i was in pilsen yesterday, signing the lease on my new place. i'm excited to move. the place itself is nice, if a little eccentric in it's design (i'll be living in a basement, with doors randomly inserted into hallways to turn them into rooms).
but the real draw is the neighborhood. hyde park is a violent mix of ivory tower scholars, rich old (and often black) people, US presidents, and gang violence spilling occasionally spilling over from the surrounding neighborhoods. pilsen is mostly a latino corner of chicago (i'm actually just a few blocks away from the national museum of mexican art). the streets and houses are a little more run down, but the place somehow just feels so much more at ease with itself: families stand around outside their houses, carrying their smallest kids in their arms and chatting the day away while their older children play on the sidewalk; others set up stands selling cut fruit and snacks on their front porch... and when people look at you, there is no hostility or suspicion, just a kind of polite, detached curiousity (i can almost hear them thinking "hmm. an asian kid").
3 blocks south of my place, there was a group of italian restaurants. i picked up some pasta to go, and when i got home, was pleasantly surprised to find bread as well, and a whole clove of roasted garlic to go with it. and for a brief moment, i had a memory of another home, in another world, from another life.
