Chicago Latin@s building communities of resistance
I arrived in NW Chicago about mid-day Friday. Howard and Andi Sass were gracious enough to let me stay at their house even though they were leaving town for the long weekend. I took 3 buses down to Pilsen to visit with Raul Raymundo, the longstanding charismatic ED of the Resurrection Project. The Resurrection Project’s mission is “to build relationships and challenge people to act on their faith and values to create healthy communities through organizing, education and community development.” I was deeply impressed with the success the RP has had in reaching their goals and in building a non-profit that is self-sustaining and not dependent on grant funding. As with my other conversations, I also learned about Raul’s familial history and how his parents’ values and experiences shaped him to be a community leader in the very neighborhood he grew up in after coming to the US at age seven. His father journeyed here in 1968 when he was recruited to work in a Chicago factory from Mexico City.
I had learned that a friend and former UTSA colleague, Rodolfo Rosales, was in town attending the American Political Science Association conference. He was staying with another friend, Juan Mora, so later that afternoon I went downtown to catch up with them at an outdoor cafe for a few drinks. It was a bit surreal to be in such a big metropolis after spending so much time in rural areas. On my way to our rendezvous point I encountered a Critical Mass demonstration in downtown Chicago. The Friday before leaving on my trip in late June, I’d seen one in Minneapolis. This one was very large, so I respectfully dodged and darted my way through the bikes to cross the street. On Sunday I would see news from Minneapolis about a hostile encounter with the police by Critical Mass participants that occurred about the same time as the Chicago ride was occurring.
After a nice long evening with my friends discussing my trip and local community politics in Chicago, I made my way back to NW Chicago via the train. From Juan I learned about the philosophy of building communities of resistance that was guiding the resistance to gentrification of the Humboldt Park neighborhood. ...
The next day I was happy to see that I was only about 7 miles from Humboldt Park so I rode the bike there mid-afternoon and basked in the Midwest’s largest celebration of Puerto Rican culture. There were three stages providing music, poetry, and hip-hop—from traditional, to folk, to avant guarde. I stayed a few hours and left so I could make it back to the house before dark. See some samples of the blending of hip-hop and the local issues coming together below.
Unlike small towns, in a big city like Chicago, it’s not about looking for visible evidence of Latino life and culture, but rather of deciding what to focus on and who to speak with about the many efforts to sustain and enhance Latina/o life. What was made clear to me about the stakes in Humboldt Park’s resistance to gentrification is the very notion of cultural cohesion as it relates to space. Without a neighborhood where the historical, social, and cultural integrity is maintained in an everyday fashion, these folks stand to lose their very soul—a whole way of life.
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......and just maybe
......and just maybe cultural cohesion is a worthy goal but when it veers into seperatism and the scapegoating of the very grandchildren of those who’s toil layed the bricks and foundation of the Humboldt Park and Pilsen communities as “gentrifiers” it goes too far. What shall we call the Latinos moving into the neighborhoods of other ethnic and racial communities? Are not they also destroying the cultural cohesion of Avondale or the Southwest Side? Does anyone say where they can and cannot live?
It wasn’t too distant in the past that the founding ethnic communities, which were not Latino, were broken apart by government policy, gang activity, ethnic warfare, civil strife, and in Humboldt’s case the riots of the Puerto Rican wayward youth and the FALN. I used to be sympathetic to the cause of the Latino community but the arrogance and hate spewed from the mouths of their “Community Leaders” who teach hate has caused me to feel less so.
The issue of reinvestment in our communities is a fragile one where once the tipping point is reached there is no going back. Certainly it is necessary to create opportunity and stable space for lower income residents to reside but once it verges on the “race” of those residents it has gone against what civil societies need. The Latino community in Chicago has taken that path and they will find in the end it is a dead end. No one can support a viewpoint that is racist and especially not when it is advocated by the majority population in our city which is increasingly and seemingly not Black or White, but Brown.
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