If you call the Sears Tower, the "Willis Tower" then you are not from Chicago. If you have no intellect on the colloquial language or slang that is used in Chicago, then you are not from Chicago. If the CTA was not your primary form of transportation at some point in your life, then you are not from Chicago. If you have never seen a chair in a parking space, or personally put out a chair to save your shoveled parking spot in the winter, then you are not from Chicago.
If your address does not include: 606, Chicago, IL then you are not from Chicago!!!!
I have heard a lot of suburbanites complain about how adamant Chicagoans are about not letting them say they are from Chicago. I understand that if you are from a small town that nobody has ever heard of, it might be easier to say that you are from Chicago, but we both know that isn't true. Instead, say that you live x amount of hours away from the city. The reason that Chicagoans become so upset when people not from the city say that they are, is so much bigger than we simply don't like sharing our city. I agree Chicago is an amazing place, and I couldn't imagine growing up anywhere else, but by claiming that you are from Chicago, when in fact you are not, you are discrediting the hardships and experiences that people from the city endure.
Living in Chicago comes with a lot of good things, but it also comes with a lot of bad, as well. Those who grew up in the suburbs will never understand what living in the city is actually like unless they have experienced it themselves. I am a Chicago Public School alumni and was in the system from preschool all the way to high school senior. In all of my fourteen years of being a CPS student, funding to keep school doors open has been a consistent problem. There have been countless times that the Chicago Teachers Union has threatened to go on strike for better wages and condition. There also have always been plenty of times that they actually have gone on strike costing students valuable class time that could have been avoided if CPS properly funded their employees and schools. School closings are also not uncommon in the city and they happen predominantly in low-income neighborhoods. The system makes it even more difficult for people in the hood to make better lives for themselves through education by limiting their access to education.
Quality education is hard to come by in the city and is permitted to a very lucky few. It is a real problem and a battle that suburban kids are oblivious to because having access to quality education is something they would never think twice about.
The fight for quality education is just one thing of many that suburbans will never understand. They could never fathom the thought of not being able to go to a certain area because it isn't safe. They couldn't think of having to help their friends grieve over another life taken from gun violence. They will never understand that we say "be safe" to everyone we say "goodbye" to because you never know when the dangers of the city will affect you next. They couldn't imagine seeing their families and friends uprooted from their longtime homes because gentrification has finally affected their neighborhood to the point that they can't afford to live there anymore.
Chicago to suburbans is a fun train ride downtown to go shopping on Magnificent Mile and visit the bean. It's taking pictures for their Instagram at a new coffee shop up north. It's going to the beach and playing beach volleyball. My city is so much more than that. My city is murals and art all over the building walls, and corner stores on every other block and dancing to house music all night long. My city hearing fireworks a month before and after the Fourth of July. My city is cultural festivals all summer long and driving down Lake Shore Drive with music blasting. My city is having the option to eat at Portillo's, Ricobene's or Connie's. Suburbans will never know my city so stop saying that you are from Chicago and act as if you do. It's about time that suburbans stop appropriating a culture that they have no idea even exists.
