When Rogelio Villegas took a discipline journey to the Chicago Historical past Museum in 2019, he was not impressed however upset.
He and his classmates from Instituto Justice and Management Academy noticed nearly no illustration of the Latino group, which accounts for 30% of Chicago’s inhabitants.
“Rising up, it’s such as you go to museums and also you see all these totally different histories, however an enormous a part of the nation is Latinx folks,” stated Villegas, 24, of Pilsen. “Why isn’t there one thing that talks about us? Why isn’t there one thing that basically explains the creation of the nation? It was created by all varieties of folks, and I felt like different folks had been getting credit score.”
Villegas and his highschool friends sprang into motion, staging a social media protest, assembly with museum leaders and demanding they create an exhibition about Latinos’ contributions. Six years later, their goals have been realized with “Aquí en Chicago,” which opened Saturday and runs via Nov. 8, 2026.
“It’s simply unbelievable,” stated Villegas, now a father who plans to go to along with his babies. ”I by no means imagined it might occur.”
Introduced in English and Spanish, the colourful exhibition options art work, gadgets from entrepreneurs, devices, costumes and snippets of oral histories — together with some highlighting indigenous languages. There’s additionally academic textual content about Latino resistance actions. Reflecting on the present immigration enforcement raids throughout the Chicago space, curators, college students and group members described the exhibition as a well timed reminder of the affect of protest.
“I would like everybody to grasp that it’s inside our energy to make change,” stated Elena Gonzales, the museum’s curator of civic engagement and social justice. “It’s inside our energy to have an effect on establishments, create socially simply communities and create a future that we wish to see. And that’s precisely what the scholars who began this off had been doing. So everybody ought to really feel empowered on this second.”
(From left) Elizabeth Lopez-Jimenez, Rogelio Villegas and Esvin Cortez, college students in Instituto Justice and Management Academy’s historical past class, “Chicago: A Wrestle for Fairness,” talk about their marketing campaign to push for extra Latino illustration on the Chicago Historical past Museum in 2019. The present exhibit is a testomony to their persistence and dedication.
Ashlee Rezin/Solar-Occasions file
Having lengthy since graduated, the Instituto Justice and Management Academy college students didn’t assist construct the exhibition. However they helped set up advisory committees that saved the work going ahead. And the museum employed different younger folks as interns to help Gonzales, curator Rebekah Coffman and digital humanities fellow Jojo Galvan Mora.
A few of the standout gadgets embody a bedazzled quinceañera robe from My Quince World in Little Village; a bomba drum made by performer Rubén Gerena; a paletero’s cart from Paleteria Reina de Sabores in Ravenswood; and a purple cooler from Chef Claudio Vélez, who is thought all through town as “the tamale man.”
Gonzales stated it was necessary to indicate each the cultural significance and widespread affect of “on a regular basis gadgets.”
Additionally on show are the posters made in 2019 by the Instituto Justice and Management Academy college students.
“It’s due to them that our faculty will proceed to be acknowledged,” stated Maribel Arellano, who’s the principal on the Pilsen various highschool. “I’m very pleased with them for that and really grateful. Our present workers and college students now must fill in these huge footwear.”
The coed protesters had been supported by the college’s former historical past trainer, Anton Miglietta, who stated he employed a “student-centered” curriculum that allowed the younger folks to have company within the classroom.
“I’m simply terribly humbled by their dedication and dedication to make this modification and name consideration to what they felt that they had been robbed of,” stated Miglietta, 53, of Uptown. ”I’m simply extraordinarily pleased with them for stepping as much as really deal with their very own miseducation.”
Again throughout that 2019 discipline journey, the scholars’ foremost focus was the museum’s everlasting exhibition, “Chicago: Crossroads of America.” They stated they didn’t see Latinos included within the tales introduced.
Constructing off their efforts, present highschool interns created “interventions” now on view within the space. Guests will discover Latino historical past shows with labels written by the scholars.
Ana Romero, of Gwendolyn Brooks School Preparatory Academy Excessive Faculty, used her show to explain Latinos’ contributions to baseball.
“Quite a lot of Latinos don’t get the popularity that they deserve,” stated Ana, 17, of Hegewisch. “We’ve at all times been right here. It’s actually unhappy that we’re getting our recognition solely now, however I’m actually joyful that it is a time the place we get to talk up, particularly with the political atmosphere we’re in.”
The exhibition helps change the narrative about immigrants, stated Nez Castro, a former intern and College of Illinois Chicago graduate who helped work on “Aquí en Chicago.”
“The federal government’s been portraying us as criminals and people who find themselves profiting from authorities packages,” stated Castro, the 24-year-old grandson of the late Raymond Castro, Chicago’s first Latino Democratic ward committeeperson. “I really feel like this exhibition actually stands counter to that. You possibly can see the laborious work folks have put into town to take care of their very own cultures and construct one thing for future generations.”
As for the subsequent technology of scholars, Rogelio Villegas hopes his protest conjures up them to take motion “in a peaceable approach.”
“Preserve preventing,” he stated. “Make your voice be heard.”
