Chicago is the place where I lived for three-fourths of my lifetime, where my father was born, I was born, my son was born, and where for three generations, our first language as Chicago-born Mexicans was Spanish. It is a city-state that stands defiantly autonomous in the bosom of the milk-bred/corn-fed flatness that otherwise has always typified the Midwest.

I grew up during the era when--to borrow from the African-American comedian Aaron Freeman--"I thought that 'Mare Daley' was the term for 'leader of the city.'" No denying it, Chicago is a double-standard, double-crossing, hyphenated-American megametropolis. It was and remains one of the most segregated cities in the U.S. If it doesn't make you sentimental, it makes you smart.