BARRIO PILSEN

CHICAGO

Wall in Barrio Pilsen….

Muralista Mexicano Héctor Duarte

Marcos Raya…

From Guanajuato, México…painter of murals since the 1960s in Barrio Pilsen….

Aztec Culture Preserved

NOT ALWAYS A GREAT NEIGHBORHOODBarrio Pilsen was a port of entry

for Mexicans but….They inherited a SLUM districtThe Mexicans were generally

powerless at the times between the 1920s through 1960s

They underwent an existentialist rebellion in the 1960s by Mexican youth, activists, and artists

DARK AND DANGEROUS….Chicago, seeing it as a slum threatened to

demolish all the “tenements” or slum apartments

No one envisioned a future since all the factories and jobs were leaving the area

In the 1960s, it was dark, dangerous, full of drugs and violence

PILSEN IN THE 1950s

Taking pride in Pilsen

A CHANGE CAME ABOUT…Although most were renters, a few Mexicans

began to buy homes, and build up businesses, such as carnicerías, restaurants with barbacoas, birria, taquerías, etc.

Many latinos began moving into the neighborhood as it was changing for the better.

The 1970sIn the early 1970s to eat (over 100

restaurants), shop (over 60 grocery stores and supermarkets), drink (over 110 taverns), entertainment (one movie theatre and eight pool halls), and worship (eight Catholic parishes).

MURAL OF MEXICAN DANCERS

Chicago Barbeque Restaurant

Real Wood-Roasted Barbeque…

Restaurante Casa del Pueblo

Subway steps in Barrio Pilsen

National Museum of Mexican Art

Since the Museum first opened its doors in Pilsen’s Harrison Park. Its the best place outside of Mexico to immerse yourself in 3,000 years of authentic Mexican art and culture. It is the country’s largest Latino cultural institution and the only one fully accredited.

East Artist’s Open House for Artists and Tourists…Longest Running Artists’ Open House..

TIRE SHOP IN BARRIO PILSEN

Influenced architecture

This stunning architecture is not found in Europe but in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. Czech-style facade, stained glass details.

POWERLESS BUT NOT APOLITICALAlthough powerless, the Mexicans felt an

acute sense of the political sceneTheir powerlessness manifested itself in

many ways, including: the undocumented workers’ condition of illegality led to exploitation and abuses from employers, coupled with the reign of fear resulting from “la migra’s” raids in the workplace and neighborhood…..

BEING CATHOLIC….they were devout Catholics but could not

attend mass (until mid-1960s) in the neighborhood parishes that “belonged” to older ethnics (St. Pious offered its first Spanish-language mass in 1963—in the parish’s basement.)…..

St. Adalbert’s Church…Barrio Pilsen

SLUMLORDS…Slumlords, violated city codes and ignored

the housing needs of tenants; schools neglected the language and cultural needs of Spanish-speaking children; the City of Chicago disregarded public services; and elected officials, such Alderman Vito Marzullo, did not heed the needs of the community

GOING UNDERCOVER…• Take the case of a major newspaper that assigned two

reporters in 1971 to “discover” the Mexican world of Pilsen. The reporters rented a room in Pilsen and went undercover for three weeks. Ignorant of the Spanish-language and all things Mexican (they reported that the jukeboxes at taverns played “bullfight music”), they wrote, “Pilsen is a community filled with suspicion of the Anglo word—a world of distrust and sometimes fear, and often a bad deal, a shakedown, or a put down. There are wetbacks in Pilsen, and it is the Anglo world that finds them and sends them back.” In spite of the transparent racism involved in this reporting, they emphasized the insults, humiliations, and poor treatment that people, who are devoid of power, face on a regular basis.

DIFFERENT PATHS…RESIDENTS TOOK DIFFERENT PATHSSOME STAYED POWELESS, ACCEPTING

THE CONDITIONSOTHERS CONTINUED THE DESTRUCTIVE

BEHAVIOR OF CONSUMING, BUYING AND SELLING MEXICAN “BROWN MUD” OR BROWN HEROIN

SOME OF THESE GANG MEMBERS CREATED THE “BROWN BERET” AND BECAME POLITICAL….

AFFORDABILITYAND YET OTHERS WERE COMMITTED TO

URBAN RENEWAL…FIGHTING TO REMOVE PILSEN FROM THE “BLIGHTED” LIST…PLAN 21 CAME ABOUT TO STOP THE WHITE FLIGHT AND DEVELOP THE AREA, BUT OTHERS WERE AFRAID TAXES AND RENT WOULD GO UP AND MEXICANS WOULD HAVE TO MOVE TO BE ABLE TO AFFORD THEIR MEAGER LIFESTYLE.

A STRUGGLE FROM OUTSIDE AS WELL AS FROM WITHINTHE STRUGGLE TO IMPROVE THE

SITUATION ALSO CAME WITH THE STRUGGLE OF THE MEXICANS QUESTIONING WHO THEY WERE, WHERE THEY WERE GOING, DID THEY BELONG THERE, ETC.

DIFFERENT GROUP CAUSESRADICALS FOUGHT FOR UNDOCUMENTED

WORKERSPRAGMATIC LATINOS FOUGHT FOR

EASIER ISSUES SUCH AS FIGHTING FOR BENITO JUÁREZ HIGH SCHOOL

OTHERS REMAINED WITHIN THE NARROW ELEMENTS OF BROWN PRIDE ENDORSED GROUPS SUCH AS CASA AZTLÁN

ALL GROUPS CREATED PILSENALL GROUPS HELPED PILSEN

BECOME WHAT IT IS TODAY!No one seems to be sure just how

the color riot began. Apparently the Latinos started it, and today the Mexican area of Pilsen is the most ingeniously colorful neighborhood in the city . . . Pilsen was built by the Bohemians and painted by the Latins.”

This was one of the ways Mexicans worked in making Pilsen their home and, at the same time, transforming Chicago’s appearance, what Mike Davis called “tropicalizing cold places.”

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