America
Overwhelming response to I-Day parade in Chicago
Chicago, Aug 19
One of the most striking
scenes at the India Independence Day parade in Naperville, an affluent
Chicago suburb, was watching the Mayor Emeritus leading the parade
resplendent in a Rajasthani 'pagdi’ (turban).
At the ‘mela’
(fair) that followed the parade, American elected officials could be
seen digging into delicacies like ‘pav bhaji’ and ‘vada pav’.
Naperville
hosted its first India Day, with an estimated crowd of over 10,000
spectators, sizable for a first-time ethnic event.
A colourful
procession with 16 decorated floats sponsored by various community
organizations, businesses and restaurants wended its way along the half
mile route.
Several dance groups representing the diverse dance forms and music of India were part of the procession.
Among
the local dignitaries attending were the chiefs of the police and fire
brigade, city council members, aldermen (equivalent to an Indian
municipal corporator) and elected representatives of the Illinois
legislature.
Illinois Lt. Governor Evelyn Sanguinetti, the first
Latino to hold the office, hailed the diversity that was being
celebrated, adding that there was a need for more diverse cultures in
state leadership so that all races and colors were adequately
represented.
Other elected officials said they were pleasantly
surprised to note the overwhelming response to the parade given the fact
that this was the first such event by the Indian American community in
Naperville.
Krishna Bansal, chairman of the Naperville Indian
Community Outreach (NICO) which was the primary organizer of the event,
said that the parade celebrated the integration of the Indian American
community and was the successful culmination of an idea mooted a couple
of years back and actively encouraged by the then mayor and the
Naperville City Council.
He said that the parade this year was
only a beginning and would be surpassed in both magnitude and
participation in the coming years. He made a strong plea for greater
participation of the Indian American community in the political process.
American
spectators and Indian Americans born in the US appeared to be
fascinated by the sheer riot of colours with dancers representing
various Indian states performing to traditional folk music.
Spectators lining the route waved Indian and American flags.
The parade on Chicago’s Devon Avenue has till today been the major such event in the Midwest.
The
Naperville parade signals a dramatic demographic shift in the Indian
American population. The area near Devon has traditionally been the
first stop for immigrants from the sub-continent, looking for community
networking, Indian restaurants and stores and accessible public
transport. These immigrants later moved to the suburbs as they
prospered.
But in recent years the vast majority of Indian
immigrants have skipped Chicago entirely, instead settling near jobs at
high-tech companies in the suburbs, including Motorola in Schaumburg,
3Com in Rolling Meadows and Lucent Technologies in Lisle, all Chicago
suburbs.
Most of them are information technology or medical
professionals who choose suburbs like Naperville for the highly rated
school system.
For long, the biggest Indian Independence Day
parades in the US have been held in New York and California, the states
with the largest number of Indian Americans. But as successful Indian
professionals have moved inward, these events have become a regular
feature in even smaller cities.
Local administrations have
quickly adapted to the special needs of South Asian immigrants.
Naperville, for instance, has set up three cricket pitches, for a game
not traditionally played in the US.
The Naperville event
organizers made a special effort to project the India Day as a
celebration of the contribution and assimilation of the Indian American
community into the mainstream, as much as a celebration of their Indian
heritage.
Now that months of preparation have culminated in an
event lauded by the local community, the organizers said they are hoping
for an even more elaborate affair next year.
Meanwhile, the
neighboring suburb of Aurora, known as the City of Lights, has
officially sponsored the Diwali celebrations in October-for the second
year in a row.