The History of Pilsen
Pilsen’s early story is one of struggle: recently arrived immigrants struggling to navigate a foreign, often unwelcoming new land; factory workers struggling for a livable wage and an eight-hour day, even in the face of violent suppression; neighbors struggling to make their streets safe, their schools respectable, their air clean enough to breathe, and their homes secure.
It is only in recent years that many of those struggles have borne fruit, and given way to a new struggle: one to maintain the identity and affordability of what has only recently become a profitable destination for developers and investors. Continue history…
Pilsen, Chicago. 1929, U.S. Geological Survey.
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CEO and Co-founder, The Resurrection Project
Few people have played a larger role in Pilsen’s transformation during the past 27 years than Raul Raymundo, CEO of The Resurrection Project. He is now expanding his organization’s model to other neighborhoods, while he continues to struggle to preserve Pilsen’s identity and affordability.
When Eleazar Delgado opened Jumping Bean Café in 1994, his neighbors accused him of helping to usher gentrification into Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood.
Health Care Advocate
Carmen Velásquez was indignant about the lack of health care available in her community. So she fought to open a clinic. Today, Alivio Medical Center operates one urgent care center and six community health centers, three of them in local schools.
Pastor, Organizer, Change Agent
Father Charles Dahm is a dyed-in-the-wool activist, following in the footsteps of a long line of old-school, firebrand Catholic priests. He’s been pastor or associate pastor at St. Pius V in Pilsen since 1986 and says he has no intention of ever leaving. “I felt, and still feel, totally enriched just living in this neighborhood,” says Dahm.
This year, dozens of Chicago teens fanned out across the city – some of them to places they never thought they’d go – to tell the stories of people working to make their communities stronger, as part of WTTW’s My Neighborhood project. At a film festival showcasing those films, students at Nicholas Senn High School won top honors.
The Messages Behind the Murals
Pilsen’s buildings, alleyways, and even doors are places where artists express their roots, their values, and their opposition to injustice.
Education Leader
Adults in Pilsen have historically worked menial jobs, with limited upward mobility. While at Instituto del Progreso Latino, Juan Salgado developed innovative new adult education programs, enabling thousands to improve their skills and launch prosperous careers. Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently tapped him to bring his skills to City Colleges of Chicago.
Developer of Affordable Housing
During the past twenty years, Guacolda Reyes went from intern to VP of The Resurrection Project. In the process, she’s helped develop more than 550 affordable housing units in the Pilsen neighborhood alone.
Benito Juarez Community Academy in Pilsen is more than a public high school. It is a community hub that might not exist today if not for local Latina moms who fought in the mid-1970s against discrimination in Chicago Public Schools and for a school of their own.
Guidance counselors say that many undocumented students are “afraid to come out of the shadows and disclose their status,” discouraged about the lack of opportunities that await them after high school. But a group of students at Benito Juarez Community Academy is working to change that.
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