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Chicago: Origins and Vistas of a Mexican City

2d ago
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Alumni Weekend 2012 UnCommon Core June 1, 2012 Chicago: Origins and Vistas of a Mexican City Mauricio Tenorio Professor, Department of History Sarah Lopez Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of History It may be an exaggeration to say that Chicago is today one of the largest Mexican cities, but not untrue. There are an estimated 1.3 million Mexicans/Mexican-Americans residing in the Chicago metropolitan area. With large populations of Mexicans historically living in the American west and southwest why is it that by 1920 nearly 16,000 Mexicans called Chicago, a cold and far away city, their new "home"? The origins of Mexican Chicago are at the roots of the 20th-century's de facto economic and demographic integration between the U.S. and Mexico, and the so-called "Mexican problem" in 20th-century United States. It was in Chicago where, through the pioneering studies by University of Chicago sociologists, Mexican immigration was scientifically, and strategically, defined both as a problem and not as a problem. This session will provide historic insights on this fascinating interaction among immigrants, social organizations, and social scientists in Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s. And it will jump to the present to provide vistas of the input of the Mexican presence in the architectonical landscape of Chicago, the architectonical city par excellence. This session is co-sponsored by the Latino Affinity Network.