Drive north on Milwaukee Avenue, past the strange silhouette of a half scale Leaning Tower of Pisa, and you reach a corner of suburban Cook County where the shop signs carry a script older than Latin. The Assyrians in Niles are among the newest residents of a village that began as a German farming settlement, and they have brought with them one of the oldest continuously spoken languages on earth.
The Place
Niles sits directly against Chicago’s north western edge, a village of roughly thirty thousand people in Cook County. Settlers first arrived in the 1820s and 1830s, and the area was known for a time as Dutchman’s Point after its early German immigrants. The state formally incorporated the village on 24 August 1899, when it counted about 500 residents.
It is best known to outsiders for two things. One is the Leaning Tower of Niles, a half scale replica of the Pisa campanile built in 1934 and later restored, which appeared in the film Wayne’s World. The other, per the village’s recorded history, is the postwar building boom that carried the population from 3,500 in 1950 to nearly 19,000 by 1962, as returning veterans filled the new subdivisions.
Today Niles is one of the most ethnically mixed suburbs in the region. White residents fell from roughly 80 per cent in 2000 to about 65 per cent in 2020, while the Asian share rose toward one fifth. Within that change sits a smaller, distinctive thread: the Assyrians, who number around 1,113 in the village and make up the second largest reported ancestry after Polish.
How It Became Assyrian
To understand the Assyrians in Niles you have to start a long way from Illinois, in the mountains and plains of the Middle East, and then trace a path that runs through the north side of Chicago before it reaches the suburbs.
A people without a state
Assyrians are an indigenous Christian people of Mesopotamia, with roots in what is now northern Iraq, south eastern Turkey, north western Iran and north eastern Syria. They speak dialects of Neo Aramaic, a living descendant of the Aramaic once spoken across the ancient Near East. Most belong to the Assyrian Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church, or the Syriac Orthodox Church.
For Assyrians, displacement and faith are inseparable. Their migration to America was not driven by opportunity alone but by survival, and the churches they carried with them became the first institutions they rebuilt on foreign ground.
Flight and first arrivals
The story of Assyrians in Chicago reaches back to the era of the First World War. They began arriving in the United States to escape persecution at the hands of the Ottomans, fleeing the Hakkari highlands of what is now south eastern Turkey and the Urmia region of north western Iran. The genocide of 1915 to 1918, remembered by Assyrians as Seyfo, scattered survivors across the world.
Chicago became one of the most important of those refuges. The early arrivals settled on the north side of the city, and over the following decades the community grew through successive waves: survivors of the genocide, then those displaced by the upheavals of mid century Iraq and Iran, and later refugees from the Iran Iraq War and the conflicts that followed in Iraq after 1991 and 2003.
The north side years
For much of the twentieth century the heart of Assyrian Chicago lay in the city itself, above all in West Rogers Park, the north side neighbourhood that became the community’s anchor. There the churches, grocers and social clubs took root, and Devon Avenue became a corridor of immigrant business shared with South Asian, Jewish and other newcomers. You can read more of that story in our piece on the Assyrians in West Rogers Park, Chicago.
The parish of Mar Sargis the Martyr, founded for the Assyrian Church of the East, began in Lincoln Park before relocating north and eventually to Skokie, tracing the same outward drift the families themselves would follow.
The move to the suburbs
From the late twentieth century onward, as families grew more settled and prosperous, many Assyrians began moving out of the city into the near north and north western suburbs. Skokie, Morton Grove, Niles, Des Plaines, Lincolnwood, Itasca and Schaumburg all drew new Assyrian households.
Niles offered what suburban Chicago has always offered: larger homes, quieter streets, good schools and easy car access, without leaving the orbit of the institutions clustered just to the east in Lincolnwood and Skokie. A family could buy a house in Niles and still be ten minutes from their church, their grocer and their community foundation.
That proximity matters. The Assyrian institutional core did not have to move to Niles for Niles to become Assyrian. The Assyrian Universal Alliance Foundation, with its Ashurbanipal Library, sits at 4343 West Touhy Avenue in neighbouring Lincolnwood, a short drive away. The result is a community spread across a cluster of adjoining suburbs, with Niles as one of its residential centres.
Settling in
By the 2020s Assyrians had become the second most commonly reported ancestry in Niles, behind only Polish and ahead of long established groups. Their share of the village, around 4.6 per cent, understates their visibility, because the community is concentrated and institutionally dense rather than thinly scattered.
That visibility shows in the everyday texture of the place: in grocers stocking flatbread and imported cheeses, and in the steady traffic of families heading to Sunday liturgy in churches just across the village line.
The Landmarks
Arax Foods, 9017 North Milwaukee Avenue. A neighbourhood international grocer operating in Niles since 2009, Arax has become a fixture for Assyrian and broader Middle Eastern shoppers. Its shelves carry freshly baked bread, rice, olives, imported cheeses, halal goods and the dry staples that fill an Assyrian kitchen, drawing customers from Park Ridge, Des Plaines, Skokie and beyond.
Assyrian Universal Alliance Foundation, 4343 West Touhy Avenue, Lincolnwood. Just east of Niles, the AUAF is one of the community’s central institutions, running social and home care services for Assyrian families across the north suburbs. It houses the Ashurbanipal Library, a counterpart to the older library of the same name, preserving books and records of Assyrian history and language.
The Ashurbanipal Library. Founded on 13 July 1986 by members of an Assyrian student club, the library takes its name from the last great king of ancient Assyria, whose royal library at Nineveh is among the most famous of the ancient world. It collects books, periodicals and archival material in Assyrian, Arabic and English, and serves as a memory bank for a people whose homeland records have so often been destroyed.
Mar Sargis Parish, 5050 Church Street, Skokie. A parish of the Assyrian Church of the East that traces its origins to a congregation founded in Lincoln Park before moving steadily north. For many Niles families it is the nearest spiritual home, and a reminder that the church’s path through Chicago mirrors their own.
Mart Mariam (Saint Mary) Assyrian Church of the East, 660 Larson Lane, Roselle. One of the Assyrian Church of the East parishes serving the wider Chicago diaspora, drawing families from across the north and north western suburbs for liturgy in the Aramaic tradition. Its youth association is among the active hubs of community life for younger Assyrians.
Assyrian National Council of Illinois, 2450 West Peterson Avenue, Chicago. Known within the community as Motwa, the council is a long standing civic and cultural body representing Assyrians across Illinois. Though sited in the city, it serves the suburban families of Niles and its neighbours, organising cultural and advocacy work.
The Leaning Tower of Niles, 6300 West Touhy Avenue. Not an Assyrian landmark, but the village’s defining one: a half scale replica of the Pisa campanile, built in 1934 beside a YMCA. For Assyrian children growing up in Niles it is simply the tower at the end of the street, the odd and beloved emblem of the suburb they call home.
Where They Came From
The Assyrians of Niles did not come from a single town or even a single country. Their origins lie scattered across the historic Assyrian homeland: the Hakkari mountains of south eastern Turkey, the Urmia plain of north western Iran, the Nineveh Plains and northern cities of Iraq, and the Khabur region of north eastern Syria.
What unites them is not geography but history. Each wave was pushed out by a particular catastrophe. The First World War generation fled the Ottoman genocide. Mid century arrivals left the political turbulence of Iraq and Iran. The largest modern influx came after the Iran Iraq War and, above all, after the wars in Iraq from 1991 onward, when Christian communities faced renewed displacement.
This is why the Assyrians in Niles are best understood as a diaspora of refuge rather than economic migration. Chicago became one of the largest Assyrian population centres outside the Middle East precisely because chain migration drew each new wave toward relatives and churches already established here.
Niles Today
Walk Niles today and the Assyrian presence is woven into an ordinary suburban fabric rather than concentrated into a single visible quarter. There is no Assyrian high street in the way Devon Avenue once anchored the community in the city. Instead there are grocers, restaurants, professionals and homeowners distributed through a village that is itself one of the most diverse in the Chicago area.
The institutions that hold the community together sit mostly just over the line in Lincolnwood, Skokie and Chicago, a short drive from any Niles doorstep. That arrangement is itself a sign of maturity: the community has spread out, bought homes, and settled, while keeping its churches and cultural bodies within easy reach.
Niles is part of a wider belt of immigrant suburbs ringing Chicago’s north and west, each shaped by a different heritage. The same outward suburban movement carried the Pakistanis to Schaumburg and built strong Greek communities in Palos Hills and Oak Lawn, part of the broad redistribution of Chicago’s ethnic neighbourhoods into the suburbs over the past half century.
For younger Assyrians born in Niles, the challenge is the familiar diaspora one of holding on to a language and a faith that no nation state protects. Neo Aramaic survives in homes, churches and the careful work of bodies like the Ashurbanipal Library. The Sunday liturgy, the grocery run to a shop that stocks the right bread, the festival gathering: these are the threads that keep a stateless people connected, in a suburb best known to the world for a leaning tower it borrowed from Italy.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many Assyrians live in Niles, Illinois?
Around 1,113 residents of Assyrian background lived in Niles according to 2023 estimates, making Assyrian the second largest reported ancestry in the village after Polish. The Assyrians in Niles make up roughly 4.6 per cent of the population, a higher concentration than in most American towns.
Why did Assyrians settle in Niles?
Most Assyrians first settled on Chicago’s north side, especially in West Rogers Park, after fleeing persecution in the Middle East. From the late twentieth century many moved to north western suburbs such as Niles, Skokie and Morton Grove for larger homes and better schools, while staying close to the churches and cultural institutions clustered nearby.
What language do Assyrians speak?
Assyrians speak dialects of Neo Aramaic, a living descendant of ancient Aramaic and one of the oldest continuously spoken languages in the world. Many Assyrians in Niles also speak English, and some speak Arabic or Persian depending on their country of origin.
Are there Assyrian churches near Niles?
Yes. While the parishes themselves sit in neighbouring suburbs, Mar Sargis Parish of the Assyrian Church of the East is in nearby Skokie at 5050 Church Street, and Mart Mariam (Saint Mary) is in Roselle at 660 Larson Lane. Both serve Assyrian families living in Niles.
What is the Ashurbanipal Library?
The Ashurbanipal Library, founded in 1986 and named for the last great king of ancient Assyria, collects books, periodicals and archives documenting Assyrian history, language and literature. It preserves the cultural memory of a people whose homeland records have repeatedly been destroyed, and serves the Assyrians in Niles and the wider Chicago diaspora.
Where did the Assyrians of Niles originally come from?
They trace their roots to the historic Assyrian homeland across northern Iraq, south eastern Turkey, north western Iran and north eastern Syria. Successive waves arrived after the First World War genocide, the political upheavals of mid century Iraq and Iran, and the Iraq wars from 1991 onward.
If your family’s story passed through Niles, or any of the places Assyrians have made home in America, Atlas of Home can trace that journey. From the mountains of Hakkari and the plains of Urmia to a grocer on Milwaukee Avenue and a church just over the village line, to wherever you are now.