In stark contrast to the previous two entries, where I had been at least somewhat familiar with the neighborhoods I was visiting (I had been to Chinatown before and my dorm was in Bronzeville). I can say with confidence that I have never once been in the Pilsen neighborhood. I took a different mode of transport from Chinatown to end up at my first stop, the Mexican American Museum of Art. While on the 21 bus, I noticed quite a few advertisements along the way, and since I was coming from Chinatown, a noticeable portion of the billboards was in Chinese. Eventually, as I was entering Pilsen, I began to see the signs changing from being in Chinese to including small bits of Spanish. This was interesting, as we do not often discuss the edge cases of neighborhoods, and this definitely goes to show the fluidity of the neighborhood borders, and how there was no real definition for what exactly was Chinatown and what exactly was Pilsen. Sure the inner locations with places such as Chinatown square or the Mexican American Museum can be defined to be in their respective neighborhoods, but what about the places where people live? That is truly what defines the neighborhood and it is definitely not completely solid in its definition.
In the entirety of the trip, there were three things I tried to pay attention to, to ensure that I was getting a real sense of the culture of Pilsen. I wanted to pay special attention to the art that was around on the streets and how it contrasted with the art found in the museum, I thought they would be somewhat similar despite connotational differences. Next, I wanted to see the political campaigning that was happening due to the recent municipal elections that had taken place. Finally, the food, I have somewhat limited experience with Latin American food, limited to the food I have had either from Taco Bell/Chipotle or the food from my girlfriend's family (they are from Spain and Peru).
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| The displays at 21st and Damen |
The bus took me all the way down to Damen Ave. After I got off the bus I had walked for maybe two minutes before seeing a (somewhat) public display of art. A garage door had been painted blue and over the blue background had been painted in almost comic book style the name of the neighborhood "Pilsen!" and despite being behind an alley and behind a fence, I was still able to notice it rather quickly. I continued walking down yet another block where I saw two public displays in a row. These displays, both off of 21st and Damen, were beautiful just on their own but something about how they were out for the public to see was even better and made them seem like they were a part of the neighborhood. It is difficult to imagine these spaces without art. This contrasts greatly with Chinatown, instead of having a lot of the space crammed with shops, Pilsen is much more open and has space for garage art and art on buildings. This may also be due to the fact that the main part of Pilsen is much more residential (as in, shops and houses somewhat mix) when compared to Chinatown, where there is a clearly separate residential and commercial area.
The art mentioned below
I continued down to the corner of 21st and Damen and saw my first of very very many Fridas. Frida Kahlo was a very influential Mexican artist from the early 20th century. Her works embodied both the popular contemporary culture of Mexico as well as the historical culture in Mexico. The particular implementation I saw was a fairly recent one, having been painted in 2016, it draws attention to the fact that Frida is such a prominent figure in Mexican Art, proclaiming "The future is female." After this Frida, It was a straight shot north towards 19th, where I would find the National Museum of Mexican Art.
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| It happened that the community center near the museum had a religious name |
On the way to the museum, walking down 19th street, I saw quite a few people just walking around, but there were also people in the nearby park's baseball field. Most notably, however, was a child in a stroller I had seen along the way who had a big bag of Concha (Mexican sweet bread with a crumbly topping), this was the first sign I had seen of food, and it was not someone munching on fries as they went to their next class, it was a little girl holding a traditionally Hispanic treat. This showed the value of the native culture in Pilsen life, it is extremely important. Even though I saw some people playing baseball, as I got closer to the Museum, I saw even more people playing in a nearby soccer field. Soccer is very important to Latin American culture (and Hispanic culture in general) to the point where recent mayoral candidate Susan Mendoza based her campaign off of the fact that she played soccer with the boys as a kid. After this slight excursion, I made my way to the museum.
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| The piece discussed below |
One of the first pieces I had seen was a realistic piece from the 1940s, which I found really odd, as a lot of Latin American artists are not known for their realistic pieces. This piece depicted an old Aztec tale and goes to show how the people of Latin American (especially of Mexico) value their history as well as their culture. They recognize that they are not completely European and that there is some far removed part of them that is indigenous to Mexico. To paint this scene in a realistic fashion makes it more real, it is a truth possibly in real life, but also to the history of the people.
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| The Quilt Frida |
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| The entire quilt |
Not 5 minutes into my visit I had seen another Frida, but this time it was in quilt form. In the rest of the quilt, there was a large display of Mexican culture, from Aztec traditions and myths to more modern additions (such as Frida). One thing I have failed to mention up until here is the importance of religion in Hispanic culture. Due to the Spanish Invaders forcing Catholicism onto the natives, Catholicism is a necessity in any Latin American household. This continual forcing of Catholicism (despite the lack of Inquisitors) led to the devout Latin American Catholics that are seen today. This extends to art especially. Many European works of art were recreated in the former New Spain region in the Americas. One such example is below, and there are a few key differences. Namely the level of detail in the faces is much lower in the recreation, the king pictured is much less "Kingly" than in the original. The most interesting to me is the fact that everything is flipped down the middle, the right hand is traditionally the hand you are closest to God with, so the fact that they are facing left suggests otherwise to a viewer. This may be minute but it can also reveal the original culture of the Native Americans in South America and Mexico. Another example of the importance of religion is
Mona Lupe. In the
Mona Lupe is depicted as a woman who looks very similar to the woman in the
Mona Lisa. Mona Lisa is representative of a typical Florentine woman of her time, and similarly, the elements of Mona Lupe are typical to different aspects of Mexican culture at the time of her creation. The name is a contraction of Mona Lisa and Guadalupe, the women in Mexican Catholicism that gave birth to Jesus Christ. The presence of Art with biblical connotations continued throughout the visit.
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| The original Franciscan Allegory in Honor of the Immaculate Conception 1 |
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| New World Recreation of the above work |
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| The Mona Lupe |
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| A more Mexican interpretation of the Birth of Jesus |
Some of the more interesting pieces had to do with Mexican Tragedies. These include Mexican-Americans in World Warr II and the women of Juarez. One particularly striking image was
Uncle Ernest 5 Minutes Before his Capture. It portrays the artist's uncle, who was a WWII soldier and was captured and survived severe conditions. The work itself simply portrays fear, but the most interesting fact was the fact that was mentioned in the description of the image. It said that Mexican Americans received the highest amount of Congressional Medals of Honor per capita in the US. This seems like something often neglected in modern debate about Mexican immigrants. Often I have heard talk about how they come to the US just to take a job and do nothing when this is a blatant fact that the people arguing this point seem to ignore, that the people who came here from Mexico decided to put their lives on the line for this country. People such as Uncle Ernest that were captured and nearly died of frostbite.
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| The description for the above painting |
The women of Juarez were female factory workers that had come to Juarez for working in factories. Many of these women came and went, so their names had not been recorded or documented at all. This meant that no one truly knew who they were, so they were subject to horrible violence such as sexual assault, gang wars, and robbery. These often ended in the woman's death, and they were buried in Juarez, never to go back to their unknown homes. This somber feeling is portrayed greatly in the painting below, where there are crosses on the side representing the unmarked graves that the women had to bare. The side of the train reads "I can't stand idly by knowing so many people are going through pain."
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| The painting about the women of Juarez |
My time in the Mexican American showed me a lot of paintings, many more of which I will show at the end, but due to needing to move on, I will now talk about the various political signs I saw on my way. The former 25th Ward Alderman Danny Solis was up for re-election, but for various reasons, he was not able to run again, meaning a long term politician is no longer in office and someone has to take over. All of the candidates that I saw running were Hispanic, and the campaign posters were everywhere. One of the more interesting posters I saw was the poster for the candidate Byron Sigcho-Lopez what made his poster important was the fact that it was in Chinese as well as English, which is very interesting, as we were quite far off from the Pilsen Border that had contained Chinatown as well as Pilsen.
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| A campaign poster for Byron Siggcho Lopez |
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| A campaign office for Alderwoman candidate Aida Flores |
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| A house displaying support for Alderman candidate Alex Acevedo outside the museum |
Finally, we move on to the tastiest part of this trip, the food of Pilsen. Whilst walking down 18th, I noticed a large selection of Hispanic bread treats. I went inside and was immediately overwhelmed by the smell of sweet bread. At first I looked around to see if there was anything I wanted, and of course, I wanted 1 of almost everything. I narrowed my decision down to a couple things, and I thought I would be out 15-$20 because it was an actual bakery, you were able to see right where they were making the tasty treats. However, after the lady working the register had entered in all of my items, the total came out to only $7! This surprised me, as everything turned out so amazing, and the fact that it was so cheap made me want to take the long trip back to the store just so I can have some more. I was so distracted that I initially forgot to write down the name of the bakery. In case you want some absolutely astonishing baked goods, I highly recommend Nuevo Leon Panaderia on 18th Street.
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| From Nuevo Leon Panaderia |
After the sweets, it was time for a good meal before I left, and I was in the mood for some good food, a better version of the watered down junk I usually would get at Chipotle or Taco Bell. I decided quickly on Taqueria El Milagro. The look of the restaurant is phenomenal, but what I really cared about was how the food tasted. I ordered a burrito while the person I went with ordered 3 tacos. We both were barely able to finish our food. In fact, the person I went with didn't finish, she barely finished her second taco before giving up. This was a super satisfying meal, as I had been walking for so long at this point. The food was absolutely amazing and quite frankly blew me away.
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| Halfway through I thought I wouldn't be able to finish |
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| My Meal from Taqueria El Milagro |
Here are a few pictures that I found interesting in general from the trip but if I were to talk about them in detail I can guarantee this entry would be twice as long.
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| The 18th Pink Line station |
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| Some interesting commentary on the president |
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| This whole wall had a ton of posters on it |
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| This was part of a larger mural that I couldn't entirely fit |
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| I just liked this |
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| Another display of big women in Mexican Culture |
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| Posters referring to either the farm workers strike or the women of Juarez |
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An interesting commentary on the status of Latin American workers in Chicago
titled: "Blue Collar" |
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| These three are all part of one single Piece that comments on the working conditions of the farm workers |
References
Bibliography
- Rubens, Peter Paul. “Franciscan Allegory in Honor of the Immaculate Conception Painting | Peter Paul Rubens Oil Paintings.” Fine Art America, fineartamerica.com/featured/franciscan-allegory-in-honor-of-the-immaculate-conception-peter-paul-rubens.html?product=art-print.
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