“We don’t ever want the kids to be able to say we weren’t there.” Edited by Welcome Project Intern Ella Speckhard Transcript for We Don’t Make Excuses I kind of feel like today the school is not the community resource that it used to be when I was a child. It’s more like, now, we […]
“Anybody who was not well-connected, you go to the Patch.” Edited by Welcome Project Intern Ella Speckhard Transcript for The Patch My grandmother, my mother’s mother, was a twin. And they left Poland and they didn’t speak English. They had a note on their—pinned to their thing: Chicago. And so, they, you know, landed in […]
“I always want to make my city proud.” Edited by Welcome Project Intern Ella Speckhard Transcript for Gary Made Me I always like to say that Gary made me. Like, there’s a phrase—I don’t know if people have ever heard this phrase, but, ‘If you’re from Gary, you can live anywhere.’ So, and I truly, […]
“If I wasn’t at home or at school, I was in East Chicago hanging out with my grandparents.” Nicole Martinez-LeGrand, Multicultural Collections Coordinator, Library and Archives Division, Indiana Historical Society. Transcript for In This Community My great-grandmother and her first husband, Anna and Felix, came from Mexico City. My great-grandmother was born somewhere else. I […]
“These communities have been erased.” Nicole Martinez-LeGrand, Multicultural Collections Coordinator, Library and Archives Division, Indiana Historical Society. Transcript for Block and Pennsy In the 1920s you have this curious, fabulous mix of people from all different backgrounds – middle class, low class – all coming and mixing in the confines of Block and Pennsy. This […]
“That duality of culture…” Nicole Martinez-LeGrand, Multicultural Collections Coordinator, Library and Archives Division, Indiana Historical Society. Transcript for Our Lady of Guadalupe Church I feel like the Irish or the Eastern European, like, Slovaks, the Croatian, the Hungarians – they all have their own churches. And so, the Mexicans had their own church, and it […]
“The tradition of the mutual aid society dates all the way back to the earliest days of the Mexican colonies in Indiana Harbor and Gary, Indiana.” Historian Emiliano Aguilar, doctoral student Northwestern University Transcript for Pick Up That Slack TITLE CARD: In 1956, two groups, the Benito Juarez Society and the Cuauhtemoc Society, merged to […]
“…the Mexican-American community in the United States – it wasn’t really taught in high school.” Transcript for Me Coming Home That’s another mentality, too. Growing up in East Chicago, everyone wanted to know where you were. And you always mentioned, you know, “I’m north side. I’m south side. I’m from the Harbor. I’m from Sunnyside. […]
“You have a delightful mix of people starting over fresh and I think the notion was that, ‘We are Mexican. We will always be Mexican first and maybe American second.’” Nicole Martinez-LeGrand, Multicultural Collections Coordinator, Library and Archives Division, Indiana Historical Society. Transcript for Mexican Colonies So, this is my mother’s side of the family. […]