Travelers rightly complain about the homogenization of America. East to West, one downtown after another offers the same string of Starbucks and glass towers. North to South, it's Wal-Marts and strip malls.

Still, some communities have begun searching for ways to set themselves apart. And many are discovering that history and culture, especially ethnic history and culture, can turn a town into something more than another stop on the Interstate. Preserving and promoting local roots can give casual visitors a chance to experience something different — and leave a few dollars behind.

Ethnic identity has always been integral to Illinois' social and political culture, of course, particularly in Chicago. But these days more communities are realizing the marketing possibilities in that heritage. Their efforts might amount to little more than a marker by the side of the road or a quick mention on a guided tour. Yet, increasingly, they are opening museums where tourists and residents alike can stop to honor an African-American culture or a Lithuanian ancestry.

The bottom line: Heritage sells. According to the Illinois Heritage Tourism office, nearly one-third of this state's visitors take time to participate in a cultural or heritage event or program. For Illinois leisure travelers, such destinations are popular, making the list after shopping, dining and entertainment, according to the Tourism Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

"There's a real awareness of ethnic history and a push to preserve that," says Mary Turner, coordinator of the Illinois Association of Museums, an independent network of museums, genealogical societies, zoos and other

Courtesy of The Lira Ensemble

Members of the 34-year-old Lira Ensemble perform traditional Polish dances. The arts company has a chamber chorus, a chamber orchestra and a children's chorus, as well as the dance troupe. The company puts on 80 performances a year in five states. The troupe also collaborates with Jewish, Mexican-American and African-American organizations. "We do joint concerts at churches and schools in changing neighborhoods," says Lycyna Migala, the ensemble's artistic director and general manager. "There can be a lot of misunderstanding, so that's where we go."

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cultural agencies. "Our society is becoming more aware of its roots. There's been a resurgence of interest in genealogy, an interest in when we got here, and how we got here."

Of the association's 368 members, Turner estimates 25 to 30 are ethnic museums. Statewide, there are about 800 such institutions, about half of them in the Chicago metropolitan area. "Ethnic museums," she says, "seem to be thriving."

In fact, Ellen Dick, president of the Illinois Association of Non-Profit Organizations, estimates there has been about a 5 percent increase in the number of ethnic museums in Illinois over the last decade. She tracks the incorporation of these groups through the secretary of state s office.

Illinois is not alone in tapping a growing ethnic awareness. The American Association of Museums, for example, held its first diversity conference just last year, an effort to explore ways museums can better reflect the culture and history of a wider community. The influential Washington, D.C.-based association accredits museums nationally and has 3,000 institutional members. The group's Diversity Coalition is designed to help ethnic museums, and those devoted to the gay and lesbian and disabled communities, continue their work. But it also plans to advise mainstream museums on ways to broaden their programs.

"We want our work to translate into more sensitive educational programs, exhibitions and forums for discussion," says Louis Hicks, who represents the Association of African-American Museums and is director of the Alexandria [Virginia] Black History Resource Center. "We also seek to be a center for the underrepresented and underserved community in the museum profession."

Meanwhile, Chicagoans have been notably ambitious in promoting their multicultural past. As early as 1991, the city helped organize a coalition of neighborhood heritage centers. The 32 members represent a cross section of the geography and culture of one of America's most diverse cities. Among the participants are a Swedish center on the North Side and a museum on the far South Side devoted to the history of African-American Pullman porters. Through the coalition, these organizations exchange exhibits and share resources.

Chicago's growing recognition of its diverse past reflects increased national interest in ethnic history, certainly It also reflects the increasing maturity of the city's ethnic communities, which can create and maintain such institutions. Ethnic museums are now at the table when it comes time to dole out city dollars, through the century-old city initiative, Museums in the Parks. Nine institutions now make up that group, and this year they divvied up $37 million in grants from the Chicago Park District. Major institutions such as the Art Institute of Chicago share the bulk of the dollars, but the district has added two important ethnic institutions: the DuSable Museum of African-American History and the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, both on the city's South Side. In 1998, the district awarded about $868,000 to the DuSable and $827,000 to the Mexican Fine Arts Center. When Museums in the Parks began, recipient institutions had to be based in a city park and prove they were important to the city's cultural growth. But in recent years, participating museums must also prove they support tourism, says Jacqueline Triche Atkins, executive director of the program.

Chicago's rising star on that count is the Mexican Fine Arts Center, which was founded in 1982. The museum's growth matches the steady climb of the Latino population in northeastern Illinois. The center "broke the glass ceiling" in 1997 when it was awarded $2.8 million from the city's Department of Planning for a capital campaign and other operations, according to Juana Guzman, associate executive director. Once the city money came in, other community and corporate funders followed suit. As a result, the center has almost completed a $7.3 million capital campaign, designed to triple the museum's space to 48,000 square feet.

The collection now includes 5,000 pieces and the museum receives more than 100,000 visitors a year. Popular exhibits include Dia de Muertos (Day of the Dead), a display of paintings, ceramics and ofrendas (shrines), and the Sor Juana Festival, a tribute to Mexican women that runs each fall.

The DuSable Museum has settled into a period of modest growth, according to Michelle Bibbs, director of development and external affairs. That institution opened in an apartment 38 years ago, but interest in the collection grew along with the political strength of the city's black community The museum moved into a building in Washington Park in 1973. It receives about 168,000 visitors annually and has a budget of $2 million. The permanent Treasures of DuSable includes work by painters Archibald Motley and Henry 0. Tanner and sculptor Augusta Savage. "Art That Heals:

The Image as Medicine in Ethiopia," an exhibit running through December 26, presents about 50 scrolls, prayer books and other artifacts used by clerics of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

Government support for such institutions may be a sign of the growth in influence of these communities. But there also is something distinctly American in the way officials work to ensure that ethnic history and culture help boost tourism. The National Conference of State Legislatures says Illinois' $46 million budget for tourism promotion this year is more than any other state and four times the average.

And, after all, tourism is big business. Statewide, tourism generated nearly $21 billion in 1998, according to figures provided by the tourism bureau of the Department of Commerce and Community Affairs. That's an increase of $ 1.5 billion from the previous year. The state's and Chicago's tourism offices have pledged to raise the total to $29 billion over the next decade.

Those agencies don't separately track the dollars generated by local heritage tourism. And it would be difficult to measure. Local historical societies, for instance, might focus on an ethnic group simply because it represents early settlers. And some advocates argue that even a one-room collection in a private home can count as an ethnic museum. The budget might be small and the hours irregular, but the collector might have put together something important, says Stanley Balzekas Jr., a pioneer in the ethnic museum field who founded the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture on Chicago's Southwest Side.

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Balzekas came up with the idea for the museum in the early 1960s as he struggled to find items for a personal collection. He put together a board from the local community and sought advice from such prominent Chicago institutions as the Historical Society, the Field Museum and the Newberry Library. The museum, which opened in 1966, now encompasses an art gallery, a children's museum and an archive. It attracts 35,000 visitors a year and reaches another 100,000 in the metro area through its touring programs of lectures, dance and folk arts, including wood carvings, masks, straw ornaments, textiles and ceramics.

Those are popular attractions, says Balzekas, but the museum's most important function is educating people in Lithuanian culture and history Though some of its original constituents have passed away, the children of that first wave of immigrants still visit.

Chicago supports such institutions through its Department of Cultural Affairs. The city has aggressively expanded a Neighborhood Tours program. Buses take some 30 visitors from the Cultural Center building downtown to outlying neighborhoods important in the city's history. A docent from the city and neighborhood volunteers provide historic background. The department runs nine regular Saturday outings and some one dozen special tours that focus on specific ethnic groups. It costs about $35 and takes half a day, depending on whether participants get to eat lunch at a neighborhood ethnic restaurant.

One such tour gives visitors, and residents, a chance to see how a neighborhood's culture can change over time. The near South Side Prairie Avenue District tour begins on a walk through a magnificent turn-of-the-century Presbyterian church with windows created by Louis Comfort Tiffany. The church's original congregation included the wealthy business leaders who then lived in the neighborhood. The district includes the city's oldest building, the frontier era Clarke House, and the Victorian Glessner mansion, saved from the wrecking ball by advocates seeking to preserve Chicago's legacy as an international center of architecture.

But around the corner from the church is "Record Row," where such musicians as Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon recorded the blues, a legacy of the great African-American migration from the South that began at the turn of the century. The city's industrial success led to changes in that neighborhood. The railroads brought blacks to Chicago to work in the new factories. And members of the city's upper crust, who filled the church's pews and bought the Tiffany windows, made their own trip and settled on the Gold Coast north of the city's Loop or the suburban North Shore along the lake.

Courtesy of the Southwestern Illinois Tourism and Convention Bureau French Marine Fort De Chartres Rendezvous (Officer and fifer).

The rest of Illinois may not offer as much diversity as Chicago, but downstate communities, too, are taking advantage of their ethnic heritage. Rockford's established museums reflect this. Settled by Italians and Swedes, that northern Illinois city boasts historic museums specific to those communities. The newer Ethnic Heritage Museum presents exhibits on the city's African-American and Hispanic history, along with those of various European groups, says Susan Williams, executive director of the Rockford Area Arts Council. The museum is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. Farther south, in the Metro East area of the state, historic sites also attract revenue from tourists, specifically German marks and Canadian dollars. The cultural attractions promoted by the Southwestern Illinois Tourism and Convention Bureau in Fairview Heights include Cahokia Mounds, the remains of a pre-Columbian Indian culture; a French Colonial area with houses, forts and churches that date to the 17th century; and German Catholic churches. Mark Westhoff, president of the tourism bureau, says the area attracts one million visitors a year and about 10 percent of them come from other countries. "We market ourselves in French Canada and in Germany," says Westhoff. "We re the only other board besides Chicago to put out bilingual tourism brochures." The agency represents eight counties, including Madison, Monroe, St. Clair, Bond and Washington counties. And, according to Westhoff, tourism in that region has doubled in the last five years, generating about $600 million annually at historic and recreational sites. In fact, a mix of ethnic offerings and traditional recreation and entertainment is the future for the tourism business. according to the Travel Industry Association of America. And, with its history and the dollars to support promotion, Illinois appears to have an advantage on this new frontier. ž

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