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BRIEFLY Edited by Donald Sevener
REFORMING WELFARE REFORM
Some legal immigrants get safety net
Nearly 15,000 of Illinois' most disadvantaged legal immigrants, including children, the elderly and the disabled, will get to keep their food stamps. At least for the next few months. In late December, the state authorized $6 million to pay for food stamps for that group of immigrants and $4 million to help them become naturalized citizens. The additional aid could be critical to many of the most needy legal immigrants because naturalized citizens are eligible for the same welfare benefits as people who are born in the United States. The $10 million, a one-time supplemental appropriation, must be spent by the end of August. State officials expect the program, launched January 1, to help 14,800 legal immigrants who are younger than 18, 65 and older or disabled. But advocates for the state's immigrants say that unfinished business remains: Another 22,000 legal immigrants will be left without a safety net. "It's certainly not everything we wanted," says Diane Doherty, director of the Chicago office for the Illinois Hunger Coalition.
When Congress cut food stamps and supplemental security income for virtually all legal immigrants as part of welfare reform, Illinois, with the fifth largest legal immigrant population, was harder hit than most states. Officials estimated between 34,000 and 39,000 foreign-born Illinoisans would be without a safety net. Activists predicted homelessness for some of those unable to become naturalized citizens. And, according to the National Immigration Forum, only about 38 percent of all legal immigrants succeed in becoming naturalized. For those 50 and older, the rate of success drops to less than 20 percent. In 1994, the last year for updated statistics, about 1.2 million foreign- born people were living in Illinois — approximately half of those people are legal immigrants. Another 500,000 are naturalized citizens. The remaining 244,000 are undocumented. Jennifer Davis PRESSBOX Demographic shifts, conflicting claims on trade, home schooling, a do-nothing Congress Counting heads According to the federal government's latest available figures, the state's racial mix is shifting, and those changes are taking place primarily in Chicago's suburbs and in downstate counties. The Associated Press reports that Illinois' Hispanic population is growing at a faster rate than the state's African-American population, and the gap between those two minority groups is narrowing more rapidly in Illinois than nationwide. Writing from Washington, D.C., AP reporter Jennifer Loven also reports Illinois' Asian community grew even faster. AP's analysis last month of U.S. Census Bureau data as of July 1996 reveals that the state's white population has declined since 1990, from 75 percent to 72 percent of the state's 11.8 million residents. The state's proportion of Hispanic residents increased during that same period from 8 percent of the total to 10 percent, topping 1 million for the first time. That represents a 26 percent increase in the Hispanic community in Illinois, larger than the 25 percent increase in that population nationally. The number of Asian Illinoisans grew even faster, according to the AP, at 28 percent since 1990. But Illinois' overall Asian community remains small: 373,771, or 3 percent of the state's total population. The state's African- American population grew by just 6 percent in the 1990s to 1.8 million, compared with a 10 percent growth nationally. According to the data, African Americans make up 15 percent of Illinois' population. 8 / February 1998 Illinois Issues The AP also took a look at shifts in Illinois by region. The most significant increases in Hispanic residents occurred in the metropolitan suburban counties of McHenry, to the northwest of the city, and Kendall, to the south- west. In fact, overall, Hispanic and Asian communities are growing more rapidly in suburban Chicago areas than in the city. At the same time, Loven writes that whites will become a minority in metropolitan Cook County if current trends continue. While whites now comprise 53 percent of the population in that county, the Asian and Hispanic communities each grew by more than 20 percent. Among the causes for the narrowing gap between the Hispanic and African- American populations in Illinois, Loven reports, is a movement of blacks back to the South in search of jobs lost in the Rust Belt. That trend began in the 1980s. Then, as Illinois' economy improved in the '90s, Hispanics moved in to take advantage of the opportunities. Taking its own look at population shifts in the December issue. The Chicago Reporter found that Chicago's inner-ring suburbs are becoming increasingly black as whites continue to move to newer suburbs farther out from the city. Writer Danielle Gordon analyzed data compiled by the national marketing company Claritas Inc., a firm that projects current population trends into the future. "By 2002," Gordon reports, "nearly 140,000 whites will have left suburban Cook County since the 1990 census, while more than 131,000 blacks will move in." She reports that the white population in the five collar counties will have grown by 20 percent, or about 375,000 people. The black population, however, will increase by only 50,000. Still, she writes, "when blacks move in, whites move out." The Reporter found that 14 suburbs — 13 of them in Cook County —will each lose more than 4,000 white residents by 2002, and blacks are the largest minority in half of those towns. By contrast, 25 suburbs are expected to gain at least 5,000 whites by 2002, and African Americans are the largest minority in only one of them. Meanwhile, the Chicago Sun-Times reports that Chicago's public schools are facing demographic shifts as well. The city's student population includes more Hispanics and Asians than ever, but fewer whites and blacks. Rosalind Rossi and Jon Schmid based their report last month on a new six-year demographic analysis done by the Chicago Board of Education. According to that report, the number of Hispanic students in city schools shot up 21 percent, while the Asian student population rose 10.5 percent. The number of white students fell 6.7 percent and the African-American population declined by almost 4 percent between June 1991 and June 1997. Other news The debate over national trade policy is likely to heat up again as Congress returns to business this month, and Copley News Service Washington reporter Toby Eckert contends that four years after its implementation clashing claims over the pros and cons of the North American Free Trade Agreement continue to play a vital role in that debate. In December, Eckert took a look at conflicting claims for Illinois. "Depending on who you talk to," he reports, "NAFTA — which eliminated many tariffs between the United States, Canada and Mexico and began a phase-out of others — has either cost Illinois 16,000 jobs or created 24,000." According to Eckert, Illinois manufacturers argue the trade agreement helped boost exports. But he writes that it also encouraged companies to move across the borders to cut their production costs. And it has hurt some firms that found themselves competing with cheaper imports. Meanwhile, he writes, "workers at 63 Illinois companies, stretching from Chicago to tiny Metropolis on the Kentucky border, say increased competition after NAFTA put them on the unemployment continued on next page Illinois Issues February 1998 / 9 BRIEFLY PRESSBOX continued... lines. But in some cases, their employers blame the layoffs and plant relocations on economic trends that were coming with or without NAFTA." Eckert writes that "there is no shortage of studies purporting to show job losses or job gains, nearly all of them produced by business and labor groups with big economic stakes in the outcome of the trade debate. Predictably, each side criticizes the other's methodology." What isn't debatable is the importance of trade to the state's economy. According to the Department of Commerce and Community Affairs, last year Illinois was the fifth-largest shipper of goods and services in the nation, with $34.6 billion in exports. The Christian Science Monitor reports in its December 29 issue that for the first time in nearly two decades a state has imposed stricter laws on home schooling. Taking a look at Georgia, reporter Christina Nifong writes the change in that state "could reflect a significant reversal for the home schooling movement nationwide." Many states, including Illinois, don't regulate parents who teach (see Illinois Issues, July/August, page 30). According to Nifong, new regulations at state universities in Georgia require home schooled students to take four SAT subject tests and score higher than most of the students who take those tests — the top 15 percent of state public schooled students. She writes that "as more rules are proposed in upcoming legislative sessions here and in other states, parents and administrators are increasingly debating the merits and perils of teaching children at home." The change is being driven by home schooling's phenomenal growth. The Home School Legal Defense Association reports that nationwide 1.5 million students are home schooled, up 15 percent since 1990. Alan Ehrenhalt, executive editor of Governing, argues in an essay in that magazine's December issue that Congress has become increasingly irrelevant and that the states are beginning to solve more of the nation's serious problems. Ehrenhalt writes that in 1997 Congress did almost nothing of consequence. Instead, it got bogged down in partisan wrangling, most notably over campaign finance abuses. And he cites transportation and housing as two serious issues where federal lawmakers postponed action. The national transportation law expired in September, but Congress failed to complete a rewrite before going home last fall. Nor did Congress deal with its past- due reauthorization of basic federal housing programs. Ehrenhalt notes that the last such reauthorization ran out five years ago. The interim measure enacted to cover for it on a short term basis ran out two years ago. Meanwhile, Ehrenhalt argues the states have begun to pick up the slack. "Over the past few years, they have been handed a series of genuinely important jobs that they can't slough off even if they want to." He cites welfare reform as the prime example. "Even where there has been no gun at their heads, however, the states have been accepting the challenge of dealing with problems that no other level of government is handling." Among them, deregulation of the electric utility industry. Few of us look to Congress anymore "to resolve the contradictions and challenges of modern capitalism," Ehrenhalt argues. "On the other hand, it seems fair to say of most state legislatures and state governments right now that they are meeting at least the primary test of political responsibility. They are taking up complicated issues, and making decisions on them. It would be difficult to make that claim in a plausible way about the U.S. Congress." Peggy Boyer Long 10 / February 1998 Illinois Issues BLACK AND WHITE ISSUE Harvard study finds Illinois schools rank among the nation's most segregated Illinois schools, already among the country's most segregated, stand little chance of improved racial balance as a result of U.S. Supreme Court rulings in recent years, according to a study published last fall by Harvard University. The Harvard Project on Desegregation also found that segregation is intensifying in schools across the nation. Almost twice as many black students in Illinois attend "extremely" segregated schools as their counterparts across the nation, and less than a quarter of white Illinois students go to school with blacks. Indeed, based on data from the 1994-95 school year, the Harvard University study ranked Illinois the worst state in both regards. The state ranked fourth nationwide in the number of blacks in mostly white schools. "The real losers in all this are not just the black children, but white children who do not come into contact with minority students," says David James, professor of sociology at Indiana University and one of the study's authors. Poverty tends to be concentrated in segregated schools, the study states, and "school achievement scores in many states and in the nation show a very strong relation between poverty concentrations and low achievement." Further, the study says segregated students "may be ill prepared as the American workforce changes and skills in race relations become increasingly valuable in many jobs." Illinois ranks so poorly primarily because of the concentration of minority students in Chicago. In 1994- 95, 54.7 percent of Chicago's student population was black, 30.6 percent was Hispanic and 11.3 percent was white. For cities such as Chicago, "trying to desegregate within the city boundaries is not meaningful," says James, referring to a 1974 U.S. Supreme Court decision limiting the scope of city- suburban desegregation. More recent rulings from the high court have led the study's authors to conclude that the current segregation problem is "only the first phase of what is likely to be an accelerating trend." For one, a new type of school segregation is on the rise: Hispanic students in some parts of the country, particularly the western states, are now more segre-gated than black students.
"Since the 1990s, the Supreme Court has put in place a number of rules and decisions that make it easier for schools to abandon desegregation efforts," James says. "The legal climate has changed." In decisions from 1991 to 1995, the Supreme Court gave lower courts the discretion to approve resegregation of neighborhood schools under some conditions. Since then, courts have handed down decisions terminating desegregation plans in Denver, Buffalo, Cleveland and other areas. These decisions amount to the "largest backward movement toward segregation for blacks in the 43 years since Brown v. Board of Education," the study said. In Illinois, a 1982 Illinois Supreme Court decision took away the State Board of Education's power to enforce desegregation. That power, the court determined, rests with the local school boards and the state attorney general's office. Officials at the state board declined to comment on the study, which they haven't seen. The study used three measures to determine the level of segregation of black children in schools in 1994- 95. In Illinois: • 61.9 percent of black students attend extremely segregated schools with 90 percent to 100 percent minority enrollment. The nationwide average is 33.6 percent. • Just one in five white students attends schools with black students. The nationwide average is 32 percent. • 20.2 percent of black students attend mostly white schools. Nationwide, the average is 53.4 percent. Jessica Winski Illinois Issues February 1998 / 11 BRIEFLY OLD SLAVE HOUSE Preservationists seek slate help to save southern Illinois landmark A significant piece of Illinois' African-American history will soon become state property if a southern Illinois preservation group has its way. The Hickory Hill Plantation/Old Slave House Preservation Project is working to ensure that the Crenshaw House, as it is called in the National Register of Historic Places, is saved for future generations. However, the preservation group may be running out of time. The owner, George Sisk, says the. antebellum Greek Revival mansion is too costly to maintain, and unless the state buys it he will tear the house down next summer and build a new one.
State Sen. Donne Trotter, chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus, says his group supports the effort. Sisk says more than 3, 000 letters have been sent to the governor's office asking that the house be saved. 'The governor can make this happen. I want the state to take over the property, but someone has to talk seriously with me." Blanchette contends Sisk won't respond to calls and has canceled two meetings set up to discuss terms. Controversy, legend and mystery are entwined in the history of Gallatin County's Crenshaw House, known locally for years as the Old Slave House. What is known about the house begins in Illinois' early years as a state. The house was built by John Hart Crenshaw over most of a decade beginning in 1834. He called it Hickory Hill. Crenshaw came to Illinois from Virginia and built a homestead in 1814. He and his wife Sinia Taylor were part of the American social aristocracy: he the grandson of John Hart of New Jersey, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and she a first cousin to President Zachary Taylor. But their fortunes were made in southeastern Illinois by distilling crystal salt from the natural saline pools located in Gallatin County. Early in the 19th century the 12 / February 1998 Illinois Issues Illinois salines provided most of the salt for the frontier and required 1,000 men to chop the wood and fire the furnaces that distilled the saltwater. In 1830, Crenshaw operated three of the nine operating salt furnaces. That enormous need for labor, at a time when most people were independent and building their own homesteads, was the argument the proslavery majority in southern Illinois used to acquire slaves to work the salines. Salt production was the state's first major industry. At the height of production, the salt works provided one-seventh of the young state's taxes. Illinois' first Constitution prohibited slavery everywhere in the state except Gallatin County, until the provision expired in 1825. But leasing slaves continued and pseudoslavery in the form of indentured servitude remained in effect until 1840 and in some areas up to the Civil War. According to the census of 1820, Crenshaw owned five slaves; in 1830 he owned 12. Some of the difficulty in purchasing the house and getting it added to the state's list of historical sites lies in the interpretation of what some call history and others call myth and legend. George Sisk and his family have owned the house since the beginning of this century. Since 1930, the Sisk family has opened the house to tourists for a fee. Though he closed the house to tours in October 1996, Sisk has told thousands of visitors his version of the house's history, and it is his claims about what happened in the house that are at the center of controversy Those taking the tour were told that while the Crenshaws lived in luxury in the well-furnished rooms of the first two floors, slaves were chained in coffin-sized cells in the third-floor attic. Sisk said these people were slaves who had crossed the Ohio River believing they were in free territory, only to be captured by Crenshaw and sold again into slavery. He also claimed that in 1840 Abraham Lincoln spent the night in the front bedroom while slaves were held in their attic prison. Historians agree that Lincoln was in Gallatin County in 1840 but cannot document his staying at Crenshaw's. However, there are court documents showing that Crenshaw was indicted twice for kidnapping, once in 1825 (the outcome unknown) and again in 1842, when he was acquitted. The Carbondale-based group working to preserve the Old Slave House as a historical site believes Crenshaw was a kidnapper and part of a "reverse underground railroad," a network of criminals who captured free blacks and sold them into slavery in the South. According to the Complete History of Illinois published in 1876, "the crime of seizing free blacks, running them south and selling them into slavery from this State, for a long time was quite common. [P]ortions of southern Illinois for many years afforded a safe retreat to those kidnapping outlaws. We cannot cite the numerous cases of kidnapping." There is more documentation about the 1842 case in which Crenshaw was accused of kidnapping Maria Adams and her children. The case offers a glimpse of life in Illinois at the time. Jon Musgrave, a member of the preservation project, reconstructs the case this way. Possibly as a wedding present, Maria had been promised her freedom by Illinois Territorial Gov. Ninian Edwards when her husband Charles Adams completed his 20 years of indentured servitude. However, Edwards sold the family, and Crenshaw eventually purchased their contracts. Charles filed his freedom papers in 1834, but Crenshaw refused to honor Edwards' promise. Crenshaw was accused of kidnapping Maria and her children, but he was acquitted because the state's attorney couldn't prove where he had taken the family. John Crenshaw was an influential and wealthy man. By 1830, his plantation covered 5,000 acres and he owned a steam mill and a grist mill near Equality in addition to the salt works. That year he leased 746 slaves. Beverley Scobell
Illinois Issues February 1998 / 13
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