PAKISTANI-AMERICANS IN CHICAGO
When Pakistani Talat Rashid emigrated from Karachi, Pakistan, to Chicago in 1979, his friends expressed some misgivings: Chicago is quite a leap from Pakistan. But like many immigrants before him, Rashid made the trek from his home country to the United States.
Pakistani immigration to this country dates back to Pakistan's independence in 1947. The greatest influx of Pakistanis occurred after the mid-1960s, when the United States relaxed its immigration policy toward South Asia. In 2007, Lahore, Pakistan, became Chicago’s 26th Sister City, according to Chicago Sister Cities International.
Rashid chose to settle on Devon Avenue, on Chicago’s Northwest Side. Now the street is a Pakistani cultural and commercial hub filled with restaurants, stores and businesses. “When I came, there were only two or three Pakistani shops on Devon, nothing else,” he said. “Now, I think this is the Midwest capital of the Asian neighborhoods.” Rashid is just one of more than 50,000 Pakistani-Americans living in the Chicago area. Most of them live on Devon Avenue or in the southwest suburb of Bolingbrook.
Although Rashid had already obtained a master’s degree in English literature in Pakistan, he had to enroll in an “English as a Second Language” class at Loop College. “I excelled in a lot of my classes at my school,” he said. “I was a go-getter. I was able to get along with everybody, and everybody was able to get along with me. I learned the culture, I learned the accent.”
The 54-year-old applied for a job at Tramco Pump Company in the West Loop and worked his way up from the company’s back shop to vice president, after receiving another bachelor’s degree in computer science from Northeastern University and an MBA from the Keller Graduate School of Management.
In 1984, Rashid followed many other Pakistani immigrants and moved from Devon Avenue to Bolingbrook. He wanted to live in a bigger house and to raise his children there. “It’s a very vibrant community,” he said. “Most of our people are very well educated.”
After completing his studies, Rashid began to help fellow Pakistanis in his community by volunteering with local groups such as the Association of Pakistani Americans Bolingbrook, the Pakistan Federation of America and the Pakistan Independence Day Committee.
“It’s rewarding, honestly,” he said. “When you try to help somebody, you feel content inside. You don’t lose anything but you gain a lot of respect in the community. It’s a cultural exchange; we let people know who Pakistanis are and help our community out if they need help.”
And in Rashid’s mind, Chicago is more than worthy to host the 2016 Olympic Games. “It has a really beautiful lakefront, high-rise buildings and there is a lot more you can do in the city itself, like parks and zoos,” he said. “It can accommodate a lot of people, and it’s a diversified city. It can attract people from every country in the world.”
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