Today we went out to go visit the part of the city called Pilsen. This part of the city has a huge Mexican community, which we got to see some of the artwork done by Jose Guerroero. We arrived at his studio where he got to show us his prints as well as many other artist prints that he had in his collection. They were first made from a tablet, which then allowed the artist to make many other copies if they so chose to, but theses prints had many different themes to them like immigration, struggle, and many others. After we saw the prints we got a tour of different murals on the walls, which really showed us how the people lived in Pilsen. They had many murals of all different sorts from superheroes, progressing in life and we even got to see the murals in the church which represented how religion played a big part in the community. We also got to see the National Museum of Mexican Art, which had many different portraits as well as different prints. These demonstrated a lot of the Chicano way of life, which is the Mexican America life style; they were displayed through many different types of portraits. From there we got eat the restaurant at Nuevo Leon which is one of the most popular Mexican restaurant in Pilsen. The food was amazing there and I was glad that I got to try as much authentic Mexican food there. Despite being full after lunch we also bought Churros from a guy that was selling them on the street, they were delicious. In keeping with the theme of food we went to go see the Growing Home Wood St. Urban Farm, which is a farm in Chicago for food deserts. A food deserts is an area where there is no grocery store for people in a neighborhood to walk to and get their foods. Which this farm is also a program that helps many people that lost their job or cant get a job ,by teaching them how to work in the workforce. This program is an ongoing program that well be increasing as the time comes. With that we got to have a little time on our own which allow all of us to go out and visit downtown for a bit. On the way there we got off on the wrong stop so we had to walk a while to get to the train station. When we finally made it to the train station and made it downtown we went to the Hancock Center, which was huge skyscraper that had an amazing view for the city. Unfortunately we couldn’t stay up long because the lounge was for people over 21 so we couldn’t get the chance to see the whole city. After that disappointment we got to go and shop for awhile downtown and for dinner some of us got to go try out our first Chicago dog. We had to go back to the Boulevard because we were going to the L.Y.R.I.C open mic. This was an event that happens every Tuesday which allows youth to come up and perform their different creative piece. This open mic was super crazy and fun the people there had really great poetry, raps, dancing and singing. The group was for youth to help them learn how to speak out and be creative. One could sense the strong community that they had there and kids to even grandmothers were performing and having a great time there. This event was a great event to end of the night with.
Justin Chan
Freshman