Our day began with a tour of the murals in Pilsen led by Jose Guerrero. It would be impossible to understate the importance of these murals, because they depict the deep and proud history of the Mexican community. They are reminders of the past, while also guides for the future encouraging a rich engagement with one’s personal culture. What struck me most about this tour was when an elder woman from the community stopped and talked about the murals for a moment. She described the importance of the murals, especially their relation to educating the younger generations. We couldn’t have gotten a more genuine point of view from anywhere else.
In addition to the history that murals tell, there is also an aspect of art found in Chicago that has a political nature about it. Jose was talking about how many of the elder artists in the Pilsen community sought, and continue to seek, to draw and print murals that call out to the social issues of the day. Art, especially murals, is a way to create a semi-permanent impression upon the physical landscape that will impact countless numbers. This is evident not only in the Pilsen community, but also Paseo Boricua where we were early in the week, and also Bronzeville with a large mural that depicted strife, pain, and issues in the African American and greater world community.
Today was a challenge as we were faced with the juxtaposition of abject poverty and abundant wealth found within the Chicago City. The tour by Rev. Saunders was the most eye opening experience I have had the entire trip. I have never been in a place where it takes but crossing the street to go from poverty to wealth. Nothing can prepare your heart when confronted with touring through a neighborhood where you see no grocery store, no restaurants, no extracurricular options and no social services like police forces and firefighters; and then moments later you are in a neighborhood with well kept streets, a fire station and police station on the same block, a private well funded school and every brand name you can think of in consumer products.
I hope it hurts others as much as it hurts me to see that this separation was also accompanied by certain changing demographics. The poorer areas were disproportionately filled with African-Americans, while the richer neighborhoods swelled with Caucasian individuals. On a map it is possible to literally draw the lines that would separate those who can dream, from those who can’t. It was too easy for me too imagine myself as a young black man standing on the side of Washington Park, surrounded by boarded up windows, dirty streets, and a littered sidewalk; unable to see beyond the trees to the University of Chicago and the glass buildings and wealth that lay beyond.
It shouldn’t be necessary for me to say that change needs to occur. These neighborhoods of poverty and desolation are prisons for the individuals living within them. Many are considered to be food deserts, yet a tourist needs more than one hand to count the number of alcohol stores that can be found within. That just isn’t right. There are no opportunities for upward mobility, but rather only perpetual poverty and suffering. No one can tell me they care about everyone, and then be content to live in a place where literally the north facing side of a building may look repainted and well decorated on the wealthier side, yet the south side is left to deteriorate and fall into ruin, a visceral marker of the inequity that lies on the plain surface.
Worst of all is the already destroyed dreams of the people who live and grow in these places. No aspect of their life is exempt of the failing infrastructure and lack of care. Their education will be worse, diet less healthy, opportunities more limited, housing more decrepit, transportation nearly uncertain, security non-existent, and health poisoned by their surroundings. There is no wonder why there is so much violence in these areas. When you take everything from a person, and leave them with an image of beauty far away, while their feet are cast in broken stone and unattained dreams, power is scarce and any notion of strength is an escape from the reality at hand. It is a vicious cycle that is maintained with the focus of investments and resources on those things that are profitable, while finding ways to more effectively ignore and disengage with the broken communities.
With all that was said please do not think that there are not great people out there doing beautiful work. Jose Guerrero, Eddie Arrocho, Reverend Saunders, Reverend Pfleger and many others live everyday in service to their community, passionately living out their love for the people and the vision that they can see for their futures. And that is what this world needs, more great people doing beautiful work. I know that is the only way I want to live.
Spencer White
Sophomore
Political Science & Criminal Justice