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If you live anywhere in the Milwaukee area, you live within 15 minutes of a grocery store representing another part of the world.
International diversity is one of the wonderful aspects of living in our city, yet it is easy to fall into routines where you rarely leave your own neighborhood.
This unintentionally fuels misunderstandings and even disregard for others in our dramatically segregated city.
When you intentionally visit a place outside of your neighborhood (and personal circle) with a positive and curious mind, you are creating an opportunity to bridge divides and to grow in awareness and understanding.
In reality, this might amount to nothing more than seeing a new part of town or becoming aware of a new global sweet.
That’s fantastic. The action and intention of simply going, crossing a self-imposed barrier, is powerful on its own.
With this in mind, I want to invite you to try a grocery store you have yet to explore on the list below. I encourage you to visit with a curious mind and attention to finding beauty and commonalities wherever you go.
1. Phongsavan Market Place, 6300 N. 76th St. – Hmong, Southeast Asian.
2. Holyland Grocery and Deli, 2755 W. Ramsey Ave., Greenfield – Middle East, Southwest Asia.
3. Eastern European Food and Gifts, 3557 N. Oakland Ave. – Ukrainian, Russian.
4. Adom African Market, 8058 N. 76th St. – West African and Caribbean.
5. Indian Grocery and Spices, 10633 W. North Ave. – India, South Asian.
6. O’Malley’s European Foods, 5423 W. Vliet St. – Irish and British.
7. Mei Hua Market, 11066 W. National Ave., West Allis – Chinese.
8. El Rey, four locations – Mexican.
9. Glorioso’s Italian Market, 1011 E. Brady St. – Italian.
10. Parthenon Foods, 8415 W. Greenfield Ave., West Allis – Greek.
There are too many international grocery stores in our city to put in this small list.
The ones here are merely a few meant to get you started, and to represent multiple world regions.
Keep exploring.
Megan Bollen has been teaching global studies at Alverno College for 10 years and made visiting different grocery stores in our area and writing about this connection to geography a part of the course.
What stores would you add to her list? Put in comments.
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