Surprising Ethnic Neighborhoods

Back in March, 2011, I posted an item here on The Distance of Things and Self Segregation.  That post was inspired by my having recently been in a certain neighborhood in Denver which had a tight series of churches that was somewhat revealing on that topic.

I was recently back in that neighborhood, and then up in Laramie, and it caused me to ponder the surprising ethnic neighborhoods of the relatively recent past. Today we still have ethnic neighborhoods.  Indeed, the area of Denver I was writing about then, and now, is a Hispanic neighborhood today, which makes for an odd juxtaposition of things as part of the ethnic nature of the old still hangs on there.

That particular north Denver neighborhood must have been very much one of distinct ethnicities at one time.  Holy Rosary Catholic Church was built to serve the Catholics in the neighborhood but, as previously noted, the Polish population there wanted their own church and they received it, St. Josephs.  The Polish population also wanted, and received, a parish school.  It still functions today, and it still teaches in English and Polish.  That there's enough of a demand for Polish language instruction today in Denver amazes me.  Also amazing is the fact that the Russian Orthodox Holy Transfiguration of Christ Cathedral stands nearby.  The neighborhood must have been strongly Slavic at one time.  And the Poles and Russians, two separate people, with separate religious identities, but both of which had been subject to the Russian Empire, chose to live side by side.  It must have been an interesting neighborhood to walk through in its day.

Another surprise of this type I received in Laramie.  One of the older churches in Laramie is St. Paul's. The church has changed denominations over the years and started off as Deutsche Evangelische Lutherische St. Paulus Gemeinde, that is St. Paul's German Evangelical Lutheran Church.  It isn't a big structure, but what's notable is that German Lutherans in Laramie had their own German speaking church at one time.  Apparently services were conducted in German up until the early 1930s, in spite of a strong nationwide anti German sentiment that broke out during World War One.

That there'd ever been enough Germans in Laramie to have a church, even a small one, that was German speaking is a surprise.