Welcome to Little Village.
When I was 12 years old or so we moved to Chicago. After crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally and spending about a week in a dirty motel outside of Albuquerque, we waited for the coyote my father paid. He came and drove us to the Windy City. Our first apartment was on the east side of La Villita, on 24th and Washtenaw, close to the jail and the Black ghetto. It was in the back of a house. For a few weeks I thought the alley was the street, I would think to myself, “What a strange street.”
There were feral cats galore. And it was the kind of neighborhood where people let their dogs take walks by themselves, including us, once we got a dog. It was the kind of area where water hydrants were opened in the summer to help kids cool off. Where people knew each other. I didn’t see anything odd about living near the Cook County jail, and seeing the buses haul prisoners to the silent building that Inow know is the Cook County Government warehouse and administrative building to the northeast side of where our place was.
It was and still is a poor neighborhood. Back then I didn’t know we were poor. McDonalds was a Sunday treat. School was far away and I learned to take the bus as easy as I learned to speak French before English. We played outside. There were rats and mice, but inside most homes, our Mexican moms kept them spotless. Sure, there were plenty of cockroaches going around, but the landlords weren’t going to do anything about that. A few blocks east of us, there were (and still are) muffler repair shops, a tire shop and a place that was always cutting crates. The infernal noise that went on constantly around there was far away that one couldn’t hear it unless they took a walk near there. The Mexican owners of these places had two guard dogs. Two dogs were tied and they barked at the passersby, the same two dogs that got arthritis sooner than later for lack of movement. Those poor recycled beasts who put up with the continuous noise, and who lived there in the heat, rain and the cold winters. I now work near there, and nothing much has changed except the dogs are different now. They bark and look at people as if asking why am I tied up, why the noise, why am I trapped. I find myself finding more compassion toward them than to the prisoners in jail.
Back to the past. We lived close to Cermak Road. Homeless people lived or took shelter under the bridges around there, that’s not the case now because they are chased out by the city. When I say city, I mean cops. There used to be a Jewel supermarket where there is a Pete’s Fresh Market now. I have fond memories of Jewel, it was the second job in my life. My first was a two-week employment at Kentucky Fried Chicken. I used to come home at night and my mother used to tell me how I smelled like chicken and that it opened up her appetite. That’s not why I quit; I just found the place disgusting. Plus a teacher at school invited people from the Humane Society to give a presentation on how animals are killed in industrial farms, he found it appropriate since we were reading The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. That and KFC made me a vegetarian.
Jewel, on the other hand, was a good experience. I started as a bagger and then was promoted to cashier. It was my first union job. The union paid my college classes and I was paid a good hourly wage with benefits. These types of jobs are nearly non-existent these days.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. My high school was far from where I lived, and so I learned to navigate the city of Chicago. I was lucky, or some say smart, to be able to get in. I made new friends. I began to understand why people said I lived in the Mexican ghetto. Sure it was different, but I didn’t think we were poor. Everyone around there was like us. My high school friends thought it was dangerous and would ask about those “gangbangers.” Sure there were gangs, the Disciples, the Latin Kings, I didn’t know who was who, nor was I interested enough to ask. Not every boy was in a gang. But they tended to make generalizations, similar to police who would stop any teen they wanted for any reason they saw fit. But people in my ‘hood got used to that because it’s part of the environment.
I now know that my family was just one of those immigrant families whose port-of-entry was La Villita. According to the 2010 census this neighborhood has gained more than 37,000 residents since 1960 to reach 98,551.
Cook County Jail in Chicago.
As I grew up, my neighborhood friends and I met boys at house parties or on the street and we fooled around with them. I remember coming home with hickeys and my mom laughing her anger away at seeing them, saying they looked like a necklace around my neck. She asked me to wear a turtleneck so my dad wouldn’t see. Two or so years later my parents bought a house and we moved into the heart of La Villita, close to the arch that welcomes people to this bustling business area. We lived a bit farther from the jail. But in reality Cook County Jail is in the middle of this neighborhood. We lived in the largest Mexican barrio in the city. The home my parents bought was ours, we no longer had to rent. They mirrored many immigrants who worked long hours, put their children to work, saved money and managed to buy a house. The street resembled the previous one, but was more upscale. Not as many feral cats, but still plenty of rats and mice and cockroaches, because after all, this is Chicago. And the city doesn’t pick up the garbage or take care of the maintenance of the ‘hood, or not like they do in Old Town or any of those other fancy neighborhoods, even though la populosa, as 26th street is known in our circles, is second only to Michigan Avenue since “it’s the second-highest- grossing shopping district in the city.”
And despite the fact that 26th Street brings so much cash and taxes, Little Village as a whole is still neglected by city services. This is known to those who live there. It was known to me when we lived there. And let’s not forget it is the inflow of immigrants that kept and keeps this area flourishing.
The neighborhood welcomes visitors with the famous arch that says, “Bienvenidos a Little Village.” It opens itself to the thriving businesses from restaurants, panaderías, carnicerías, stores where you can find quinceañera dresses, shoes, cowboy boots and hats, and all kinds of supermarkets that sell you all types of goods. There are stores where you can buy live chickens or dead ones, because as we all know chickens are in abundance and cheap. Plus, there are street vendors selling fruit, corn, cold drinks in the summer from orchata to watermelon, and limonada to those winter days when they sell tamales and yummy champurrados. There is constantly so much consumer action going on there that it boggles the mind. Further east, near Pulaski, we find my favorite place to shop, the Village Discount Outlet.
I graduated high school and it was goodbye to La Villita and to living with my family. My parents sold the house on Christiana, bought a bungalow on the southwest side to get away from the ghetto and moved. I moved to the north side, started college, then went on to the university and lived in Wicker Park (before it got gentrified and expensive). Then I returned to Pilsen, which like La Villita, is considered part of South Lawndale. South Lawndale was settled first in the aftermath of the Fire of 1871 by Germans and Czechs (Bohemians), and for a long time by Latinos. Presently it’s been gentrified and Mexicans are finding it hard to remain there, so some are moving west or south. Such is the evolution of neighborhoods, some say. After all, look at the history of Pilsen or of Chicago for that matter. Who knows when gentrification will catch up with La Villita, it actually might be happening to it as we speak. Gentrification, like its meaning implies, is an insidious change that happens before you open your eyes. As of now, this present day Mexican enclave lives on.
26th Street in Chicago.
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Leticia Cortez is a teacher, writer, and lover of film. She was born in Mexico, grew up in Chicago and has travelled the art world. She presently teaches Latin American Literature at St. Augustine College.