take a token black, are lily white," which is actually scarily true. Having been raised in the area, I was taught to appreciate where I came from, appreciate the school system, and the security and everything else that comes with living here. I had been told from a young age that in parts of the city only a short drive away, people were being shot late at night, and troubles of crime and poverty were taken precedent over the troubles of terrible school systems, and high school dropouts. Unfortunately all of these things are true, and although mayor after mayor tries to change the case, there has been little drastic progress on the situation. I had almost always associated local poverty with the "inner-city" as people refer to it. Yesterday however, I was introduced to a new group of impoverished Chicagoland natives, the Waukegan bulldogs.
After a long day at school my tennis team hit the courts to play the Waukegan bulldogs in a tennis match. Me and my doubles partner felt terrible during our match, when we would hit our softest shot, and the girls across the net would scramble away as if it were going to concuss them. The team looked as if none of them had ever picked up a racket, and the embarrassment their eyes broke my heart. Of corse, I had played them before on previous teams and noticed their lack of proper equipment, and skill, but since reading the Studs Terkel article, it dawned on me that these impoverished people who actually do live in the Chicagoland area, do not receive the attention that the inner city poverty does. I looked more into the numbers and found that according to USA statistics, in 2012 17.90% of Waukegan's population was living below the poverty line. In Chicago 18.45% of families are living below the poverty line. Although there is a difference in the numbers, they are surprisingly close. Never had I realized how poor these people actually were. In my school career we had been so driven to the fact that Chicago inner-city was poor (a sad but true fact) but teachers seemed to have missed another place just as bad about an hour north. Even Stud's Terkel in his "ABC's for non Chicagoans" introduction to his book, discusses the area from the city all the way to Lake Forest, but seems to miss the area only a few suburbs north that is in terrible shape as well. There could be many reasons why people including Studs broadcast the cities conditions but simply miss other poor areas such as Waukegan's. They could not include the area in their reports on purpose to draw more attention the the contrast between the extreme poverty in the city and the extreme wealth in the North Shore, or they could just simply not have any idea that there is crime and poverty happening outside of the inner-city. I feel that these areas should receive more attention and help for their worsening situations. As hard as it is to say it, although the city needs lots of help, there are other places that need it too. And there is a lot of work to do.