In vibrant La Villita, some hard realities

• John McCarron
• September 5, 2004

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The most vibrant neighborhood in Chicago—a place throbbing with music, labor and life—is not some hotspot on the North Side. It is Little Village, the reigning port-of-entry for the nation’s fastest-growing immigrant group.

Take a walk down any residential street, even in the middle of a weekday, and simply listen. Unseen radios and CD players inside the brick cottages and two-flats pulse to a mariachi beat, then salsa, then Tex-Mex. Some houses carry more than one tune, hinting more folks inside than the size of the place might indicate.

Out back, from garages that line the alleys, there’s the whine of Skil saws and the scraping of fresh cement being hand-mixed and troweled.

Then there’s all the wrought-iron fencing that separates sidewalks from front lawns and flower gardens. In Little Village they’ve got a homegrown look. No two are alike and many have family initials and curlicues welded onto their hinged gates.

“A lot of them are made from scrap in garages and basements,” explained Jesus Garcia, executive director of the Little Village Community Development Corporation (LVCDC). He should know, having patrolled these streets for more than 20 years as a com-munity organizer, an alderman, a state senator and, since 1999, head of the neighborhood’s best-known community organization.

Garcia takes understandable pride in the sheer energy of the place. Besides do-it-yourself homeowners and landlords, there’s the endless parade of shoppers and shop-keepers along 26th Street, with nary a vacancy along 20 blocks of carnicerias, taquerias and panaderias , not to mention push-cart vendors selling everything from roasted corn-on-the-cob to steam-fitted Stetson hats.

Beneath the surface

On a sunny day, awash with mariachi music and the smell of fried beans, 26th Street seems too good to be true–a veritable commercial for the great American melting pot. Whatever happened to The Jungle? Where in Little Village, or La Villita, are the mean streets of immigrant Chicago? Where are the pitfalls that broke the spirits of Jurgis and Ona, the Lithuanian newlyweds in Upton Sinclair’s muckraking 1906 novel?

“Don’t be fooled,” cautioned Garcia. “We have no shortage of problems here.”

Indeed, there is another, poorer Little Village beneath the surface fiesta. At night, after the stores close, that same 26th Street is a cruising lane for the “Two Six,” a local gang that vies for turf with the Latin Kings. The police district that covers Little Village recorded 50 murders last year. Only the district to the north (West Garfield/Humboldt Park) was deadlier, with 57.

La Villita’s high school dropout rate, approaching 50 percent, is among the city’s worst. Median family income, at $34,086, is well below city average and less than half that of the metro region. The portion of households living below poverty level is 26 percent…and rising. Nearly a quarter of all births are to teenage mothers. And there’s a deficit of political participation, as might be expected in a community where half are foreign-born and more than half are below voting age. In the 2002 general election barely 4,000 ballots were cast from the 22nd Ward, where 60,000 live.

There is, then, no shortage of issues for LVCDC to tackle as it anchors the New Communities Program for Little Village. But enthusiasm runs high. The NCP anchor organization has a base of 60 block clubs and programs in industrial retention, violence prevention and housing counseling. LVCDC helped lead the charge for a neighborhood high school, and when the four-schools-within-a-school complex opens next fall, it will reflect LVCDC’s input on core curricula and dropout prevention.

At the table

In recent years a single giant but elusive project has dominated talk about the neighborhood’s future: a proposed mixed-use development for the 44 dormant acres at 26th and Kostner, near the city’s border with Cicero. LVCDC has invested hundreds of hours on the concept, first negotiating with would-be developers, then acting as “community partner.”

But site-preparation problems and a lack of financing caused at least one developer to walk away, and now LVCDC is working with the landowner to recast the deal. “We are definitely still at the table,” said Garcia. “We need a supermarket, an office supply store and a decent clothing store—a place where you can buy a business suit.”

South of 26th would be housing, including affordable rental units developed with a partner such as Hispanic Housing, and a “public benefits package” to include a new elementary school and park.

While that project looms, a Little Village planning task force has other irons in the fire. One is the makeover of Perez Plaza at 26th and Kolin, which had fallen into disrepair before a recent cleanup by neighborhood residents and corporate volunteers from CoreNet, a national real estate network. Next up for the plaza is a mural to be painted by youth working with the National Educational Service Center.

At the other end of 26th Street, the neighborhood’s signature archway and clock were spruced up by another partner, the Little Village Chamber of Commerce. And an even wider range of partners is being recruited for an August 21 rally with the Violence Prevention Collaborative.

The challenges facing Little Village are big enough that even these projects are only a start, which is why LVCDC is lining up more partners and projects through its planning process. Next up: implementing the big ideas that residents have developed.

Contact: Jesus Garcia or Alicia Gonzalez, LVCDC, 773-542-9233; alicia_hope25@hotmail.com

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