April 14, 2016

Mexico and Greece may be on entirely different continents, but they share at least one thing in common: they’re two of the countries you can find stamped in the homemade passports of our Campbell Home young men.

Instead of traveling around the globe, however, our boys have been visiting Chicago neighborhoods with tight-knit ethnic communities as a part of their endeavor to learn more about world cultures. They recently added Sweden to their growing list of countries when they traveled to Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood last month.

“I think [visiting these communities] is important for the boys because they’re learning about different cultures, instead of going by the stereotypes they might hear,” said Campbell Home day coordinator Liz Camara.

In order to fully immerse themselves in Chicago’s distinct communities, the boys and their Campbell Home staff created passports with sections to write down places they’ve visited, such as museums and restaurants, and things they’ve learned. Our intrepid explorers have already traveled to Chicago’s historically Mexican neighborhood of Pilsen and visited the Hellenic community in Greek town, which borders Mercy Home’s boys campus.

In Andersonville, the boys enjoyed a taste of Scandinavian cuisine at Svea Restaurant and wandered through the Swedish American Museum.

At the museum, the young men toured an exhibit called “The Dream of America: Swedish Immigration to Chicago.” There they learned about the hardships that the Swedes faced when they left their homeland and embarked on the journey to the Windy City. Our boys enjoyed reading about the stories, careers, struggles, and lifestyles of the immigrants who made Chicago their new home.

One of our boys particularly empathized with the children who had to leave their families without any guarantee of ever seeing them again—a challenge that he himself had to overcome during his childhood.

Later during their museum visit, the group came across a statue of an elderly Swedish woman who had to leave all her children behind when she immigrated to Chicago.

One of our boys looked at the statue and said, “That must have been hard, saying goodbye to your kids and never seeing them again. It’s the worst thing that can happen to a person.”