This article is dedicated to future educator Ms. Dulce Padilla and her family with all my best intentions, respect, and hope.  And to families everywhere who struggle to survive the aftermath of violence.

Many of us have heard or seen the stories about violence from the perpetrator’s view in books like Once a King, Always a King or in TV shows like The Sopranos.  Rob Lowe is preparing to star in a made-for-TV-movie about Drew Peterson and his wives’ deaths.  Many of us will watch and live entertained for the evening.  But families who survive the violence must continue living knowing, “Someone killed a person I love.”

Gloria Padilla

For 20-year-old Pilsen resident Dulce Padilla, this thought is something she lives with every day.  When she was in 4th grade, her brother Adrián was killed due to gang violence.  The thought intensifies, sadly, because when she was in 9th grade, her sister Gloria was murdered and, to this day, the Padilla family does not know why.

Her Brother

According to a March 2002 Sun-Times article, at 2:15 a.m. on Saturday, March 16, Adrián Padilla, 20, was gunned down in the 2100 block of West 18th.

“When that stuff happens, you don’t find out fast.  Everybody had different stories.  I was shocked.  I cried for about a week but I don’t remember it affecting me,” said Dulce, who was eleven at the time.

When she recalls her brother’s death, Dulce says, “I remember it was at a party.  Somebody said this guy was selling drugs and he wasn’t supposed to.  Somebody else said, ‘No, he was in another gang.’  This other guy died the same day with him and another guy got injured but he didn’t want to say anything.”

Eventually Dulce had to see her brother lifeless.  “I remember,” she says, “when we had to go identify the body and I was like, ‘Let’s go! I want to see him.’”  As if evoking her childhood curiosity, Dulce speaks about the incident in detail.

“I remember, first, you go into a room and they have a TV in the corner.  First, they show you the face.  I saw it and I was like, ‘Ohhh.’”  She looked around for others’ reactions and saw that “everyone was crying.  Adrián’s girlfriend’s step dad was one of the chiefs in the gang.  He had a really good friendship with him.  He ran outside of the room and he was in a corner crying, crying, crying.  I was like, ‘He’s gonna die.’  Then they were going to take my brother’s body out of the box and my dad said, ‘No, you’re not going to see him.  Go outside.’ ”

What Dulce did see as she grew up were the consequences of her brother’s gang involvement.  “He was always a rebel.  I would say, ‘Mom where you going?’  ‘To find Adrián!’  The cops would always be at my house,” she recalls as, symbolically, police sirens start to sound outside.  “My mom would tell the cops he’s been gone for this long or I don’t know where he’s at.”

Dulce grew up in a family of four older sisters and two older brothers.  “We were living in a three-bedroom house,” she explains.  This is the same Pilsen home she lives in today.  To help with sleeping arrangements, the Padillas put a mattress in the living room at night.  This is where Dulce slept, on “a colchón in the sala.”One night, she remembers, “It was probably 11 o’clock at night.  My brother left to drop off his girlfriend.  He had gone walking.  He was with my cousin, too.”  Dulce’s short sentences begin to expand as the memory awakens.  “My mom,” Dulce continues, “opens the front door and says, ‘Ay, Adrián.  Ay, Adrián.’”  The tone Dulce uses captures—not any surprise in her mother’s voice—but her disappointment.

“He had a white jacket and it was all full of blood.  My mom took him to the bathroom and cleaned him up.  I was so scared to check it out.”  Dulce knew to stay away from moments like this.  “My mom,” she explains, “would have been like, ‘Vete para allá.  ¿Qué estás haciendo aquí?’ ”
Dulce would never have been able to answer her mother’s question and explain what she, a little girl, was doing there, watching a mother clean the blood off a young man’s face.

But Dulce did know the dangers of her neighborhood.  Despite this, she would hang out with gangbangers at Ruiz Elementary School.  She assumes a devious expression as she recalls their conversations: “They would say, ‘Yesterday I was with my boyfriend and we did this and this.’  I would say, ‘Wow.  Cooool.’  But in the back of my mind I thought, ‘They’re crazy.’”  As it’s always been and probably always will be, “It was cooler to hang out with the bad kids than with the nerds.  You would get more respect,” Dulce states as truth.

Perhaps it was Adrián’s experiences that helped her make good decisions despite bad influences. Once, in eighth grade, when she started acting up in class, Dulce’s teacher warned her and asked her, “Do you want to go to the office?”  Dulce said no.  She changed her behavior but still
sat with the gangbangers at lunch.

Perhaps it was Dulce’s academic achievement that prevented her from getting into more trouble.  She was smart.  In second grade, she was a math genius when it came to competitions on the board.  “One after another, I would beat them,” Dulce says with the pride a gangbanger might show if she were talking about beating up kids.  “They were three-digit addition problems.”

Her Sister

Dulce’s academic progress continued. In the fall of 2006, she started her freshman year at one of the city’s high-achieving selective-enrollment high schools—Jones College Prep.  Despite its diversity and the fact that over 50% of the students came from low-income families like Dulce’s, approximately only twenty-five Latino students enrolled in her freshman class of about 150 students.  Dulce was the only one from Ruiz.

In classes, Dulce didn’t feel smart anymore.  She remembers, “As soon as I saw the white faces, I was like,   ‘They’re super smart.’ ”  She listened to her white classmates, mostly affluent, and thought, “Oh.  White people.”  The intimidation came from the way the white students spoke up.
“A lot of them sounded more proper,” Dulce explains.  “They would always be the ones with their hands raised.”

Dulce remained silent many times in her Survey Literature class.  “I didn’t know how to think like that,” she adds.  “I wasn’t exposed to that kind of thinking, like analyzing.  They were reading between the lines.”  Dulce then realized her elementary literacy education had mostly been focused on “right-there questions.”  She would have to read a book and then be handed questions by the teacher.  She was not prepared to write literary analysis essays.  She struggled and admits, “I gave up in all of my classes freshman year because I thought, ‘I’m not going to get a good grade, so I am not even going to try.’ ”

She met Tania Orozco from the Southeast Side and realized Tania, too, was struggling.  “I started liking Jones,” Dulce says comfortingly.  “I started gaining more friends.”

But in January of her freshman year came her oldest sister’s death.  Gloria Padilla, 28, was a 2000 University of Chicago graduate.  She had worked as a case manager with the Lawndale Christian Health Center and, after her two children were born, Padilla joined Mary Kay.  The U of C magazine announcement of her death said, “Survivors include her parents, three sisters, a son, and a daughter.”  One living brother and one sister were excluded.

According to a Sun-Times article, “Padilla died from stab wounds to her neck, an autopsy revealed.  The secondary cause of death was strangulation.”  The article also mentioned that “Chicago Police said they were questioning a ‘person of interest,’ and that Padilla had filed a criminal sexual assault report against a current boyfriend in December.”

Unlike her brother’s death, Dulce remembers everything.  By her senior year, she had gotten over the intimidation of white voices and writing struggles.  She wrote about the incident in an AP English Language essay:

[“I hurried to do the last problem of the Geometry assignment when the house phone’s ring caught me by surprise. ‘Hello?’ I answered.  ‘Let me speak with your mom or your dad! But hurry, hurry it’s an emergency!’  Edgar’s, my brother-in-law at the time, voice on the other side of the speaker urged.  I didn’t think twice about what his panicking voice asked for and I quickly handed over the phone to my mom. A few seconds later I saw her face come into a confused shock and her eyes become watery. ‘What are you talking about? Calm down . . . What are you talking about?!  I can’t understand you, you need to calm down! How did that happen?! Okay.’

My mom hung up the phone and she walked toward me. With a confused, devastated face she said, ‘Call your dad at work.  Edgar is saying that Gloria is dead.’

‘What?!  How?!’ I asked in disbelief.

‘I don’t know what’s going on.  He was crying too much while he talked to me.  He wants your dad over by Gloria’s apartment as soon as possible’"]

Dulce  waited for a phone call, for some clarification.  She stared out the window wanting to see  something, know something.  “It seemed so
empty and still outside more than the usual winter night,” Dulce writes.  “The bright yellow light from the lamp posts lit the dark road.  It was very quiet, as if the only person living on Earth that night was me.”

Dulce waited in silence.  Her superior memory engraving everything she heard and said.  She finally gained the nerve to ask, “Mom, what happened? What did Edgar tell you?”

“Edgar says he found Gloria dead in her apartment.”

“How? How did she–”

“But you know how Edgar is.  He exaggerates.”

Dulce knew her mother “was a strong woman.  She knew better than to cry over a mistake, or just something she had not yet accepted.”  Dulce still waited.

[“The phone rang once more; it didn’t even finish ringing one time when my mom picked it up. ‘What took you so long? Where are you? . . . Are you sure? What did they tell you? How did it happen? Who did it?’ ” My mom threw desperate questions at my dad who was on ?the other line; tears ran down her face. The rest of the night was still very confusing, and I fell asleep for a few hours.”]

When Dulce awoke, she realized it was true.  Gloria did die.  Someone killed another person she loved.  At the funeral, which was in a very warm funeral home on a very cold night, a small poster with just a few pictures of Gloria welcomed mourners.  It looked like an art project a kid was forced to make.

Dulce’s father stood at the foot of the casket nodding, shaking hands, standing guard.  Whatever implosions were happening inside him, Dulce’s father didn’t flinch.  Dulce’s mother sat in the first row looking at the coffin, looking at the people.  Dulce’s best friend Tania from the Southeast Side sat nearby.

Dulce ignored everyone, everyone but Gloria’s lifeless body.   Gloria’s body rested, her hair was combed and loose, a scarf wrapped around her neck.  Dulce stood with her back to the mourners’ and caressed her oldest sister’s head.  The littlest sister shook her head no, no over and over and whispered something only Gloria’s spirit could hear.   Gloria’s husband, whom she was divorcing, paid his respects and spoke.  Edgar found Gloria’s body when he was dropping off their kids.

Her Struggle

Dulce missed school for a few days and returned around semester finals.  As soon as she entered Jones, someone swooped her into a counselor’s office.  She just cried and cried.  Dulce also dealt with the uncomfortable expressions of sympathy from students she didn’t even know.  Once, a student she never talked to walked up to her in the hallway and said how sorry she was.  Dulce thought, perhaps offended, “I don’t know you.”  Dulce didn’t want sympathy.  She wanted time.

In the winter of her senior year, a few months after Dulce wrote about Gloria’s death, Dulce could no longer get along with her mother and moved to the north side with one of her sisters.  In addition to the classic mother-daughter struggle many Latinas face, Dulce and her mother continued living with the consequences of two violent family deaths.  Dulce and her mother stopped talking to each other.

After Gloria died, Dulce saw how her mother “had to put a mask on to tell everyone, ‘I’m strong.  I’m going to get through this.’  Her daughter died,” Dulce emphasizes.  “No one knows who killed her.  Gloria used to keep all of us sisters together.  What now—now that she’s gone?”
Dulce doesn’t know the answer to this question and she didn’t know how to end her essay either.  The essay stops the moment she wakes up the following morning after the two phone calls and realizes Gloria did die.  “I felt as if someone had literally just stabbed my heart and left a deep, bleeding wound.”  Dulce wrote one more sentence and placed the final period.

Dr. Enrique González, a clinical psychologist, explains the dissonance that occurs when a family member’s death does not fit with a person’s schema, what he or she expects from the world.  After the violent, unexpected death, surviving family members begin to question the world and the goodness around them.  If they are religious, they doubt God.

“The commonly known stages of grief,” Dr. González explains, “are still valid.”  Denial begins.  He reminds us that “different family members may use different aspects of denial.  There’s also an age component.  Younger family members will move on quicker because they look forward to new parts of their life.  For older members, the losses are harder because the violent death is a reminder of previous sad events.”

For the cycle to complete, the survivor must reach resolution by accepting the death.  “This can be aided,” according to Dr. González, “by getting professional or spiritual guidance so survivors can move beyond questioning why it happened.  Family members need to be helped toward problem solving and forgiveness so they can move on with their lives the way we would when we are faced by any change.”

Many survivors will say that at the time of their family member’s murder, they felt alone, picked on, victimized.  But Dr. González emphasizes that the resolution stage can help the survivors “understand that the violence was not solely directed at one murder victim.  This violence is part of a bigger problem that is affecting more people.”  The risk in not getting to this point is that the survivors may become desensitized to violence.

For Dr. González, this is a major concern.  “People should not become accustomed to violence and say, ‘That’s just the way it is in my neighborhood.’  They need to maintain the understanding that violence is not normal.”

For a while after Gloria’s death, Latino communities began conversations about violence against women.  One and a half months after Gloria’s death, officials from the Chicago Foundation for Women and Mujeres Latinas en Acción hosted a forum at?the West Side Technical Institute to discuss a rise in crimes against women in Back of the Yards and Little Village.

This school year, students will continue, unfortunately, to face violence.  And teachers can help students through the grief stages.  Dr. Gonzalez suggests “providing age-appropriate activities so students can work through their denial or anger.  Writing or art are good options.  The most important thing,” Dr. Gonzalez stresses, “is to let them share it with you.”

Another option to help students affected by violence is to connect them and their families with the Illinois Attorney General’s Crime Victim Services Division.  The Illinois Crime Victim Compensation Program, for example, can provide innocent victims and their families with up?to $27,000 in financial assistance for expenses accrued as a result of a violent crime. Applications, of course, require time, paperwork, and guidance.

Her Future

Dulce Padilla survived high school, earned a highly competitive teaching scholarship from the Golden Apple Foundation, and enrolled at DePaul University to become an elementary-school teacher.  Gloria was killed over four years ago, Adrián almost ten.  Dulce is entering her sophomore year at DePaul, looking for an apartment outside of the city, driving a silver 2000 Chevy Cavalier she bought with her summer internship money, and working as a cashier.  But time is stopped.

“We don’t go on,” she explains with the sadness as strong as physical pain.  “Time goes on but my heart is still stuck in that day.  Every day.  We still haven’t figured out what happened.  I don’t see Gloria’s kids, which is probably good because if I saw them, I couldn’t do anything for them and the fact that they don’t have their mother.  I’m not over it.  My mom is the same way.  We’re all the same way.  My brother’s friends—they cried for a month, but we still live through it.”

The relationship with their father provides some comfort, however, for all of the sisters.  Dulce becomes calm when she describes how he will call them to ask how they are doing and chat.  “I love my dad,” Dulce says caringly.  “He’s a sweetheart, a hard worker.  My mom takes out her anger on him and he doesn’t say anything.  He’s so respectful.”

Among the sisters, there’s tension.  Currently, Dulce is not on speaking terms with two of her sisters and one of them is the sister she lived with last year. “My friends are like my sisters,” Dulce says.  She is still best friends with Tania, who is also studying to be a teacher. She has made more friends through Golden Apple, a few of which have also faced difficult family situations.

“We are all striving toward the same goal—to be a good teacher,” Dulce says undoubtedly.  This strength keeps her focused even if some teachers who don’t enjoy their profession as much try to dissuade her. Dulce’s goal for sophomore year is to get a better GPA.  “I need to manage my time better,” she reminds herself.  “I feel like I slacked off.  My GPA is almost a 3.0 but my goal is 3.2 by the end of the first quarter.”

Change is difficult for Dulce Padilla.  She admits it.  In many ways, Dulce continues to ground herself in the coping strategy she and her family used after Gloria’s death.  In the brief Sun-Times article published two days after her sister’s death, Dulce, the only family member quoted, articulated how her family was coping with “yet another murder in the family.”  Dulce simply said, “We’re trying our best.”

Ray Salazar is an English teacher in Chicago Public Schools whose writing has aired on National Public Radio and Chicago Public Radio. This piece comes from a post he originally published on his Chicago Now blog, “The White Rhino: A Chicago Latino English Teacher.

Heidy Goercke’s grandfather was a merchant in Ecuador and her mother had a jewelry store in Germany. So it’s no surprise that she would follow in her family’s footsteps by opening up her own business in Chicago.

Her boutique, the “Zaraz Collection,” in Wicker Park has neatly decorated tables and displays of silver and fashion jewelry, tote bags, clutches, sun glasses, hats and scarves.The boutique’s décor is made up of frames creatively sustaining purses and necklaces on the walls.

Goercke describes her boutique as “simple and elegant” and what makes it different from other boutiques, she said, is that they tailor towards the customer’s needs.

“My mom is very skillful. A lot of merchandise she recreates. For example, some people don’t have their ears pierced so she adds a clip to the long earrings or if we buy an accessory she adds or takes stuff from it to make it look better,” Goercke said.

”Heidi is a great business woman and she always goes above and beyond to please her customers,” said Toni Pullen, a customer at Zaraz Collection of almost two years. Pullen said she has made comparisons at other boutiques and has determined that Goercke’s pieces are unique and affordable.

What also makes Zaraz unique, Goercke said, is her Hispanic and European culture. She said her culture has influenced, to a certain extent, the type of accessories they choose and how she interacts with customers.

Goercke was born in Cuenca, Ecuador to an Ecuadorian mother and half Ecuadorian and German father, but she was mostly raised in Munich, Germany. She said the boutique was named after her mother Sara and opened in December 2009.

“My brother Johannes really liked my mom’s name Sara therefore, we decided to call it Saras but he thought it sounded boring so we named it Zaraz,” Goercke said. Zaraz emerged years after a trip Goercke made to Chicago in 2002 to visit her brothers. Goercke said that trip brought her unexpected opportunities that made her decide to live here.

She said her brothers were business owners and offered her a position as manager of approximately seven accessory stores. Goercke said she also fell in love with the man who is now her husband, Roland.

But in 2009, Goercke said, her brothers decided to sell almost all their stores to move back to Ecuador and that’s when she decided to open her own boutique.

According to Goercke, her store exhibits two different styles of accessories: one that reflects her mother’s style and one that reflects hers.

“My mom likes accessories to be more colorful and things [accessories] that are made of wood, leather, or that look indigenous. I like more modern and slick looks,” Goercke said.

“But I’m warm with customers and I think that comes from the Hispanic side,” Goercke said. So Goercke and her mother have given Zaraz a Hispanic touch in their own way.

Goercke also said she is aware of the current economic situation and that people are currently more cautious about what they spend but she still wanted to open her boutique.

“I am really enjoying this [being the owner of the boutique] because it’s been challenging. The rent in this neighborhood is not cheap. If the economy was better we would be doing even better but we are doing well,” Goercke said.

“If you have a good product for a good price, not necessarily cheap, but good quality, people will buy it. With accessories you can do a lot of things and not always have to buy a new item of clothing” she said.

Griselda Lopez, Goercke’s friend of almost 10 years, said Zaraz has accessories for people of all ages and they have a variety of prices.

“They have high-end stuff and cheap stuff. And, if you’re running around and want something quick then you can find something inexpensive,” Lopez said.

Lopez also said Goercke has a good attitude and personality which is good for her business. She said Goercke has been a great friend and has pushed or steered her in the right direction when she has limited herself in her career as a make-up artist.

“If it wasn’t for Heidy introducing me to some people I would probably not be doing make-up now,” Lopez said.

Goercke said if you follow your heart and are willing to accept new opportunities and challenges you can accomplish your goals and be happy.

UPDATE:

“Zaraz Collection” will be closing at its current location on January 31st, but Goercke said she will continue to sell accessories at her kiosk store “Iguana” at Orland Square Mall. Goercke said she is expecting her second child and would likely experience a time constraint maintaining two businesses and a family. Since there has also been a raise in rent, Goercke said that if she finds an ideal location, she’ll open Zaraz again.

Goercke will continue to sell accessories at her kiosk store “Iguana” at 1000 Orland Square Drive in Orland Square Mall.

Latinos, regardless of immigration status, encounter various barriers to seeking mental health treatment.

These barriers impacting Latinos as a group include affordability, transportation, lack of resources in their community and scarcity of Spanish speaking professionals. A survey shows that in 1999 there were only 29 Latino mental health professionals for every 100,00 Latinos in the U.S., according to the Surgeon General. More recent figures were not available.

Within the disparities faced by the Latino community, undocumented women are especially vulnerable to factors that may lead to mental illness in the first place.

“The clients I have worked with who have been undocumented many times present with anxiety, with depression and many times it’s related to the social stressors around them,” said Dr. Nayeli Chavez, of the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, home of the Center for Latino Mental Health.

“The experience of being undocumented presents a lot of challenges for women in particular who come from their countries of origin by themselves and don’t have a support network in the United States,” Dr. Chavez added.

Being undocumented may also make a woman more susceptible to domestic abuse because their status can become a way in which an abusive partner may threaten them, Dr. Chavez said. Undocumented women also are  more likely to suffer all kinds of abuse in the workplace, threats about being deported and being unpaid.

“Sometimes they are discriminated against, they are harassed,” Dr. Chavez said. “All of those things contribute to feelings of isolation, all kind of stressors that are many times linked to mental health difficulties.”

Over the past three years, Illinois has cut a total of $113.7 million, about 15 percent of its overall state mental health funding, hurting community mental health centers. Unfortunately, these are exactly the kinds of centers that Latinos are most likely to turn to when they do decide to seek help. Dr. Chavez said that because of the cuts, the few centers that provide bilingual assistance are cutting those services “in half or sometimes even more.”

The full impact of the budget cuts on Spanish bilingual services and Latino-focused agencies has not yet been studied. Lack of data on specific Latino/Hispanic issues is a problem in ending healthcare disparity, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health. The office released a statement earlier this year saying that under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, it will improve data collection on minority groups including questions about primary language.

The Psychological Impact of Fear

Dr. Virginia Quiñonez, also of the Chicago School of Professional Psychology said that when dealing with undocumented immigrants in need of counseling, “one of the things that’s very important for mental health professionals to understand is the reality of people who are undocumented, the fear factor, the fear of being found, of feeling insecure in this country because of the lack of documentation.”

According to Dr. Quiñonez, post-9/11 immigration policy changes and anti-immigrant sentiment have made immigrants wary of seeking help when they may need it most.

In order to combat this fear and the impact it has on treatment, Dr. Quiñonez advocates cultural competency, empathy, and respect.

“I haven’t had to walk across the Arizona desert, but if I can try to understand what that experience is like, then I can help them get to another place that will be better for them,” she said.

Undocumented immigrants underuse social services

Through striving to foster cultural competency among professionals that deal with Latinos, Dr. Quiñonez and Dr. Chavez challenge myths about Latinos in the United States. One of those myths is that Latinos, especially those that are undocumented, overuse social services.

“In fact there are lots of people worried about the underutilization of mental health services among Latinos in general. When you think about immigrants, it’s even less and within immigrants, undocumented [immigrants], it’s almost non-existent,” said Dr. Chavez.

She said that this is because Latinos have a difficult time seeking help from outside sources. They are more likely to seek help from their community, their families, friends, or their religion and it’s only when they have very severe levels of impairment that they seek treatment.

Unfortunately prejudice in the medical field does not limit itself to waiting rooms. “The biggest problem that exists is the prejudice that is part of the larger population and how it’s part of the therapists as well,” Dr. Chavez said.

For those out there who are experiencing symptoms of a mental illness and who are afraid to get help, Dr. Chavez suggests turning to whatever source they trust and looking for an agency that they feel comfortable with. “It’s important that they know that they don’t have to feel sad, they don’t have to feel afraid,” she said. “They can have a better life and help is out there.”

This story was reported by Latina-Voices.com in partnership with Mujeres Latinas en Accion mujereslatinasenaccion.org. They received a Local Reporting Award from Community News Matters, a program of The Chicago Community Trust.

Maria, 42 and Esmeralda, 35 are both undocumented women facing mental health challenges.

Maria has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and depression. She has been hospitalized four times as a result of suicide attempts and post-partum depression. She is currently receiving treatment for herself and previously sought help for her family to deal with the upheavals of her illness.

Esmeralda was recently diagnosed with lupus and she is also facing a serious bout of depression.  Her inability to find work is affecting her sense of self worth and while she is medically addressing the physical effects of lupus, she feels resources to help her with her mental health issues are difficult to find.

“When I started to get sick, the depression came from not being able to dance because my feet hurt too much,” she said. “You learn to live with that, but it’s not fair that because you don’t have papers, you live with depression.”

Their last names have been withheld to protect them and their families from discrimination and legal complications they may face as a result of revealing their status and illness.

Mental health worsened by fear

Maria’s schizophrenia creates a debilitating fear of people that she contends with daily and which has been worsened by fears over her immigration status. Her fears initially kept her from seeking treatment earlier.

“When I got here, I didn’t look for help from anyone for anything, not even for my daughters. People would say that immigration was coming, that they were going to take me,” she said.

She reports having felt intense anxiety at the thought of leaving her children alone after an immigration raid at the bakery where she worked in the early 1990’s. Her shift had just ended and she was not arrested, but she said the terror she felt has never left her.

After the raid, Maria said she would regularly cry before going to work. Her worries over what would happen to her children if she were taken away kept her from sleeping and caused her to have nightmares about immigration.

Maria’s first depression symptoms started in Mexico, where she said the stigma against mental illness meant that her actions were seen as stemming from a character flaw rather than as symptoms of a disorder.  She came to the United States in 1989 thinking that it would help her escape depression, but instead, it got worse.

Isolated from the family she left in Mexico, including a 3-year-old son she saw as her reason for fighting her illness, she said she began to create “things that weren’t there.”

Although Maria was briefly hospitalized for post-partum depression, it wasn’t until her daughters started having problems of their own that she seriously began to get treatment.

While Maria presented with symptoms of schizophrenia before her arrival from Mexico, Esmeralda believes her symptoms only developed over the course of her 14 years in the United States.

This is not uncommon according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, (NAMI). The organization stated there “are higher rates of mental illness among U.S. born and long-term residents than in newly arrived Latino immigrants.”

Furthermore, NAMI concluded “that long-term residence in the United States significantly increased rates in mental disorders.”

“Mental illness, if it goes untreated, doesn’t get better by itself,” said Dr. Nayeli Chavez of the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, home of the Center for Latino Mental Health.

It can lead to further impairment and have a negative impact on the family. “When Latina women are not well, the family is not well,” Dr. Chavez said.

The fear undocumented women live with also affects their children, Dr. Chavez said. She said that in her work with the children of undocumented parents, she sees many kids who live in constant fear that “even though they were born in this country and they are U.S. citizens…their parents may be deported.”

Social Stigma surrounding depression

Esmeralda left Mexico with her daughter after divorcing an abusive husband and came to the United States looking to make progress in her life. After getting her G.E.D. and successfully working in sales for a few years, she said she is at a point in her life where she has the skills and experience to get a good job, but is unable to because of her immigration status.

“It’s frustrating, that moment when you say to yourself, ‘Why do they treat me as less because of a paper? I’ve already overcome so many things. I’ve worked so hard. I’m a single mother, I take care of my own costs,” she said.

Esmeralda’s daughter is also undocumented and telling her about her immigration status has been another hardship. Esmeralda said she is determined to make sure that her daughter will have a better future. She said that although she may face injustice and be discriminated against, she doesn’t want to give up.

“I want to be in this country that has given me opportunity. I want to be in this country because this is what my daughter knows. She thinks of it as her country, even if she doesn’t have papers,” she said.

Esmeralda said that many immigrants who come to the United States already bear the burden of leaving behind their family and way of life. She said she feels that the challenges they face, like discrimination of status or race, serve to make that burden heavier.

Still, she reports having felt angry and saddened by the most recent incident of racism she dealt with in the waiting room at her doctor’s office. She said a woman was screaming, that “because of so many Mexicans there, she couldn’t get in earlier.” It upset Esmeralda that although there were many different people in the waiting room, the woman was targeting Mexicans.

The Road to Recovery

Maria and Esmeralda say that a greater availability of mental health resources would help them better their situation, in addition to immigration reform.

Maria is taking regular medication and attending programs at Mujeres Latinas en Acción, which has helped her build a support network. “I’ve never been a burden, I’ve paid for my own insurance…If people like me could get help and be treated like human beings, everything would be so much easier,” she said.

Esmeralda said she plans to seek help for her depression, although she realizes it may be challenging because of financial reasons. Her advice to undocumented women facing mental illness is to remember that if “we’ve already left half our lives wherever we’re from, so that we can make progress in this country, we have to keep going…Know that you can do it. I know I can.”

This story was reported by Latina-Voices.com in partnership with Mujeres Latinas en Accion mujereslatinasenaccion.org. They received a Local Reporting Award from Community News Matters, a program of The Chicago Community Trust.

Little research on Latinas and teen suicide has been done with the exception of the groundbreaking work by Dr. Luis Zayas, professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine and author of “Understanding Latina Teen Suicide Attempts.”

Zayas interviewed Latina teens in New York City examining why teens had suicidal thoughts and attempted suicide. Like other experts, he focused on issues surrounding acculturation and internal family conflict. He noted that teens who fought with parents tend to have lower self-esteem and felt like they had insufficient mentoring.

“There is this gap where teens say, ‘I don’t really get good mentoring from my mom’ and felt their mothers weren’t emotionally attuned to them,” Zayas said.

Release from stress, revenge, control and self-punishment are all reasons why a teen may attempt suicide. Zayas worked with a Latina teen who was cutting herself and explored why this was happening.

“I worked with a 14-year-old girl who called the police on her father, who was brutalizing her mother, had a stash of drugs in the house and cache of weapons in the house,” Zayas explained. “And she felt guilty he was arrested.”

Intervention in early middle school years with girls and boys and their parents is important to the healing process, Zayas said. Parents need to know what their teen daughters are dealing with, especially immigrant parents who might have had a very different experience growing up, Zayas said.

“Immigrant parents can’t understand why their daughter is doing these things,” Zayas said. “They don’t understand the pressures she’s facing. [Family therapy] would help so they can get a better sense of each other.”

Latina teens are on a tightrope balancing their American and ethnic identities, which can be extremely challenging, said Dr. Nayeli Chavez.

“Adolescents are trying to find who they are in the world, who they are in this culture,” Chavez said. “There is confusion that parents may not necessarily understand teenagers, so they may feel really isolated and that they don’t belong on either side.”

When Latina teens embrace their American identity, there can be a backlash, said Chavez.

“Yet, in American culture they are also rejected, experience discrimination, rejection from peers; sometimes they are made fun of for their cultural values and their families,” Chavez said. “It can make teenagers very stressed and very confused about what their role is in society.”

Parents are often the ones who are blamed, but this might be too simplistic, Chavez said. This is especially true for Latina teens whose parents have emigrated from Latin America who had very different experiences growing up in their native country, she said.

“The literature tends to portray Latino parents as not caring, but they were not raised in this [U.S.] culture,” Chavez explained. “They have great difficulty understanding what their daughters are going through.”

Suicide attempts of teens might be more of a way of coping, explained Dr. Hector Torres, Director of the Center for Latino Mental Health, and it’s a complex issue because there are many factors.

“It starts from factors as simple as knowing that girls who develop earlier face higher problems from disruptive behavior and lower self-esteem,” Torres said. “They feel like they have to define themselves earlier than others which really increases risk for Latina youth.”

The term “fitting in” is so simplistic for such a complex situation, said Torres, and it is even more complicated for Latina teens, who might have drastically high expectations at home and at school with their friends.

“The feeling of isolation with Latinas might be true; there might not be anyone around them who feels the way they do,” Torres said.

Finding Solutions
There is hope and resources available to help struggling Latina teens, Torres said. Family therapy and culturally competent mental health services can have a huge impact on Latino families.

The Suicide Prevention, Education and Treatment Act became law in August 2004 to develop and implement a state suicide prevention plan and provide $250,000 to fund pilot programs.

“Part of the solution is to teach parents and adolescents and help them to develop communication skills necessary to be able to express what’s going on and negotiate solutions together,” Torres explained. “But it’s very important that the resources talk to them in their language and a way that is useful for them.”

The Signs
These are some of the signals showing that a teen may be thinking about taking his or her own life:
1. They stay away from friends and family.
2. They have difficulties concentrating or thinking clearly.
3. Changes in sleeping and eating habits (sleep or eat more or less than normal)
4. They show extreme changes in appearance (for example, they stop showering or wear only black)
5. They show feelings of guilt or hopelessness (they say things like “Why should I bother if all will go wrong for me?”)
6. They talk about suicide or death.
7. They talk about leaving.
8. They exhibit self-destructive behavior (drugs, alcohol, driving too fast)
9. They start to give away their prized possessions.
10. They have sudden changes of mood

If you or someone you know is currently in crisis, please contact the national crisis help line at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

Para obtener asistencia en español llame al 1-888-628-9454.

Some area resources include the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Midwest Chapter – Chicago (312) 890-AFSP (2377) and Mental Health America of Illinois at (312) 368-9070.

Other area resources that work with Latino population include:

Association House of Chicago, 1116 N. Kedzie, Chicago, IL 60651, (773) 772-8009
Contact: Wanda Figuero

Pilsen Wellness Center, 2319 S. Damen, Chicago, IL 60608, (773) 579-0832
Contact: Monica Masana

Family Services & MHC of Cicero, 5341 W. Cermak Rd., Cicero, IL 60804, (708) 656-6430 Contact: John Morgan

Mt. Sinai Medical Center, 2653 W. Ogden Ave., Chicago, IL 60608, (773) 257-5315
Contact: David Wilson

Proviso Family Services, 1820 S. 25th Avenue, Broadview, IL 60155, (708) 338-3806
Contact: Frank Perham

Community Counseling Centers of Chicago, 4740 N. Clark, Chicago, IL 60640, (773) 769-0205 Contact: Viviana Ploper

This story was reported by Latina-Voices.com in partnership with Mujeres Latinas en Accion mujereslatinasenaccion.org. They received a Local Reporting Award from Community News Matters, a program of The Chicago Community Trust. This article also was published at Extra bilingual newspaper.

Tatiana Mendez

Christmas Eve morning 2009, Giovanna Mendez received the phone call no parent should ever receive. Repeated unanswered calls made from her daughter Tatiana’s cell phone and one missed call from the police department caused Giovanna to panic. When the police arrived to Giovanna’s home, she learned her only daughter hanged herself in the middle of the night.

“You would never know she had depression. She’d keep things to herself,” Giovanna explained. “She had a lot of dreams; she was a good daughter.”

Tatiana, 20, was smart, determined and focused. She was in a romantic relationship her parents found troubling. After moving out with her boyfriend, she moved home for a time but then went back to him.

Tatiana left a suicide note apologizing to her family and asking that they take care of her niece, whom she adored.

Tatiana’s death is only part of a growing national crisis: 11 percent of young Latinas ages 13-21 across nationwide admitted a suicide attempt according to a report from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The disparities between Latina teens attempting suicide and their peers is startling: the CDC reported in 2009 that nearly 15 percent of Latina teens surveyed had attempted suicide the year before compared to 10 percent of all high school girls.

The idea of Latina teen suicide is perplexing to many because Latino families are known for their close ties and cohesiveness, two known deterrents of teen suicide. But suicide attempts by Latina teens are increasing.

However, the number of Latinas who die by suicide is very small said Samantha Gray, epidemiologist with Cook County Department of Public Health. Gray notes there were fewer than five suicides among Latinas aged 13 to 19 since 2000 in suburban Cook County. But one in six Latina teens have considered attempting suicide, according to the Youth Risk Behavior Survey for Suburban Cook County in 2010. The survey was completed by 1,718 students in 20 public high schools during the fall of 2010.

Bi-Cultural Effect

What is happening to these young women? Some experts point to the culture shock experienced from immigrant Latina teens trying to fit in. There is a disconnect between some immigrant mothers and their U.S. born daughters on how to adapt to American culture while still retaining root cultural values, experts said.

While it is often not just a singular issue that may be troubling teens, the struggle over ethnic identity can be particularly challenging for Latina teens, said Dr. Virginia Quiñonez, faculty chair of the Chicago School of Professional Psychology.

“There’s a conflict between ‘I want to be independent and I want to be interdependent; I want to feel comfortable in the safety by my family,’” Quiñonez said. “And that is not supported in their peer groups.”

Latinas face the pull to be close to family and strike out on their own, Quiñonez said.

“What it means to be a woman in this country may be different than what they bring as Latinas,” Quiñonez said. “If one parent or both are not available, it makes it that much more of a critical issue.”

Cultural Stigma

Other experts cite a taboo against counseling in immigrant Latino communities is preventing many troubled teens and stressed parents from getting the help they need.

For many teens, it is comfortable to talk about mental health issues but not with their parents, said Mayra Chacon, coordinator of Latino Mental Health Providers Network, which offers support to area mental health providers.

Chacon ran focus groups with teenagers and young adults 14-21 to discuss their thoughts about the mental health system.

“A girl who recently attempted suicide said, ‘Even when I was in the bed and the hospital and I was trying to explain to my mom and dad why, they would not listen,’ ” Chacon said.

The stigma in Latino culture against therapy runs deeps, Chacon said.

“[Teens have] heard it at home from their family, ‘You’re going to a counselor? Estás loco.’ Kids born and raised here in Chicago, but what they heard from their parents impacted them,” Chacon said.

Surviving a Suicide

There is no simple explanation for why her daughter committed suicide.

“They look like they don’t have problems at all,” Giovanna said wiping her tears. “It’s hard to see those signs especially when that person is smiling and not complaining.”

Giovanna’s faith in God has carried her through such a devastating loss.

“I gave myself to God. I was going to church every single day,” Giovanna said tearfully.

Giovanna also started attending support groups for survivors of suicide.

“It’s what keeps me strong; I have met beautiful, wonderful people who have given so much support,” Giovanna said. “But I’ve met a lot of women who don’t want to go through that [counseling]. They don’t go on with their lives.”

Photos of Tatiana, a beautiful young woman with long, brown hair and constant smile, are scattered all over their living room.

“I know that through talking [about her], I feel closer to her,” Giovanna said solemnly. “I just pray every day for her. I light a candle for her every day.”

This story was reported by Latina-Voices.com in partnership with Mujeres Latinas en Accion mujereslatinasenaccion.org. They received a Local Reporting Award from Community News Matters, a program of The Chicago Community Trust. This article also was published at Extra bilingual newspaper.

Christiane "Cyborg" Santos

Both tough in the ring and during interviews this 25-year-old Latina is currently ranked by the Unified Women’s MMA Rankings as the #1 female fighter of the world.  Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos, born in Curibita, Brazil was discovered during one of her handball matches while still in high-school.  She was invited to a trial Muay Tai class and according to her translator, “is where fell in love.”

After falling in love, she began to train at Chute Boxe gym and was introduced to mixed martial arts.  Just four months after joining, Santos competed in her first MMA match and decided that “this was what she wanted to do.” Since then, Santos has won three World MMA Awards including the title of Strikeforce Women’s Middleweight Champion in 2009.

When Latina Voices was finally able conduct  a phone interview with Santos, the first words out of her translator’s mouth were, “Let’s get started…we have ten interviews lined up and we can only give you 10 minutes.” Ding! The pressure was on.  Using my speed against her excellent striking and aggressive nature, I threw as many questions as I could within my given time frame.

Q: Which fighter-man or woman- do you look up to?

A: Fedor Vladimirovich Emelianenko; he is a Russian Heavyweight mixed martial artist.

Q: At what age did you decide that fighting is what you wanted to do and why?

A: “She decided at the age of 19 that this is what he wanted to do,” her translator replied.  ”Cristiane was always competitive and aggressive,” her translator explained.  “Because fighting is an individual sport and she likes to rely on herself she felt that this was right for her.”

Q: You have chosen a non-traditional career especially within the Latin community, how did your family feel about this?

A: “Cristane did not tell her family that she started fighting until she started making money… her mother didn’t even believe that handball was something that her daughter could make any money in.  She started supporting her when she realized that her daughter was made for fighting.”

With a near perfect record, her only loss against Erica Paes in 2005; Santos has proven that fighting is for her. Although she could not confirm when her next fight was during the time of our interview she did tell us that she plans to continue to be heavily involved and get more women into fighting.

Talks about Cristiane becoming a part of the Word Wrestling Entertainment have been rumored but nothing has been confirmed. Santos is still under contract with Strikeforce and is currently residing in California with husband Evangelista Santos who also happens to be an MMA fighter.

Natalia Avilez is a writer based in Chicago.

If you’ve been working out to slim down and win the heart of some galán, then you’ve been doing it for the wrong reasons. If you are the kind of girl that needs a goal to hit the gym or the yoga mat, then working out to get yourself in shape for your own heart is the best of all reasons.

Don’t believe me? Let’s ask an expert.

On top of being an expert in cardiovascular health,

Dr. Cristina Rabadán-Diehl

Dr.-Cristina-Rabadán-DiehlT.jpg, Ph.D., M.P.H. is also the deputy director of the Office of Global Health for the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) at the National Institutes of Health. As a spokesperson for The Heart Truth, a campaign to raise awareness for women about heart disease,  she has to wake us up with some scary statistics. The first of which is that while many women think breast cancer is the biggest risk to women’s health “almost eight times more women die of heart disease than breast cancer.”

As you’re reading this article, you may be thinking to yourself that you’re too young to worry about heart disease or that it’s something that affects more men than women. According to Dr. Rabadán-Diehl, the notion that heart disease is a bigger problem for men is a myth that most likely arose because studies on heart disease were done primarily in men earlier. But for women, she assures us, the risk factors are the same. As for being too young, Dr. Rabadán-Diehl reports that 35 percent of U.S. women on the whole ages 20 and over are obese.

The prevalence of risk factors increases if you are a young Latina.

Current statistics focus on Mexican-American women, but the NHLBI is currently conducting an in depth study of heart disease risks of Latinos in the U.S. which focuses on the role of cultural adaptation and encompasses various nationalities. Still, the statistics for Mexican-American women are shocking.

According to Dr. Rabadán-Diehl among Mexican-American women ages 20 and older, 75 percent are overweight, 25 percent have hypertension, 45 percent have high cholesterol, and 13 percent have diabetes. Furthermore, among Hispanic women, 52 percent are physically inactive. All of these are factors that signal an increased risk of heart disease, she said.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that heart disease can be avoided. The Heart Truth campaign is in essence an empowerment campaign for women.

“We often put ourselves at the bottom of our priority list. We have to realize our health is very important and heart disease can be prevented,” says Dr. Rabadán-Diehl.

Her major recommendations for decreasing your risk of heart disease are a balanced diet and an increase in the level of activity. At minimum, she suggests getting off the bus stop earlier or parking your car further so that you walk more.

With regards to nutrition, Dr. Rabadán-Diehl realizes that the recession may be limiting access to fresh fruits and vegetables. She suggests frozen alternatives that are healthier than canned and encourages us to look at saturated fats and salt contents. Furthermore, she assures us that the idea that fast food restaurants are cheaper than a grocery store is a misconception. For heart healthy meals, she urges a decrease in the consumption of pre-prepared meals because they have a lot of preservatives and are high in fats.

Maybe you’re thinking that all of the above is great advice, but you just don’t have the time to take these steps. That is not uncommon. Dr. Rabadán-Diehl says that one-third of women still underestimate the threat of heart disease and cite barriers like “family demands, caregiving, not enough money, and lack of insurance.”

All things considered, NOT taking care of yourself and ending up sick will be worse for you and your family in the long run, she said. To this effect, Dr. Rabadán-Diehl points out that taking care of our health is “the way we can ensure that we can be there” for our loved ones.

If you still find that it’s difficult to motivate yourself to improve your health, perhaps you can use the caretaking, family oriented nature that’s often built into our Latina psyches to your heart healthy advantage. Raising awareness of heart disease can become a family event, including motivating one another to prepare healthier meals and exercise regularly.

For the little ones, Dr. Rabadán-Diehl says that it is important to “start prevention from childhood.” And if your old school relatives are reluctant to give up their culturally rich and fatty foods like chicharrones, don’t despair. Dr. Rabadán-Diehl suggests that you “don’t dismiss their heritage. Enrich their knowledge instead.” You can download Spanish language pamphlets about heart disease from the NHLBI website.

But don’t go overboard stressing out about your health either—stress is one of the contributing factors that increase your risks of heart disease. It is important to attempt to reduce your overall stress level, but if you can’t eliminate all stress factors, you can try to work on how you perceive and internalize those stresses. Dr. Rabadán-Diehl recommends finding ways and time to unwind. Why not take a relaxing (and hearth healthy) walk to relax?

But what if you or a loved one have already developed heart disease? Dr. Rabadán-Diehl emphasizes the importance of keeping in close communication with your healthcare physicians and maintaining the same health patterns prescribed for preventing heart disease. She also points out the importance of continuing to take medication given to control risk factors even if you start to feel better.

If side effects resulting from medication are difficult to deal with, she reminds us that it is important for you and your provider to discuss problems to find alternative health solutions.

As a last piece of wisdom, Dr. Rabadán-Diehl reminds us that “every woman must take her risk for heart disease very personally and very seriously.”

Empowering yourself and your loved ones to recognize the importance of cardiac health starts with becoming aware of your risk factors and how to eliminate them. It’s your job to make sure that you take advice about cardiac health to heart.

Jennifer Patiño is a writer based in Chicago.

Patricia Neri, wife and mother of three children, said high property taxes forced her family to move from the east end of Pilsen in Chicago to a suburb, Berwyn, about five years ago. She said they could not afford to live in a small apartment and pay over $1,000 for rent with her income being approximately $11,000 a year and her husband made a little more as a truck driver. Her rent was $750 plus bills and it was going to be raised to $1200 or $1300 plus bills, Neri said.

Since 2000 the south expansion of the University of Illinois at Chicago has caused property tax increases and along with that the displacement of long-term Pilsen residents who have been replaced by new more affluent residents, community residents and activists charged. Property tax increases go hand in hand with the rise of property value and ultimately higher rent amounts get passed on to renters, they said.

“Maybe you can find something economical but they are not pleasant places to live in. They are usually apartments located on the backside of buildings, third floors, or basements that are too cold and humid or that may get flooded,” Neri said.

Neri said she is happy living in Berwyn but misses Pilsen’s friendly environment. “Here in Berwyn you know your neighbor because you go outside to heat up your car and your neighbor does the same. Sometimes they say good morning sometimes they don’t. Whereas, Pilsen is a bit warmer, you know your neighbors more and often times you may see someone walking by or sweeping their sidewalk that says hi to you,” she said.

Pilsen is a predominately Hispanic neighborhood located approximately three miles southwest of the Loop, or downtown Chicago. It has a total population of 92,472 residents of which 57,999 are Hispanic, according to the 2000 Census. The neighborhood has architecture comprised mostly of three- to four-flat buildings with the majority of its structures built in the 1930’s.  There are 7,717 property owners and 17,164 renters in Pilsen, according to the 2000 Census.

Neri said she went to a non-profit organization in Pilsen, which she preferred not to name, to obtain information to see if she qualified for rental assistance or an affordable unit but she said she didn’t qualify because her income was too low. After that Neri was determined to move away from Pilsen and did not seek the help of other non-profit organizations.

Pilsen Alliance’s executive director Alejandra Ibanez said the “majority of non-profit developers, community development corporations, use Federal HUD guidelines of affordability, which are not based on the local [Pilsen neighborhood] median income but typically on citywide, countywide or even regional median incomes.” She said Pilsen has a median income much lower than Chicago’s median income. Therefore, many Pilsen residents don’t make enough to afford even those supposedly affordable units. The median income of Pilsen residents is $28,026, and Chicago’s is $38,625, according to the 2000 Census.

Pilsen Alliance, a non-profit organization, at 1831 S. Racine Ave. was established in 1998 after community leaders, residents, and organizations came together to establish a plan to preserve the Pilsen community after the university expanded southward and the city created the Pilsen Industrial Tax increment Financing District (TIF), according to the organization’s history.

But even though Neri and her family were affected by the property tax increases she says there are pros and cons to raising property taxes.

“I think on one hand it’s good that rents were raised because that way people look for better jobs to afford to pay for all those things [expenses that arise from increased property taxes]” while at the same time their socioeconomic status may change because they get better jobs and live in a better neighborhood, she said.

But on the other hand, she said, there are many people who work in factories who may not be able to get better jobs and they are not going to get paid more because they live in Pilsen.

Winifred Curran, a geography professor at DePaul University, said Pilsen Alliance asked for research consisting of a building inventory project that her geography students completed in Pilsen. The project consisted of information on building permits, property taxes, assessed values, property sales and ownership.

According to “The Pilsen Inventory Project” by Winifred Curran and Euan Hague with data collected from fall 2004 to spring 2006, in Pilsen 43 percent of properties experienced a 25 to 49 percent increase in assessed value, 23 percent experienced a 50 to 74 percent increase in assessed value, and 24 properties experienced an increase of more than 125 percent in assessed value.

In an effort to stop gentrification, in 2006 a down zoning referendum, lead by Pilsen Alliance, that limits the height or number of units in a development was passed in Pilsen with 75 percent of vote approval but Ald. Daniel Solis (25^th) didn’t enact the measure.

Down zoning could limit development because developers would be restricted to building condos or buildings of a certain height, consequently preventing rapid development and further gentrification.

Stephen Stults, legislative assistant to Ald. Daniel Solis (25^th), explained that the alderman didn’t enact the measure because by down zoning because “you may be in the position to affect someone’s market value. The one [a property] with higher density zoning would have a higher market value than the one with the down zoning.”

“Many residents felt it was a lost cause,” Ibanez said.

The battle against further development and gentrification has been fought with little or no support from the alderman, they said.

“It wasn’t Danny Solis. It wasn’t him. It was the community that stopped the expansion [UIC’s south expansion],” said Alfredo Hernandez a former Pilsen resident who lived there for about 20 years and moved a few years ago after getting married.

“We couldn’t compete with their [developers] money, resources and political connections,” Ibanez said, noting the fight was spiritually and physically exhausting.

But Pilsen Alliance didn’t give up on their mission to fight against gentrification. Ibanez said they realized they needed to take a different approach and explained that’s why her group is creating a curriculum to teach people why there is gentrification and globalization. “We can’t go after every single developer who is greedy [or] we are going to burn ourselves down, so we are focusing on educating people,” she said.

Kristine Menas from Ald. Daniel Solis’s office said in an email response the “variety of size and type of housing in neighborhoods provides for a healthy mix of residents. This allows for low-income, moderate-income to higher-income families to live in proximity to one another. Studies have shown that isolating low-income residents has proven to be a failed strategy for relieving poverty.”

Menas defended the alderman.

“Alderman Solis is a proponent of preservation- maintaining a neighborhood’s historic fabric as well as cultural history. He doesn’t want to see one economic level is displaced by another,” she added.

Professor Curran said there will be further gentrification in Pilsen but it’s “paused” now because of the depressed housing market. She said the current market enables real estate to “scoop” buy property for a lower price and hold on to it until the economy is in better shape and sell the property for more money later.

Neri said she doesn’t regret moving from Pilsen.

“Pilsen does look cleaner and more peaceful now but at the same time it’s a hard situation for some people because they need two or three jobs so they can afford to pay for things,” she said.

Popo and Ixta

In Mexican folklore, Aztec icons Popcapetl and Princess Ixtaccihuatl are remnants of a culture destroyed by Spanish conquistadors during the early 16th century.

According to legend, Popo wanted to marry the princess but first have to prove himself a warrior.  He returns triumphant but only to find that his love, believing he died in battle, has killed herself.  Popo takes her limp body to the highest mountain in hopes that the show would revive her, but she never awakens.  The two remain frozen silhouettes on two snow-covered mountains in Mexico.

Artist Jesus Helguera’s painting of this image was reproduced in a series of calendars in 1940.  Now this iconic scene is as ubiquitous in Mexican-American homes all over the United States as crucifixes and figures of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

But for Chicagoland photographer Robert C. Buitrón, they became an opportunity to speak to larger issues of identity and political disfranchisement.  Buitrón, 57, created his own series of calendars from 1990-1992 turning the image on its head.

Ixta Ponders Leverage Buyout

In his series, The Legend of Ixta and Popo, Buitrón places the Aztecs in modern-day scenes.  His art takes a satirical tone addressing cultural and political issues.

“I identify as Chicano; I grew up with these calendars,” explained Buitrón.  “I wanted to contemporize it and address issues Chicanos are experiencing.”

While he says the series was well-received overall, not everyone understood his message.

“The National Museum of Mexican Art (in Chicago) didn’t care for the calendar; the bookstore didn’t want to carry it,” said Buitrón, pausing to ponder.  “My interpretation was that it didn’t fit with constituents in Chicago; many of the people in the community might have just crossed the border and might find it offensive.”

Displacement, invisibility and assimilation are all parts of the Mexican migration story that remains buried for some.  Instead of  filing away this painful part of our history, Buitrón uses it to convey larger messages about who Mexican-Americans are and where we are going.

“One thing I encountered is that you have to be informed about U.S.-Mexican history, Chicano history,” stressed Buitrón.  “I wanted to treat it in a humorous way like [Stephen0 Colbert and [Jon] Stewart are doing—making a point in a different way.”

Malinche y Pocahontas

Deeply entrenched in the Chicano political movement in Arizona during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, he spent his childhood a world away in East Chicago, IN.  Buitrón moved to Arizona when he was 18 and called the western state his home for more than 20 years.  It was in Arizona where he developed as an artist.

“I loved it,” Buitrón  said.  “I never saw a cactus, except in movies.”

Photography wasn’t his first love, however.  He was a musician first and only unexpectedly gravitated toward visual art.

“The reason I got into photography is because I wanted to become a tourist.  That had a lot to do with my family traveling to Texas and Mexico,” explained Buitrón.  “We’d pull over to the designated scenic area, and I saw all of these people with these big, giant lenses.  They looked like they were doing important things.”

At age 12, he won his first Instamatic camera as a newspaper delivery boy.  Buitrón admits his skills needed work.

“I was really lousy at it,” Buitrón said.  “I had a camera that didn’t have a functioning light meter; I didn’t understand exposure concepts.”

Identity Surfing

His skills improved, and he earned his bachelor’s degree in fine arts photograph at Arizona State University in 1980 and a master’s in fine arts at the University of Illinois-Chicago in 1996.  Buitrón has been an exhibition curator and currently teaches photography at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn and Chicago State University.

Admiring the work of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, Buitrón humbly describes himself as competent but determined to do his best work.  That work closely examines issues of Mexican-American cultural identity, gender identity and racial discrimination.

Pancho Asks Tonto If He's mas indio que espanol

In Pancho Asks Tonto If He’s Mas Indio Que Espanol, Buitrón tackles an issue of prejudice hidden deep with Mexican-American psyches.

“In terms of internal prejudices; my own personal experience encountering discrimination did influence what came out in these pictures.”

Buitrón draws parallels between the racial segregation of African-Americans and that of Mexican-Americans.

“We weren’t slaves, but we were discriminated against,” Buitrón said.  “We had separate water fountains, and that part of history is not acknowledged.

Los Angeles-based artist Henry Gamboa Jr. met Buitrón in 1983 in Phoenix during his time with the MARS Gallery, an alternative art space.

“Robert’s impressive photography,” Gamboa Jr. explained, “Utilizes social satire and commentary as it incorporates documentary works to create a vision that strengthens the Latino community’s view of its relationship to others.

Fellow photographer and curator Celia Alvarez Muñoz notes that Buitrón’s work can make people laugh, think and questions ideas that we, especially as Mexican-Americans, have been taught to accept.

“No words are necessary in his photographs,” said Alvarez Muñoz.  “I know Robert’s work paved the way to/for the bolder and more absurdly political artistic statements of succeeding Chicano/Mexicano performance artists and photographers.”

Buitrón’s work is not something to be merely glimpsed or quickly scanned, Alvarez Muñoz said, it needs to be absorbed to be fully understood.

Ixta Dates a Nazi Skinhead

“You have to look at his images, individually and collectively, very carefully for he packs a wallop!” Alvarez Muñoz enthusiastically explained.

Buitrón’s latest project came to him while caring for his in-laws who are suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.  He had to take time away from other projects to focus on what he describes as a “challenging” and “enlightening” experience.

He decided to photograph his in-laws.  He doesn’t know what the photos will end up being nor whether his own emotions and struggles will become a part of the series.

“When you want to do something you’re passionate about and have less time to devote to it, it becomes very frustrating,” Buitrón explained.  “Will my frustration/personal experience become part of the project?  It could reflect my own challenges as well.”

Buitrón doesn’t want to take himself too seriously and sees satire as the most effective way to get the point across.

“Humor is the highest form of communicating,” Buitrón said.  “It’s a teachable moment, an enlightening moment without hitting someone over the head with a hammer.”

A special thanks goes to the West Chicago City Museum and Curator Sally DeFauw for helping to make this feature story possible.

Angelica Jimenez earned her Master’s degree in Journalism from Columbia College in December 2010.  She continues to be a freelance writer and is on the staff of a Chicago-based advocacy coalition.