At a Saturday morning art class in Pilsen, young students had the freedom to indulge their imagination, celebrate their culture and express their personal style.
Wearing glasses and pink and yellow nail polish, Nora Wallace, 12, focused on perfecting the pose of a woman looking over her shoulder.
Willow Colon, 10, wore a shirt emblazoned with the Puerto Rican flag as she illustrated a woman she described as “trapped in the painting.”
Adorned in rows of colorful bracelets, Nirvana Talbert, 10, drew Pinkie Pie from the “My Little Pony” cartoon.
“She has a really energetic expression,” said Nirvana, who attends the Walt Disney Magnet School. “She’s kind of like me because I’m super-energetic.”
Taught by Laura Gomez, the class — aka “The Breakfast Club” — was held at the Pilsen Arts & Community House on West 18th Street. The weekly, $10 sessions are open to participants ages 9 to 13, and their work is featured in an annual show at the gallery. The nonprofit also hosted a mural tour of the predominantly Mexican neighborhood to raise money for the Pilsen/Little Village Uniting Voices Chicago choir.
Those arts events offered moments of joy during a Mexican Independence Day weekend clouded by increased operations by agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Chicago. The city’s El Grito festival, scheduled for this weekend in Grant Park, was downsized to a smaller celebration in Pilsen on Monday. But the 26th Street Mexican Independence Day Parade will move forward in Little Village on Sunday.
The owners of Pilsen Arts & Community House are determined to keep going despite tough times. And they view their arts offerings as a way to offer solace while uniting the community and expressing neighborhood pride.
“It’s that sense of normalcy,” said co-founder Teresa Magana. “For a lot of us, art is our escape. It’s our healing. It’s something that really gets your thoughts centered on what you’re doing. So it really does give you that break away from all the chaos.”
Magana said it was important to stay active, especially during the second Trump administration.
“We made sure to do all our programming,” she said. “We made sure people had a place to come to. And I kept hearing the same feedback: ‘Thank you for not pausing because this is helping me right now.’”
At The Breakfast Club on Saturday, the students praised the Pilsen neighborhood for its art, parades, food and people.
“There’s just a strong sense of community and everybody’s really nice and connected,” said Nora, who attends Whitney M. Young Magnet High School.
And there are people like mural tour guide Luis Tubens, who are passionate about giving back to the community.
As Tubens led about a dozen people through Pilsen on Saturday morning, he pointed out the different media used to create the murals: spray paint, mosaic, acrylic and oil. He also shared the artists’ processes, the stories behind the works, some history about the neighborhood and even fun facts about some of the architecture.
Some of the murals on the tour included Rahmaan Statik’s depiction of leaders of the Mexican Revolution; Kozmo and Matr’s sweeping image of an Aztec warrior and princess in front of volcanoes; and Sentrock’s Bird City Saint, which shows a kid in a bright red bird mask. Tubens also described the significance of flowers and mushrooms in Senkoe’s towering portrayal of the Aztec Prince of the Flowers.
Tubens said it was a Chicago tradition to persevere through tough times.
“We can’t stop doing what we do because then they won,” he said. “Chicago in general has such a history of resilience and resistance, whether it’s the Mexican community, the Black community, the Puerto Rican community, the Arab community. And one of the ways that we do that consistently, and will continue to succeed at doing that, is by doing us with art. That’s the way we thrive. That’s the way we pass along the story and the messages and the history.”
Emily Herrera, one of the tour participants, said she appreciated learning about the muralists’ process.
The 16-year-old is also a former Pilsen resident, who attended school in the area and participated in the Pilsen/Little Village choir. She said she enjoyed singing with peers from her community and culture.
“After the concert, all the mamitas would come and get us tamales,” she said.
Emily also gushed about the neighborhood, citing the National Museum of Mexican Art and Harrison Park as some of her favorite places.
“Being Mexican, I just feel very at home here,” she said. “It is also very trendy and up-and- coming because of all the vintage shops. But those vintage shop owners are all Mexican. And they also have the best food, in my opinion. The neighborhood is just beautiful.”
Emily said she was determined to stay positive and celebrate Mexican Independence Day, which falls on Tuesday, despite the increased immigration enforcement in the city.
“It is scary, but you’re here in this amazing community and people are going to stand up for you,” she said.