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"Continuity and Change in Louisville's Ethnic Communities" by Peggy Cummins, Jefferson Community College
Stand
on the corner of First Street and Broadway, the main bus stop for Jefferson
Community College, at 7:30 A.M. on a weekday and you'll notice it. Drive down
Third Street near Iroquois Park and it's there too. Visit the area around
the Jewish Community Center and it's all too clear: Louisville has become
a Mecca of international residents. At Jefferson Community College the number
of international students is rapidly approaching one thousand. The Americana
Apartments have become first havens for relocated families. Shalom Tower has
become an enclave of Eastern Europeans.Why are these people choosing Louisville?
One answer is the city's highly efficient resettlement organizations. Catholic
Charities, Jewish Family and Vocational Services, and Kentucky Refugee Ministries
provide relocation services to these new residents. The City's healthy economy
supplies many of these internationals with the employment opportunities that
they require as they hone their English skills and work toward citizenship.
Jefferson County's schools, both public and private, and its higher education
institutions, all serve to welcome immigrants from all over the world. It
is estimated that some ninety new language groups are represented in this
surge of resettlement. Much of this population is categorized as refugee,
those coming to the United States fleeing persecution in their countries of
origin.
Other residents are more temporary as they make their way through the city's
educational systems or employment assignments with the goal of returning to
their native lands with higher qualifications and credentials. All age groups
are represented, even the very elderly who often relocate to be close to their
children and grandchildren. Religious diversity is on the upswing with the
influx of many Vietnamese Buddhists, Bosnian Muslims, and Russian Jews. Many
of these are now free to practice their religions publicly for the first time
in their lives.What evidence can a visitor to Louisville see of the "ethnic
city?" A quick scan of Bell South's Yellow Pages shows that the metro-area
restaurants now include multiple Vietnamese, Thai, Bosnian, German, Mayan,
and Cuban eateries. One shopping center in Louisville's South End, Iroquois
Manor, has an Asian grocery that makes available foods and spices for the
Far Eastern palate as well as Vietnamese videotapes for rental. Nestled next
to the Iroquois Bakery, a South End tradition for pastries and Christmas springerlies,
is a Vietnamese curio shop with beautiful Indochinese crafts and artwork.Housing
rentals and sales in the South End area surrounding the Americana Apartments
on Southside Drive are testimonies to the upward mobility of the refugee population.
It is reminiscent of the trend of late-nineteenth-century immigration in Louisville,
in which enclaves like Germantown and Irish Hill emerged.
In many ways Louisville now has its own "Little Saigon." The response to the growth of the refugee population in a particular area of town has not always been positive. As letters to the Louisville Courier-Journal a couple of years ago attested, many native-born South-enders were asking, "Why do all the Vietnamese have to come our neighborhoods?"The answers to such questions are simple. It is primarily because several refugee relocation agencies, such as Catholic Charities, have offices and refugee services in this area of the city. In addition, the South End is centrally located in relation to both the downtown and industrial zones of Louisville, and it is well served by city buses. This makes it easier for a population heavily reliant upon public transportation to get around. Finally, on a more basic level, immigrants are naturally looking for ways to make the changes they face easier. Living close to speakers of your native language, having access to the ingredients needed to cook your native cuisine, and maintaining a support system of people who have shared similar experiences are all techniques which can lesson the culture shock of resettlement. As the Vietnamese population continues to become more integrated into the community, the negative responses from native-born Louisvillians have subsided.
For many years in front of the Jewish Community Center on Dutchman's Lane there was a sign asking for help to "Save Soviet Jewry." That goal is still being addressed as refugees from the former Soviet Union arrive in Louisville with the help of Jewish Family and Vocational Services. The Eastern European Jewish population clusters around the synagogues in the East End. A hub of immigrant services is maintained in the Jewish Community Center itself where citizenship classes and other educational and social services are offered. More senior refugees mentor the newer arrivals. Refugees of all ages mingle with Jews and non-Jews of the native population who also utilize the center. And the cooking smells in Shalom Tower! Mmmm, the streets of Moscow or Kiev are recalled while walking down the halls of this building.These are just two of the larger groups of new immigrant arrivals in Louisville. Other immigrant groups include many from the former Yugoslavia, Latin America, and Africa. Resettlement agencies and educators have learned from the past. Immigrants are not encouraged to give up their old culture, as was the custom in the old days of "melting pot" assimilation. Now the diversity of these cultures is celebrated, preserved, and valued not only by the immigrants themselves but also by those of us in the Louisville community who benefit from their contributions.
