In north suburban Skokie, a cluster of low-slung strip malls along Dempster Street is a microcosm of the town’s changing population.
A grocery store selling Cameroonian and Nigerian produce, opened a year and a half ago, stands across the street from a Chinese restaurant serving a regional street food speciality.
“We have a diverse culture here,” said Mado Mbasso, owner of Mado’s African Market, a small grocery store that caters to a growing West African diaspora in the northwest suburbs. “There are Chinese people. My next door [neighbor], I think they are Jewish, the other ones are Europeans.”…