Pilsen, Chicago’s Transformation

Research Questions/Intro

For my research I took a close look at the Chicago neighborhood of Pilsen and its function as a Hispanic Ethnic Community. My main research question is How has the hispanic community in Pilsen changed from the mid 20th century to the turn of the century?

Narrative/Overview

First I want to clarify why I believe a research kit on a neighborhood like Pilsen is necessary. A spotlight like this kit on neighborhoods like Pilsen in Chicago may be necessary to draw attention to the unique history and culture of the area, as well as any challenges or issues the community is facing. By highlighting these aspects of the neighborhood, it can help to generate support and resources for the community, and also foster a greater understanding and appreciation of its residents and their experiences. Additionally, shining a spotlight on a neighborhood like Pilsen can also help to promote local businesses and attractions, and encourage tourism and economic development in the area. As ethnic latino communities are often underrepresented when it comes to discussions on urban environments in the United States it necessitates the amplification of these often unheard voices.

Second I want to discuss and get an overview on the Mexican neighborhoods in Chicago and their history throughout the second half of the twentieth century. For this I will be primarily drawing upon Chicago Católico by Deborah Kanter to form most of my arguments for this section. For a large part of Mexican immigration history, individuals arriving from Mexico would latch on to Catholic parishes as a refuge. These churches would often become the centerpiece of a Mexican community. This can be seen when Chicago’s most populous Mexican neighborhood was demolished in the early 1960’s, the only building that remained was the St. Francis of Assisi Church. These churches acted as an almost glue that held Mexican families and their American-born children together. These children would often participate in May crownings of the Virgin Mary and played baseball on parish teams. All of this information I have acquired here is to provide context for why and how Mexican Immigrants were able to form their own identities and culture in neighborhoods like Pilsen.

To elaborate more on the human aspect of Pilsen I will use The Via Crucis in Chicago: a Reflection on/of Grace by Karen Mary Davalos. Who speaks about what it was like growing up in Pilsen in the 1990’s. This was an incredibly interesting source that helps shed further light on this subject of ethnic communities and its benefits. I got to read firsthand about specifically how the tight bonds of pilsen helped improve the author’s outlook on life. This quote helps to illustrate how important Pilsen and its celebrations were to America,

“It communicates a message that Mexicans are not temporary residents or second-class citizens. Their demography and history require a level of accountability and inclusion, and they elevate their claim to space by addressing social justice in Christ’s name.”

A powerful quote that further helped me to understand why these ethnic communities are so important to Mexican Americans.

For the next part of my research paper I want to go over what the transformation that occurred in Pilsen and the gentrification-adjacent changes that occured. Gentrification in areas like Pilsen can be harmful because,

”by diverting their social fabrics from the task of community building into that of defence of place, in part by fragment- ing their social fabrics from within and from without and then by dispersing them and dis- solving their fabrics defeating their purpose.”

I will use this quote from John Betancur’s Gentrification and Community Fabric in Chicago to help illustrate the kind of transformation that took place in Pilsen. Then I want to make it clear that I want to find out what type of changes occurred and how valuable the ethnic community in Pilsen was.

I would then in the next part of the paper go on to speak about Pilsen’s origins as an Ethnic community and how those bonds strengthened and enriched their lives.

I will go on to say that transformation in communities like Pilsen were much slower compared to similar neighborhoods that can be chalked up due to the entrenchment of Latino and Mexicans in their community. Forming what can be called “social ecologies of peace” I would then use this space in the research paper to further define what exactly this means.

For example Pilsen’s transformation was harder because it had been traditionally a point of entry for ethnic groups. The Chicano movement in the 1960s and 1970s served as examples for community building as they combined culture and identity politics with resistance, protest, self-help, and institution building. They even confronted City Halls’ plan for redevelopment and a proposed 1992 World Fair transformation. However the Hispanic Community and its iron grip on its community would come to an end in the 1990’s as government support for condominium conversions and rezoning would ultimately cause a massive spike in property values. A quote from a resident in a nearby neighborhood had this to say on the transformation that was occurring all over Chicago,

“[In-movers] caused big conflicts … Suddenly a lot of Puerto Ricans had to move out; they were forced out and that caused a lot of anger; they took it on their own, on each other. Kids started fighting, started graffiti and started getting violent and forming gangs.”

This quote will help to illustrate the further human aspect of the transformation that was occurring in these neighborhoods.

This research kit is designed to get readers of all ages who are unaware of ethnic communities like Pilsen to explore the transformation of Pilsen and why Mexican-American are a core part of our country’s identity and ethos. I wanted to go beyond just the statistics or the overarching story of Pilsen’s transformation and understand the human impacts of what the people who lived in Pilsen experienced. I hope I will be able to inspire the reader to rethink the way they perceive immigration in the current political climates. One area I wish to find more research into is more first-hand accounts of the people who lived in Pilsen past it’s ‘prime’.

Primary Sources Annotated Bibliography

Primary Sources

Davalos, Karen Mary. “[About the Cover]: The Via Crucis in Chicago: A Reflection on/of Grace.” American Catholic Studies 115, no. 2 (2004): 97–100. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44194828.

This is a vital primary source to my Research Kit. The Author, Karen Mary Davalos recounts her experience growing up in Pilsen, Chicago in the 1990’s. Important pieces of her experience is a recounting of her sense of belonging (p. 97). She goes on to discuss how Via Crucis in particular was incredibly formative in her sense of self (p. 98). She has a quick excerpt about how the experience of an immigrant should be shifted away from the perspective of “immigrant to America” and more to a perspective of “American Immigrant”. She finds it useful to not lose ones cultural traditions in a new world.

Lydersen, Kari. “Pilsen’s Diana Solís Rediscovers Community and ‘The Space between Us’.” South Side Weekly, September 16, 2022. https://southsideweekly.com/pilsens-diana-solis-rediscovers-community-and-the-space-between-us/.

This is another vital primary source that lets us see the experience of someone who has lived in Pilsen their entire life stretching back to the 1960’s. This article features the point of view of a Woman named Diana Solís. She was born and Mexico and immigrated in the 1960’s. As a way to tie in to Pilsen and its theme of civil justice she recounts being a part of protests with ACT UP, and gay and lesbian pride parades in the city. She worked with Grass-roots organizations as well. This all helps to paint the picture of a community bound together through civil fortitude and community.

KANTER, DEBORAH E. “Introduction.” In Chicago Católico: Making Catholic Parishes Mexican, 1–8. University of Illinois Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.5406/j.ctvwh8dm8.4.

This source is a pillar of my research kit’s exploration into the context and background of why and how the identity of Mexican Immigrants were formed in places like Pilsen, Chicago. She goes in depth on the links between catholicism and the entrenchment of new identities in America (p.2). This helps to provide context for my other source about an individual’s experience with the Catholic Via Crucis celebration. All in all this helps to round out my primary sources with the context and background necessary for the research kit to thrive.

“Raul Hernandez.” WTTW Chicago, March 26, 2018. https://interactive.wttw.com/my-neighborhood/pilsen/raul-hernandez.

This article is an interview with Raul Hernandez, who for the last 31 years is a cofounder of the Resurrection Project. This project has been aiming to transform Pilsen from an under-resourced, high-crime neighborhood into a well-organized and thriving community and it has been very successful in its goal. That goal being to try to restore Pilsen to it’s glory days. This source is a great example of the tight bonds that Pilsen originally created not being broken by the transformation of their neighborhood. It helps to show how people like Hernandez will always be there to bring the community together.

Secondary Sources Annotated Bibliography

Secondary Sources

Betancur, John. “Gentrification and Community Fabric in Chicago.” Urban Studies 48, no. 2 (2011): 383–406. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43081742.

This source is from an article in the journal, Urban Studies. This article takes a close look at the gentrification that took place in Pilsen, Chicago and what the negative impacts have been. It also helps to provide an overview on other neighborhoods in Chicago and how they differ from Pilsen. (p.384) It also helps to understand why the community fabric and the close-knit nature of an Ethnic community gave it distinct advantages over other neighborhoods in Chicago (p.390).

Curran, Winifred. “‘Mexicans Love Red’ and Other Gentrification Myths: Displacements and Contestations in the Gentrification of Pilsen, Chicago, USA.” Urban Studies 55, no. 8 (2018): 1711–28. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26958524.

This source goes in depth on some of the myths that circulate around Gentrification in Pilsen. There are a handful of first-person accounts of Pilsen residents that help balance out and provide credence to many of the arguments that are on display.

BETANCUR, JOHN J., and JANET L. SMITH. “INTRODUCTION.” In Claiming Neighborhood: New Ways of Understanding Urban Change, vii–xx. University of Illinois Press, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctt1hfr0jg.3.

This source takes a much more specific approach in how it handles urban changes in places like Pilsen, Chicago. It specifically examines the contradictions, contentions, and coincidences that have shaped urban space in the context of Chicago. He argues that their is a gap in our understanding of how and why the neighborhoods change that prevents us from interpreting what actually happened (p.3). This approach to Chicago and its urban change helps my research kit explain why there is such a gap in knowledge academically when it comes to ethnic communities like the one in Pilsen.

Nash, Fred. “Church-Based Organizing as Participatory Research: The Northwest Community Organization and the Pilsen Resurrection Project.” The American Sociologist 24, no. 1 (1993): 38–55. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27698634.

This journal article builds on Kantor’s points about how the church acted as a community center for Mexican immigrants. Specifically it identifies how church-based community organizing allows for systematically identifying values and concerns as a way of building relationships based on personal and social knowledge. It also references the Resurrection Project as an example of these efforts. This source will help to round out my other sources and further back them up using this scholarly article.

Glossary

Glossary:

Gentrification: the process whereby the character of a poor urban area is changed by wealthier people moving in, improving housing, and attracting new businesses, typically displacing current inhabitants in the process

Ethnic Community: A group of people who share a similar culture (beliefs, values, and behaviors), language, religion, ancestry, or other characteristic that is often handed down from one generation to the next. They may come from the same country or live together in the same area.

Via Crucis: The Stations of the Cross or the Way of the Cross, also known as the Way of Sorrows or the Via Crucis, refers to a series of images depicting Jesus Christ on the day of his crucifixion and accompanying prayers.