Pray for Humboldt Park

From its beginning, Humboldt Park has been a transient community, constantly experiencing changes in its ethnic population. In its earliest days, around the 1880s, the neighborhood was heavily Danish and Norwegian; the population changed as Germans, Scandinavians, and Poles settled into the area.

Between the 1950s and 1960s Puerto Ricans also migrated into the region. In June 1966, a three-day riot occurred when a policeman shot a young Puerto Rican man. These ethnic conflicts broiled during this transition period, which was heightened by the economic difficulties that many Puerto Ricans faced. The Division street area, with its many stores and restaurants, has since become a permanent Puerto Rican community since the 1960s.

During the 1980s Mexicans moved into the region such that by 2000, forty-eight percent of Humboldt Park’s population was Latino, half of which were of Mexican origin. At the same time, the black population also grew steadily to equal the size of the Latino population. More recently, Dominican immigrants have moved into the area, once again reflecting the constant changes in the community’s rich ethnic population.