Author: miembro del personal

The City of Chicago has a lengthy list of community resources providing support to immigrants. Find addresses and phone numbers for a number of organizations that can assist people in finding housing.

The Illinois Legal Aid Foundation also has a list of immigrant family support organizations. Organizations listed here can help people obtain food stamps (SNAP), housing, or medical care.

The Resurrection Project was established by six local parishes focusing on helping residents with property management, real estate development, and financial services and education. Its real estate development efforts have includes Casa Puebla, which is a $14.8 million development that led to the creation of 74 units of affordable housing, and Casa Maravilla, a $20 million development that helped create 72 units of affordable senior housing.

The Interfaith Community for Detained Immigrants (ICDI) has coordinated with many communities to offer housing, financial assistance, and case management to people who would have otherwise been detained in cruel and traumatizing conditions. ICDI believes independent no-cost housing is essential to giving people privacy and agency, and strives to provide people with spaces that promote healing in neutral settings and encourages independence.

The Illinois Department of Human Services (DHS) maintains a lengthy list of community service agencies serving immigrants. The City of Chicago also has information about college access for undocumented students.

The Illinois Dream Fund is a kind of college scholarship fund for undocumented immigrants who are ineligible to apply for federal financial aid. The fund is for high school seniors who intend to enroll and current undergraduates enrolled at accredited two- or four-year colleges who can apply for the Illinois Dream Fund scholarships. 

All applicants need to have attended school in Illinois for a minimum of three years before graduating or receiving a GED, need to have at least one parent who immigrated to the United States, and must have lived with either a parent or guardian while going to school in Illinois.

The Chicago Public Schools (CPS) Dream Fund Scholarship is another talent and need-based, last-dollar scholarship that assists academically talented undocumented CPS students who are pursuing post-secondary educations. Students need to be recommended by principals, counselors, or college and career coaches and also must have a minimum grade-point average (GPA) of 3.0 and a minimum ACT score of 17.

World Relief is a global Christian humanitarian organization that helps refugees and other immigrants find employment in the United States. World Relief partners with a network of employers who value the experiences of immigrants, and clients seeking a job through World Relief earn an average wage 184 percent above the federal minimum wage.

There are a number of immigrant-related destinations for people to visit in Chicago. Some examples include:

• Jane Addams Hull-House Museum — The Hull-House is located on the campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago, 800 South Halsted Street in Chicago. The museum does not charge an admission fee for individuals or groups, but does encourage donations of $5 per person, although nobody will be turned away. Exhibits in the Hull-House include the Benedict Gallery, named after Enella Benedict, the founder and long-time director of the Hull-House Art School who was also one of the longest serving residents. “Learning Together: Art, Education, and Community” is a research and development project exploring Chicago’s history of arts education. The Jane Addams Hull-House Museum also has a collection made up of over 5,500 artifacts relating to the work of the Hull-House Settlement and the surrounding neighborhood.
• Pilsen Murals — Mosaics detailing Mexican icons can be found at Cooper Dual Language Academy (1645 West 18th Street), Jeff Zimmerman’s painted works detailing the people and cultures of Pilsen (1900 South Ashland Avenue) and Francisco Mendoza’s glass-tile mosaics at Orozco Community Academy (1645 West 18th Place). Additional murals can be found at 1416 West 18th Street, 1100 West Cullerton Street, 1815 South Paulina Street, 1447 West 18th Street, and other locations throughout the Pilsen neighborhood.
• Humboldt Park Mural Art Program — The mission of the Humboldt Park Mural Art Program (HP MAP) involves creating new murals, restoring old murals, and developing strategies using murals as a way to represent community issues, ideas, and vision. Humboldt Park saw large numbers of German, Scandinavians, and Italians moving in from neighborhoods to the east, and then Polish and Russian Jews, as well as Ukrainians moved into Humboldt Park. Later on, Humboldt Park’s diverse neighborhood grew to include Puerto Ricans.
• Las Puertas de Paseo Boricua (the Puerto Rican doors) — Sixteen doors on Division Street between Western and California were transformed as part of the Year of Public art with the Chicago Cultural Center. The artwork features a combination of Puerto Rican artists, including Mexicans, Columbians, Ecuadorians, and Costa Ricans. Las Puertas del Paseo Boricua was also a documentary about the 13 Latino Artists.
• National Museum of Mexican Art (NMMA) — Originally founded as the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum in 1982, the museum expanded to a 48,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art facility in 2001 in the heart of Pilsen and unveiled a new name in 2006 as the NMMA. The museum has a mission to stimulate knowledge and appreciation of Mexican art and culture through a permanent collection of Mexican art, visual and performing arts programs, arts education programs, and resources and professional development of Mexican artists.
• National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts & Culture (NMPRAC) — The NMPRAC has a commitment to promotion, integration, and advancement of Puerto Rican arts and culture with exhibitions and programming that enhances the visibility and importance of the Puerto Rican arts tradition. Located in Humboldt Park, NMPRAC is the only self-standing museum in the nation devoted to showcasing Puerto Rican arts and cultural exhibitions year-round. It was founded in 2000 by members of Chicago’s Puerto Rican community and local supporters of arts and culture, and its early years focused on renovating the historic Humboldt Park Stables and Receptory building of cultural and historical significance to Chicago since the late 1800s. The museum was named the latest City of Chicago’s Museums in the Park in February 2012.

According to CMAP, the seven-county CMAP region of Cook County, DuPage County, Kane County, Kendall County, Lake County, McHenry County, and Will County grew by more than a quarter-million people during one decade, and immigrants accounted for over half of the population growth during this time period. Cook County, in particular, saw a more than 20 percent increase in the number of immigrants.

Immigrants make up more than 500,000 residents, or 21.2 percent, of Chicago. Additional cities with high immigrant populations in the Chicago area include Stone Park (46.5 percent), Niles (44.2 percent), Schiller Park (44.2 percent), Cicero (42.6 percent), Wheeling (42.0 percent), and Skokie (41.1 percent).

The top countries of origin for foreign-born people in the seven-county CMAP region include Mexico (40.4 percent), Poland (8.6 percent), India (7.2 percent), the Philippines (4.8 percent), and China (3.0 percent). Whereas 12.9 percent of the United States population is foreign-born, 13.8 percent of the Illinois population is foreign-born, 19.1 percent of the seven-county CMAP region is foreign-born, and 21.2 percent of Cook County is foreign-born.

PBS notes that Chicago’s immigration history stretches back to 1850, and every decade saw waves of immigrants to the city. French immigrants who were political refugees came to Chicago in 1850, Scottish immigrants arrived in 1860, Norwegians joined the labor force in 1870, Irish immigrants worked on the construction of the canal connecting Chicago with the Illinois River in 1880, British trade unions sponsored immigration in 1890, Czechs from Bohemia came to Chicago in 1900, Austrian immigrants settled into the Fuller Park neighborhood in 1910, Russian immigrants fled persecutions in 1920, Germans flooded into Chicago in 1930, Swedish immigrants settled into the Andersonville neighborhood in 1940, Polish immigrants began arriving in 1950, Italian immigrants came in 1960, Mexican immigrants began arriving in 1970, Filipinos began immigrating in 1980, and Korean immigrants were drawn to Chicago in 1990.

The City of Chicago website notes that in the half-century following the Great Chicago Fire in October 1871, waves of immigrants came to Chicago to take jobs in factories and meatpacking plants. Many poor workers and their families found help in settlement houses operated by Jane Addams and her followers.