The Flemish in Chicago

A few days ago a Flemish friend of mine – a man not only well informed about the Flemish in North America, but an author of 32 books on the Flemish in East Flanders no less – startled me with the remark that he never knew there were any Flemish in Chicago. As a Chicagoan and an American of Flemish descent, I can assure you Frans, there are Flemish in Chicago!

Flemish color guard, Belgian-American Club, Independence Day celebration, July 4, 1965

Not only do Flemish exist in Chicago, but the presence of Flemings in Chicago, while not unbroken through time, stretches back to colonial times. Indeed, before the birth of the city of Chicago itself.

Flemish Chicago – Origins and Historical Record

The earliest recorded Flemish visitors to the area that would one day become ‘Chicago’ were part of Robert Cavelier de La Salle’s (1643-1687) exploration party attempting to reach the Mississippi in 1679. These included not only famed Flemish Recollet priest Lodewijk Hennepin but also the Flemish Recollet priests Zenobe Membre and Gabriel Ribourde (see Parkman, p.92). In addition, several of the voyageurs with LaSalle were part of the "motley crew of French, Flemings and Italians" (Parkman, p.88) that were the bulk of the expeditions' manpower and fighting force.

Although the reason why so many Flemings accompanied this trip has gone unremarked upon by historians, there may have been a reason in the background of the expedition's leader, LaSalle. Perhaps the affinity that LaSalle had for the Flemings derived from his mother, Catherine Geest, who was reputedly of Flemish ancestry (Parkman, p. 3 n.1).

Fr Loedewijk Hennepin

The possibility that there were Flemish visitors at Chicago even before LaSalle is suggested by the fact that Hennepin literally stumbled into 3 fur trappers in the forests of upstate New York speaking Flemish (see the English translation of Fr. Hennepin's "A Description of Louisiana", p.24)! These Flemings begged Fr. Hennepin to visit that the other Flemish Catholics at Nieuw Nederland (of which I will write more about later).

Fr. Hennepin's Map of the New World, 1683. The first to accurately show the Great Lakes Region and Chicago.

Chicago, at the time of LaSalle's and Hennepin's visits in the 1670s was of course part of New France. New France covered a swath of territory that bracketed water ways running from the North Atlantic fisheries off of Newfoundland through the St. Lawrence Seaway, into the Great Lakes, and through the waterways that fed into the Great Lakes, to the Mississippi River. The Mississippi of course empties into the Gulf of Mexico, just below New Orleans. And Chicago's growth and genesis rests in part on its locale at the junction of North American waters that flow alternately eastwards and westwards, off of the continental divide. In an era of poor footpaths and no roads, the complex of rivers and lakes served as water highways on which to conduct commerce. The commerce of New France was furs and agriculture.

The portage between Lake Michigan's extreme SW point and the Desplaines River. This portage falls within today's Chicago city limits and is memorialized by Chicago's Portage Park neighborhood.

Settlers and fur trappers to the Illinois country usually came from Europe through French ports to Montreal and Quebec. If they ventured to push on to Illinois, they likely followed LaSalle's and Hennepin's waterway down Lake Michigan to the point were it was only a few miles portage between the Chicago River (which emptied into Lake Michigan) and the DesPlaines River (which emptied into the Illinois River and which, in turn, emptied into the Mississippi River). At the juncture of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers, near the site of the premier native American city of Cahokia, the French fort and town of Kaskaskia grew to several thousand inhabitants.

Fort Chartres, near Kaskaskia. Flemish soldiers were quartered here and at least several of the Flemish settlers made their way here via the Chicago portage from Montreal in New France

As Professor Natalia Belting of the University of Illinois pointed out in her well-researched "Kaskaskia Under the French Regime", a minority of this substantial French colony were indeed Flemish. As the records clearly state, some of these were soldiers (p.91), others wives of French settlers (like Agnes Marthe Clement - p.118) and still others settlers themselves. One of these settlers, a donne of the Jesuits, is recorded as the first to sow wheat in Illinois (see Belting pp.12-13). Of course Chicago as a city did not exist as a settlement until more than 100 years later when it was unincorporated as a municipality until 1833.

This excerpt from a 18th century French description of the "Illinois Country" claims that the Fleming Zebedee in Illinois was not only the first to plant and sow wheat there but that the yields he reaped were richer than anything in France. Source: p.92 of "French Roots in the Illinois Country" by Carl J. Ekberg (Illinois, 2000).

Flemish pioneers were also among the very first to tread the ground that would become the “Windy City”. Most of these Flemish immigrants did not linger in Chicago but instead, like the legendary Father DeSmet and a large number of Flemish priests in the 1820s and 1830s, either moved south to Missouri, or like Father Charles Nerinckx, onto Kentucky or northward to Door and Kewaunee Counties in Wisconsin (see "Door County Stories").

As such not only was a Flemish bishop, James Van De Velde, head of the Archdiocese of Chicago in the 1850s, but Flemings made multiple contributions to Chicago that placed her ahead of other American cities. For example, Chicago's well-regarded public transportation system, the CTA, can trace its origins to the electric train system was first set up by a Fleming, Charles Van de Poele. Van de Poele, whose company Thomson-Houston Electric Company - which later, in 1892, became what today we know as the General Electric Company - sold part of his interest to a young American whose ancestors included Flemish protestants that came over in the 1600s: Thomas Alva Edison.





Quantifying the Flemish in Chicago

Our ability to quantify the Flemish population in Chicago is limited in many ways. For the most part, firm records in Chicago exist in limited numbers before 1850 and individual census data is of course only available to genealogists 72 years after the date. So the tables below are by definition limited in scope but a partial proof of the early and sustained Flemish presence in Chicago. The table states the official tally of Chicagoans self-identifying themselves as Flemish. Of course, as I have mentioned elsewhere, self-identification is not always the most accurate tally.

Belgians and Flemish in Chicago

Year_________Belgians____ Flemish[1] _____U.S. Born Flemish[2]

1860__________152 _________n/a_____________ n/a
1870__________392 _________n/a_____________ n/a
1880__________484 _________n/a_____________ n/a
1890__________801 _________n/a_____________ n/a
1900_________1160 _________n/a[3]___________ n/a
1910_________2665 ________1578___________ 2377
1920[4]_______3079 ________2308___________ 3649
1930[5]_______4106 ________2999____________ n/a
1940_________3504 ________2340___________ 3100
1950[6]_______2797_________ n/a ____________ n/a
Source: The People of Chicago: Who We Are and Who We Have Been (Chicago: City of Chicago, Department of Development and Planning, 1970)

Although official records put the total number of Belgian immigrants at less than 30,000 in the whole U.S. by 1900[7], those numbers rose rapidly over the coming decade. The Belgian immigrants to the U.S. naturally migrated to those places that had attracted earlier migrations – mainly in the Midwest. This included Green Bay Wisconsin, Detroit Michigan and Moline and Chicago Illinois.

Plat of the City of Chicago 1830

Chicago in particular had a young but thriving Flemish community. The 1900 Federal Census records say that 1160 Belgian immigrants were living in Chicago and did not differentiate between Flemish and Walloon. But according to a study conducted by University of Chicago professor of linguistics Carl Darling Buck in about 1902, “1000-2000” Chicagoans were native Flemish speakers – and rapidly growing.

A 1907 Chicago Tribune article claimed there were 3,000 Belgians in Chicago by the end of that year and that they were “widely scattered” around the city. Between 2500 and 3500 Belgians were migrating to the U.S. each year in the early 1900s. By comparison, however, and if later ratios are any indication, between 55% and 75% of all the Belgian emigrants to the U.S. were Flemish. So by 1910 the Federal census recorded 1576 foreign-born and 2,376 children who claimed Flemish heritage in Chicago.

St. John Berchman's Catholic Church, Chicago 2005. The church was built by and for the Flemish immigrant community in Chicago in 1907 and for 70 years massses were said in Flemish for the Flemish catholics of Chicago. St. John's was named for the Flemish Jesuit and was one of the ethnic churches permitted for only 17 different nationalities in Chicago.

There are several points worth noting here concerning the Flemish population of Chicago. Although the Flemish Catholic Church, St. John Berchman (Logan Square Boulevard and Maplewood Avenue, dedicated December 15, 1907) and the nearby Belgian American Club at 2625 W. Fullerton Avenue (cornerstone laid in 1921) acted as centralizing influences, the Flemish community never really occupied a ‘neighborhood’ in the same sense as other ethnic groups in Chicago. As the Chicago Daily Tribune explained in 1907, “The 3000 Belgians in the city are widely scattered, so the boundaries of the [St. John Berchman's] parish [usually the focal point of Chicago’s Catholic ethnic enclaves] are made to coincide with the boundaries of the diocese.”8]

To place those demographics in a national perspective, the 1910 Federal Census recorded 49,397 Belgian-born residents[9] of whom were 42,722 foreign-born Flemish speakers that year[10]. It also recorded an additional 39,867 second generation Flemish-Americans. In other words, there were 89,264 Flemish residents in the U.S. in 1910. Of these, Illinois claimed the largest share, in a belt that stretched east to west, from Chicago to Moline. Percentage-wise then, nearly a quarter of all residents of the U.S. with Flemish ties resided in Illinois and perhaps 10% of the national total resided in Chicago alone.

The 1920 Federal Census recorded a dramatic jump in numbers. 63,236 residents claimed to be Belgian born and a further 59,454 were the American-born offspring. Of those 122,690 87,890 claimed Flemish as their ‘mother tongue’[11]. Illinois again topped the states in terms of Belgian-born population with 11,329 of the 62,686 recorded residing in Illinois[12]. The next closest state was Michigan (10,501) distantly trailed by Wisconsin (3,444)[13].

Flemish Chicago Today

Chicago may be home to a smaller and more geographically dispersed group of Flemings than in years past but if the integrated metropolitan area of Cook County and the surrounding collar counties are included, Chicago is still home to more than 7,000 Belgian-born Flemings and uncounted tens of thousands of descendants of the earlier "Belgians" of Flemish origin. Today the vast majority of those claiming Belgian descent are – if attendance at ‘Belgian’ functions, membership in ‘Belgian’ clubs, and subscription rates of ‘Belgian’ publications are any indication –overwhelmingly of Flemish ethnicity[14].

Source: Marie Bousfeld unpublished paper, "Belgians in the USA" April 23, 2007 p.11.

The Cultural and Social Glue of Flemish Chicago

Like other ethnic groups, the Flemish had a strong loci for the Flemish community itself in Chicago, centered around cultural and religious activities. St. John Berchman’s church was one locus around which the Flemish settled. On major holidays (such as Memorial Day) the Flemish would gather at the ‘Belgian Hall’ and parade in formation to St. John Berchmann’s for Mass in Flemish.

After Mass we would parade back to the Belgian Hall, another center for some of the 13 different Flemish clubs in Chicago during its heyday in the mid-twentieth century. Often our parade marched back with a police escort and often lead by a colorguard. Back at the Belgian Hall, we ate frieten and great ham sandwiches smothered in strong mustard. The men - and women too - drank good Belgian beer while playing cards, shooting plastic-tipped arrows in the hall at feathered and mounted 'birdies' on a competition stand, and reconnecting.

Many of the Flemish in Chicago were connected not only through religious and cultural ties, but also through work. A high percentage of the Flemish had become flat (as in apartment building 'flats' of 2 or 3 stories) janitors. This lead to the ubiquitous term "Belgian janitors" and as an ethnic force, the Flemish janitors had unionized (perhaps a legacy of the guild tradition of Flanders), establishing the Flat Janitors Local #1, today represented by the Service Employees International Union or SEIU.

Belgian Bow and Arrow Club members in the Belgian Hall in Chicago in the 1960s

The head of the union local was often the head of the social tempo for the Flemish of Chicago. So for the first half of the twentieth century - at least for the period 1915 to 1960s - first West Flemish immigrant Gus Van Heck and then his American-born son Ray Van Heck headed both the Chicago Flat Janitors Union Local #1 as well as the Belgian-American Club of Chicago. From the 1960s through the 1980s not the union but certainly many of the Flemish Clubs in Chicago were lead by the dynamic and charismatic Vrasene native Arnold Van Puymbroeck (who is still active today). The current Flemish community in Chicago is lead by the tireless Deinze native Bart Ryckbosch.

Arnold Van Puymbroeck, long the leader of Flemings in Chicago, and the Flemish American at the 2008 Belgian American Picnic in Chicago

Today the Flemish in Chicago - like our family - still gather annually in August for the "Belgian" picnic (as you can see from the picture below). Most are no longer janitors, nor members of the the "Belgian" Flat Janitors Local #1. Today the term "Belgian-American" has become a synonym - as ironically as it may sound - for the Americans of Flemish descent here in Chicago. The Flemish in Chicago, even generations removed from the last landverhuizer to leave Flander's coast, maintain not only their ancestral ties to Flanders but preserve some relic of their roots in the cultural customs of the Flemish community in Chicago.

Three generations of a Flemish American Family in Chicago at the "Belgian" picnic, 2006

Conclusion

The Midwest generally, and Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin specifically, have long been recognized as the center of the strongest Flemish immigration to the U.S. While Chicago's Flemish population has not only moved to the suburbs in many cases but also intermarried with other hyphenated Americans, it retains a strong historical and cultural claim as a center of Flemish settlement in the U.S. The scattered silos of Flemish-affiliation within driving distance of Chicago of course remain linked with Chicago and include: the Quad Cities area around Moline, IL; Green Bay WI; northern Indiana (especially Mishawaka); and finally suburban Detroit. As the largest city in the Midwest, Chicago not only is and has been a focus for Flemish immigrants to America. It has also been a center to which the other Flemish communities in the Midwest US have been connected to.

© 2008 by David Baeckelandt

ENDNOTES

[1] The percentages of those claiming Flemish heritage of all Belgian immigrants in Chicago for 1910 thru 1940 inclusive were 59.21%, 74.96%, 73.04% and 66.78% respectively (author’s calculations). However, I suspect that the example of my own family – where one brother claimed French ethnicity (Joseph Dupon) while another (Edmond Dupon) claimed Flemish – all in the space of 6 weeks at Ellis Island (May 6, 1902 & June 21, 1902) – may point to the fact that the number of Flemish Belgians are understated by the ‘official’ declarations of the Belgian immigrants. A better study would analyze the Venesoen Reports of emigrants during the same period to get a sense of the true ethnic mix coming to America from Belgium during this time.
[2] “U.S. Born Flemish” connotes children born of two foreign-born, Flemish speaking parents.
[3] According to The Daily News Almanac and Year-Book 1904 by James Langland (Chicago: 1903), p.405 there were “1,000 to 2,000” Flemish speakers in Chicago at that time. These figures were attributed to an undated paper by University of Chicago professor Carl Darling Buck titled “A Sketch of the Linguistic Conditions of Chicago” http://tigger.uic.edu/depts/hist/hull-maxwell/vicinity/nws1/documents/html/buck.htm
. By comparison, Moline, Illinois was said to have “4,000” native speakers of Flemish in the 1890s (see http://members.tripod.com/~stoliker/pafn106.htm
“A private letter from C. L. DeWAELE, shows him to be finely located at Moline, Ill., with every prospect of success. That city claims among its population 4000 Belgians, and that alone will give Mr. DeWAELE an inside tract, as he is perfectly familiar with their language and customs. His friends here will be glad of his prosperity”. Avalanche [Crawford County, MI newspaper] 7 Apr 1892.)
[4] The census question asked for the “mother tongue” spoken in the home for 1920 and 1940.
[5] The 1930 census simply asked the participants birth nationality and thus did not distinguish between Flemish and Walloon. There were 7,886 U.S. born children of Belgian-born parents in the tally. Note that for Cook County, the 1930 census listed 8,837 persons of Belgian nationality, roughly 0.2% of the total population [The Chicago Daily News and Almanac and Year Book 1935 (Chicago: Chicago Daily News, 1935) p.924]. This was the 21st largest nationality in the city and county (the largest, listing themselves as “American”, were 28% of Chicago and 30% of Cook County. German at 12% was the second largest.
[6] The 1950 census did not distinguish between Flemings and Walloons but did indicate that there were 6,402 children of the Belgian born parents. This reckoning of course does not include grandchildren.
[7] There were recorded 29,848 Belgian born residents in the U.S. according to the 1900 census. [The Chicago Daily News and Almanac and Year Book 1907 (Chicago: Chicago Daily News, 1906) p.41].
[8] “Belgian Church Formally Opened” Chicago Daily Tribune December 16, 1907 p.6
[9] [The Chicago Daily News and Almanac and Year Book 1931 (Chicago: Chicago Daily News, 1930) p.425].
[10] [The Chicago Daily News and Almanac and Year Book 1931 (Chicago: Chicago Daily News, 1930) p.426].
[11] [The Chicago Daily News and Almanac and Year Book 1931 (Chicago: Chicago Daily News, 1930) pp.425-6].
[12] [The Chicago Daily News and Almanac and Year Book 1931 (Chicago: Chicago Daily News, 1930) pp.427-8]. I am not sure where the 1,500 count discrepancy in the 1920 census numbers is from. The Almanac does not explain it. That said, the aforementioned Carl Darling Buck noted the frequent discrepancy between school census numbers and official census claims. Mr. Buck suspected that official data were understated and that school census data were a more reliable indicator of ethnicity.
[13] Ibid. Curiously, the 1930 Federal Census numbers lost many of these finer gradations and began, for example, to record the immigration of Dutch-speaking Belgians under the heading “Dutch and Flemish”.
[14] In large part I suspect that this is due to the (historical) relative status between French speakers and Dutch speakers in Belgium. The Dutch-speakers looked down upon by the French speakers; the Walloons’ disdain for the Flemish a reflection of the French disdain for all things ‘Belgian’. Note that the Belgian-American Club of Chicago is almost 100% Flemish. When the club built their ‘Belgian Hall’ in 1921 on West Fullerton Street in Chicago, the cornerstone was engraved with the declaration “All Belgians Are Equal”. See http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/SAFFIteratedFacts?_event=Search&geo_id=16000US1714000&_geoContext=01000US%7C04000US17%7C16000US1714000&_street=&_county=&_cityTown=&_state=04000US17&_zip=&_lang=en&_sse=on&ActiveGeoDiv=geoSelect&_useEV=&pctxt=fph&pgsl=160&_submenuId=factsheet_2&ds_name=DEC_2000_SAFF&_ci_nbr=518&qr_name=DEC_2000_SAFF_A1160&reg=DEC_2000_SAFF_A1160%3A518&_keyword=&_industry= for the most recent U.S. government census data by ethnicity and state.

Flemish Contributions to Columbus' Discovery of America - Part I: Family History

Christopher Columbus

With the exception of a few outliers such as Berkeley, CA , most of the U.S. celebrates Columbus Day on the 2nd Monday in October. This year that means October 13th (even though the accurate date according to the current, Gregorian calendar, is October 21st). For the part of the U.S. population that claims Italian heritage, this day marks an important validation of their ethnicity and their place in America.

Louis II, Duke of Bourbon, in Genoa in the 15th C - painted in Brugge

Perhaps in a kind of ethno envy, other ancestral groups - Portuguese, English, Norwegian, and even Jewish - have laid claim to Columbus' origins. But serious historians doubt that there were any other nationalities besides the Italians, Basques, Spanish and Portuguese among the 87 crew of the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria in 1492. However, as even that limited tally suggests, the European Discovery of America, as the late historian Samuel Eliot Morison described it, was more of a trans-national effort than the product of a lone individual or a single nationality. And, as you may suspect, the Flemish had a hand in this process.

Bruges today looks much like it did in the 15th century

The ties between Italy and Flanders go back of course to Roman times when Caesar called the tribes in Flanders the bravest he had ever met. But in more recent centuries the Italian presence is documented as early as 1128 (see, for example, "Italianen te Gent in de XIVe Eeuw" by Dr. P. Rogghe in Bijdragen Geschiedenis der Nederlanden, 1, 1946, 197-226). The expat Italian merchants rose to high strata in Flemish society. By the mid 1300s, for example, not only had most of these Italian merchants married into the local gentry, but had risen to prominence as receivers for Gent (Sanders Conte and Conte Gaulterotti) and mayors of Brugge (Anselm Adorne and Vanne Gui). And even those with generations of family history in the commercial and financial capital of 14th century Flanders, Brugge - such as the aforementioned Anselm Adorne - still considered themselves natives of their ancestral Italian home. In Adorne's case home was in fact Genoa in the 1470s. In other words, at the same time of Columbus' residence there.

The Ligurian coast surrounding Genoa

Columbus’ Family’s Early Flemish Connection

Columbus' connection with Flanders started, so to speak, before he was born in 1451. In 1429, at the tender age of 11, Columbus' father Domenico was apprenticed to a Flemish weaver for at least six years. This Flemish weaver was variably known as either William or Gerard of Brabant. This weaver certainly spoke Genoese and Flemish and since apprentices lived in the homes of their master, it is possible that Columbus' father picked up a few phrases of Flemish. In apprenticing to a weaver, Domenico was following in his father, Giovanni's footsteps. And after Domenico, Columbus also followed his father (and mother) as a weaver until the sea called him away sometime in his youth during the late 1460s or early 1470s (various conflicting accounts exist).

Weavers loom 16th century

The blue-eyed, reddish-blond haired Columbus - as both his son, Fernando Colon, and his first biographer, Bartholmew Las Casas who also knew him, described the man - was as most people know, a Genoese by origin. Despite some hints by famed Columbus historian Samuel Eliot Morison at a 'northern' ethnicity alluding to Columbus' strikingly northern European features, it is unlikely that Columbus was of Flemish ancestry. But throughout his career, at key points, he brushed against and benefitted from the knowledge and contributions of overseas Flemings.

My next blog postings will show how Columbus used not only Flemish technology to make it to the New World but how he followed earlier Flemish seafarers who had attempted the trip. And finally, how clues and inferences from Flemish sailors, merchants, priests and cartographers made it possible for Columbus to become known as Admiral of the Ocean Sea.

Who are the Flemish-Americans?

The national anthem of the Flemish is "De Vlaamse Leeuw". The "Vlaamse Leeuw" stanza and refrain that hung in the Belgian Hall in Chicago from 1971 until its closing in the 1980s. This was created by Julian Baeckelandt (1904-1975), a Flemish immigrant from Koekelare, West Vlaanderen. We sang this anthem at the start of meetings.


Growing up Flemish-American in Chicago in the 1960s and 1970s was like growing up as some part of a soon-to-be extinct tribe. In Chicago's Catholic milieu of neighborhoods and ethnicities the defining questions when making a new aquaintance were "What [Catholic] parish are you from?" and "What nationality [=ethnicity/national heritage] are you?" Most Chicagoans slipped easily into the well-known categories: Irish, Italian, German, and Polish. Others fell into smaller groups that had ethnic cohesion and strong cultural identity as well: English, French, Croatians, etc. Few people in Chicago, however, knew then who the Flemish were or are.

My answers to those two above questions were easy for the first (since I was and am Catholic) but difficult for the second. Telling another grade school kid I was Flemish was akin to telling them I spoke Swahili: it existed outside the normative range of responses that another Chicagoan could anticipate and was the prelude either for a short history lesson or (as I got older) quick quips about Flemish painters or Trappist beer.

Provinces of Belgium

Flanders did not have its own state - it was and is the most populous region of a country more than 50 years younger than the U.S., Belgium. There was barely a Belgian history, and certainly no such thing as a Belgian language (the vast majority of Belgian citizens speak as their mother tongue the softer version of Dutch called Flemish). There was and are two distinct cultures and nationalities; Flemish and Walloons cobbled together in an artficial state. Like the Soviet Union, or other states where a determined minority imposed their will on the majority without their consent, Belgium was born in 1830 of a revolt by a French-speaking minority imposing their will over the majority Flemings.


My need to answer the second question more thoroughly has been part of a 40 year quest. In a tribal society like the late twentieth-century urban United States, knowing who you are is as important as knowing where you wish to go. It is critical not only for one’s self-development but as an aid to others in the tribal society to fit you into a construct that their universe can identify and classify. So who are the Flemish?

The Flemish - approximately 60% of the 10,584,534 inhabitants of the Kingdom of Belgium in 2007 as per Belgian government statistics - are in effect a nation without a country. Although recognized as a distinct "people" since at least the time of the establishment of the Count of Flanders (862 AD) and moreover, predating "France" by at least 100 years - the Capetian kings of the late 900s transferred their fief name of the Ile de France to the broader domain that expanded under their dominion - Flanders’ political sovereignity has only sporadically stood free . Flanders has been occupied by not only the French (1794-1815 - and throughout the pre-Burgundian period before 1477), but of course the Germans (1914-18; 1940-44), Spanish (1516-1712) and Austrians (1712-1794). An excellent timeline that reduces this complexity to a graphic timeline can be found here. The Kingdom of Belgium itself is an artificial construct that only dates to 1830 and was established primarily by a Francophone elite who imposed their will, apartheid-like, on the Flemish majority.

Today Flanders' sovereignity remains impeded, primarily by the artificial political dominance of the minority Walloons. That said, conditions for the oppressed Flemish majority have improved since the establishment of the Belgian state in 1830. No longer do Flemings have to worry that they can be charged, tried, and executed without recourse to their native language (such as 2 Flemish peasants charged, tried and executed in French without recourse), nor are Flemish soldiers given military orders in a foreign language (Flemish soldiers were still being jailed for this as late as 1930) nor have they been forbidden to attend higher education in their native language (again, this was not legally permitted until the middle of the 20th century). Flemish citizens could not even - in their own streets - see street signs in Flemish. Everything official was conducted in the language of the minority - French.

The 2000 US Census listed 348,531 people claiming "Belgian" ancestry (down from more than 380,000 in 1990). Less than 15,000 specifically listed "Flemish" as their ethnicity. A superficial reading of these numbers would lead the uninformed to believe that the number of Flemish-Americans is so small as to be meaningless. The reality is that Flemish-Americans - as defined by their origins in the Dutch-speaking regions of today's Belgium and France - are the majority. The vast majority of emmigrants as tracked by the Belgian government when debriefed before embarkation during the largest decade of Belgian emigration to America were from the Flemish provinces of East and West Flanders and Brabant.

As these late 19th and early 20th century Flemish immigrants established clubs and associations in the U.S. they chose names like "Familiekring" and the "Flemish American Club". Some Flemish immigrant clusters, such as the one in Chicago that was an important part of my family’s social life, glossed over the discrimination remaining in their homeland and called themselves a "Belgian-American Club".


But even then the inequalities of the past were not entirely forgotten. When the cornerstone of the Belgian-American Club of Chicago was laid in 1921 it carried the inscription that "All Belgians are Equal". (See the picture here http://www.viwchicago.org/news_events.html#past).
Historical citizenship - in this case the Belgian citizenship of Flemish ancestors - has in the minds of many of these immigrants' descendants become the proxy for ethnicity. Perhaps this is an unintended consequence of choosing club and association names that stressed the connection with Belgium – like the Belgian-American Club of Chicago . Likewise, within one or two generations outmarriage (to non-Flemish ethnicities) was the rule. Dilution of ethnicity was multiplied by a decision to choose which “nationality” one chooses to emphasize. Despite the fact that most Americans are mongrels (yours truly included) only 29% of all Americans claimed "multiple" ancestries in the last census (2000). Since very few Americans are truly of only one ethnicity, these figures represent self-perceptions more than they represent true genetic origins.

My point here then is that the census-takers’ official designation of “Flemish-American” is not accurately reflected in the statistics officially tallied. More to the point, self-descriptions may not mesh with ethnicities. In a later blog I will attempt to show that the number of Flemish-Americans is far, far greater than even the upper tally of Belgian-Americans recorded by census takers.

The picture to the left was a reception for King Albert in 1930 hosted by the Flemish Belgian-American community in Chicago.


In the interim, I can reccommend Herman Boel's comprehensive website of all things Flemish as a superb starting point to understand more about not only the origins of the Flemish but also the various facets of modern Flemish culture.