The South Side Weekly is an independent non-profit newspaper by and for the South Side of Chicago. We provide high-quality, critical arts and public interest coverage, and equip and develop journalists, artists, photographers, and mediamakers of all backgrounds.
Volume 11, Issue 22
Editor-in-Chief Jacqueline Serrato
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IN CHICAGO
See you in January Dear readers, this will be the last Weekly issue of 2024. We’ll see you again in January! Thank you for continuing to read and support South Side Weekly. We hope you’ve enjoyed and learned from our coverage this year. We’ll continue to publish online this month.
Financial assistance for undocumented immigrants
Instituto del Progreso Latino is offering up to $1,500 to eligible Illinois immigrants who have been economically impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Eligible individuals must be eighteen years of age or older, be without immigration status, have lived in Illinois for the past three months, and have income below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. Assistance can cover needs such as rent, food, medical bills and child care.
Applicants must not be eligible or qualify for government benefits such as federal stimulus checks, unemployment insurance, Social Security, TANF, WIC, or SNAP. Resources are limited. Those who may qualify can call to schedule an appointment to verify eligibility by calling 773-890-0055.
Asistencia financiera para inmigrantes indocumentados por COVID-19 Instituto del Progreso Latino está ofreciendo hasta $1,500 a inmigrantes elegibles de Illinois que hayan sido impactados económicamente por la pandemia COVID-19. Las personas elegibles deben tener 18 años o más, no tener estatus migratorio, haber vivido en Illinois durante los últimos tres meses y tener ingresos por debajo del 200% del nivel federal de pobreza. La ayuda puede cubrir necesidades como alquiler, alimentos, facturas médicas y cuidado de niños.
Los solicitantes no deben ser elegibles para beneficios públicos como cheques de estímulo federal, seguro de desempleo, Seguro Social, TANF, WIC o SNAP. Los recursos son limitados. Las personas pueden llamar para programar una cita para verificar la elegibilidad llamando al 773-890-0055.
IN THIS ISSUE
two mental health districts added to south side
A grassroots organizing project responding to historic city cutbacks is creating mental health centers funded and operated by the community. curtis black ............................................ 4
chicago advocates and clinicians come together to support mental health of immigrants in peril
At a time of dire threat, there’s a push to provide healing through “radical hope” and a vow to organize and protect those most vulnerable. alma campos, mindsite news ............... 6
activistas y clínicos de chicago unen fuerzas para apoyar la salud mental de inmigrantes
En un momento de grave amenaza, los activistas reavivan un movimiento para ofrecer sanación a través de la “esperanza radical” y prometen organizarse y proteger a los más vulnerables. alma campos, mindsite news, palabra 8 musicians from veracruz teach guitar, and resistance, in pilsen
The Altepee Collective is using traditional music to create a network of communities in Mexico and the U.S.
alonso vidal .......................................... 12
hilliard homes tenants
“heartbroken” after fatal shooting in a vacant apartment
Management has not provided answers to questions about the shooting or other building security issues, renters said.
emeline posner 14
little italy tea house centers chats and culture
Living Water Tea House presents patrons with a wide selection of imported Chinese teas and a space for good conversation.
chelsea zhao ......................................... 16 the exchange
The Weekly’s poetry corner offers our thoughts in exchange for yours.
chima ikoro 18
footworking to jazz with kaicrewsade
Rapper, composer, and mental health advocate
Kaicrewsade shares his reverence for Chicago’s culture and the heart behind his first big project, Yvette chima ikoro ........................................... 20
calendar Bulletin and events.
zoe pharo 22
Cover photo by Alonso Vidal
Two Mental Health Districts Added to South Side
A grassroots organizing project responding to historic city cutbacks is creating mental health centers funded and operated by the community.
BY CURTIS BLACK
On November 6, while City Hall was embroiled in a budget brawl over rising property taxes and declining federal support, voters in two South Side districts did something you might not expect.
By margins of 79 and 91 percent, voters in one Near Southwest Side district stretching from Bridgeport to Little Village and another district centered on Englewood and Greater Chatham voted to raise their own property taxes in order to fund locally-controlled mental health services.
The tax hike is very small—about 0.025 percent of property value, or around $20 a year for an average homeowner. But organizers say the response shows broad support for increased accessible mental health services.
The Near Southwest Side and Englewood districts are the seventh and eighth areas to approve a tax levy to support a community mental health center. Since 2014, three centers providing residents with services regardless of ability to pay have been opened in the North River area, West Garfield Park, and Logan Square-Hermosa-Avondale. Districts have also been approved in West Town-Humboldt Park, Bronzeville, and the Southeast Side, from Kenwood to South Shore.
The campaign is spearheaded by the Coalition to Save Our Mental Health Centers. The group was founded in 1991 by therapists and clients at the City’s North River Mental Health Center, backed by local community organizers, where they learned that Mayor Richard
M. Daley was considering closing City clinics.
At the time, Chicago had nineteen City-run mental health clinics, most of them created as a result of President John F. Kennedy's Community Mental Health Act. But starting in the Reagan administration in the 1980s, federal support for the centers began drying up, recalls Michael Snedeker, the coalition’s executive director. In Illinois, the state started cutting mental health funding in the 1990s, he said.
As states and cities were squeezed by federal cutbacks across the board, they found that “mental health was an easy line item to cut,” Snedeker said. “And the
city would blame the state and the state would blame the city, and the mental health clients would pay the price.”
The coalition worked for a decade to keep the City’s clinics open, “and many years we were successful, but some years the City would peel off one here or two there, and we began to get frustrated.”
They decided the community mental health movement needed to address the funding issue directly. Their solution was local: “keeping it local, funding it locally, having it overseen locally, having the services tailored directly to what a community needs,” Snedeker said. They developed the concept of the Expanded Community Mental Health Services
Program, with homeowners paying a small property tax levy to fund a center that would be available to all residents— and, crucially, that couldn’t be taken away the next time budgets got tight.
Voters in an advisory referendum strongly backed the concept, but Mayor Daley was “dead set against it,” so the coalition worked with state legislators to pass the Community Expanded Mental Health Services Act in 2011. In 2012 they launched their first campaign for a mental health district in the North River area.
Local aldermen were supportive but skeptical, Snedeker recalls. “They said this is great, it’s democracy in action, but you’ll never get anyone to vote for a property tax increase.” But “people in Chicago are smart voters,” he said. “They’re fed up with some of the politics, but when it comes to investing in their neighborhood, people are all for it, if they can see the benefit and they feel like it’s going to be used responsibly.”
The referendum passed with 74 percent support, and in 2014 the Kedzie Center opened in a storefront at 4141 N. Kedzie.
At the center, a dozen or so therapist offices extend out from a sunny, cheerful multipurpose room with bookshelves, toys, and comfy chairs, along with a conference table. It’s used for play groups, peace circles, community events and meetings, said executive director Angela Sedeño.
The center serves anyone living in Albany Park, Irving Park, North Park or Sauganash—accepting insurance if
Diana Aguirre, Rebecca Jarcho, Christopher Potts, and Isaac Aleman from the Coalition to Save Our Mental Health Centers on Monday, December 9.
Photo by Michael DiGioia
they have it, charging nothing to people without means—and sees about 400 clients a year, about 40 percent under age twenty-one and 80 percent Black or Brown people; half have some form of Medicaid and 25 to 30 percent are uninsured.
The center largely serves people with “everyday problems, concerns with parenting, managing financial stressors,” said Sedeno, though she added that 70 percent of clients have “some history of trauma.” The staff has extensive training in treating issues related to trauma, she said.
About a third of the center’s clients have been receiving services for more than two years: 19 percent for four years or more, and at least one client has seen the same therapist for eight years, Sedeno said. Many come for more than one service, including individual, family, and group therapy as well as psychiatry. The center has eight therapists and supervisors supported by student interns and two part-time psychiatrists who treat adults and children.
Originally dependent solely on property tax revenues, the center now gets about 45 percent of its funding from a mix of insurance payments and support from foundations and individuals, she said.
One of the strengths of the center’s “hyperlocal” focus and its community ownership is its ability to respond to issues as they arise, Sedeno said. A big part of this is a network of community partnerships with dozens of area schools, churches and nonprofits.
When COVID-19 hit, the Kedzie Center responded by providing food, housing, and employment assistance, as well as help with school anxiety among students. When a wave of migrants arrived over the past year, schools reached out for help assisting traumatized children, and church shelters requested mental health screenings and peace circles.
“We were known in the community, we were trusted, we were boots on the ground,” Sedeno said.
The center also reaches thousands of people a year with educational programs in the community. And it coordinates client care with other mental health and
social service agencies in the area.
By a twist of fate, the first center opened under the Expanded Mental Health Services Program is not far from the last of the City’s mental health clinics still open on the North Side, the North River Mental Health Center. Ten years ago services at North River were restricted to severe mental illness, and City clinics only treated adults. Today, Sedeno said, the two clinics sometimes refer clients to each other, when North River has a waiting list or a client at Kedzie needs additional services.
For over thirty years, the coalition has steadfastly called for reopening all City mental health clinics. “There’s enough need in the community for us to exist, for North River to exist, for private practices,” Sedeno said.
The other existing centers, the Encompassing Center at 3019 W. Harrison and LoSAH Center of Hope at 3555 W. Armitage, have similar approaches to community access and outreach, said Rebecca Jarcho, assistant director of the coalition. The Encompassing Center, for example, features community outreach ranging from school-based counseling and trauma-informed training for community partners, to yoga and financial literacy classes for residents.
On the South Side, the success of two referenda passed in November demonstrate the key element of the coalition’s success: intensive grassroots organizing.
“It was community, community, community,” said organizer Christopher Potts. He’s an example of young organizers joining the coalition from the affected communities. Growing up, he lived in all three of the community areas he’s worked in over recent years, Bronzeville, Kenwood, and Englewood, and he knows the issues intimately, having dealt with domestic violence and gun violence in his family and neighborhood.
“I am quite proud that my community made a decisive choice this November to break that cycle,” he said.
Organizers recruited residents to join community action teams that took the lead on the campaign. Retired principal Patricia Vaughn-Dossiea, a
Greater Chatham resident, joined after a former student knocked on her door with a petition. She collected signatures and distributed flyers among her neighbors and at her church, St. Moses the Black Parish, where she volunteers at the food pantry.
“There’s something about the thought of helping your community that [makes] people say yes,” she said. “People seized on an opportunity to have something in their own communities that they control.”
Another former educator who joined the Southwest Side effort, Noah Pickens, noted that young people receive lots of messaging about mental health, but there’s a lack of long-term, ongoing support. He also saw a need among his staff at the Chicago Youth Boxing Club, a Little Village youth development group where he’s executive director. Staff in organizations doing youth mentoring or violence interruption "are receiving second-hand trauma all the time," he said.
He liked the “ground-up” approach of the concept, requiring “people having a direct buy-in.” But that meant the community action team “needed to be really intentional to bring in as many people as possible” because “this is a democratic process foundationally.”
The coalition also draws student volunteers directly from the community. “We go out with interns and they’re always very local, so it’s fun for them because they’re doing something [that’s] making change within their own communities,” said lead organizer Diana Aguirre, who recently helped spearhead the Near Southwest campaign, covering Little Village, McKinley Park, Pilsen, Bridgeport, and Armour Square. Walking the streets knocking on doors, “they say my aunt lives there, or we just passed my high school, which is always super exciting for them.”
Sometimes community support came from unexpected places. In Bridgeport, the owners of the Base Community Cafe learned of the project and decided on their own to hold an open mic on the theme of mental health, said organizer Isaac Aleman. Performers spoke of their experiences with mental
health challenges and followed up with spoken word and song.
Organizers told repeatedly of residents expressing support for expanded services, even if they had access to private services or were not personally in need. For Aleman, conversations with people in need were the most moving. “I talked to a resident one time and they…had lost a grandchild to gun violence very recently, and being able to support them in that moment and have that conversation” was rewarding, he said.
It all added up to two more overwhelming victories for the coalition.
The Near Southwest and EngelwoodGreater Chatham districts will join two South Side districts where governing commissions have been established. The commissioners were nominated by local nonprofits, appointed by the governor and mayor, and empowered to receive the property tax levy, contract with service providers and oversee the new centers.
In the Southeast area, including South Shore, Woodlawn, Hyde Park, and Kenwood, a governing commission established after a 93 percent favorable vote in 2022 has conducted a community needs assessment and is preparing a request for proposals from potential service providers. In Bronzeville, where a referendum passed in 2020 with 89 percent of the vote, the governing commission has selected the nonprofit HRDI as a service provider and is now looking for a location, said lead organizer Raphael Arteberry.
Jarcho said that after the most recent victories, the coalition will begin examining county tax data to help draw more districts with sufficient tax bases to provide robust funding for more centers.
The goal is to have an Expanded Mental Health Services Project for every inch of the city—and they are well on the way to accomplishing that. ¬
Curtis Black is a longtime Chicago journalist. He covered the closing of city mental health centers for Community Media Workshop and the Chicago Reporter
Chicago Advocates and Clinicians Come Together to Support Mental Health of Immigrants in Peril
At a time of dire threat, there’s a push to provide healing through “radical hope” and a vow to organize and protect those most vulnerable.
BY ALMA CAMPOS, MINDSITE NEWS
This story was first published by MindSite News on November 26. Printed here with permission.
This is the third story from a new reporting project called “Silent Battles,” which focuses on the mental health of immigrant, refugee and asylum communities in the U.S. We have begun the project in Chicago, a city founded by a Haitian immigrant, that has the fourth-largest immigrant population in the country. The series is a collaboration between the Chicago bureau of MindSite News and palabra, a multimedia platform from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. It is made possible with funding from the Field Foundation of Illinois and the Reva and David Logan Foundation.
Less than two weeks after U.S. voters decided to bring former President Donald Trump back to the White House, almost 200 people trekked to Chicago’s South Side for a convening on a critical topic: the mental health of immigrant communities in the new Trump era. They came to plan and strategize, but what many wanted, above all, was a space of healing that could help steady them for the intense work and organizing that lies ahead.
the harvest of the earth, a conch shell for wind and clay mugs for water. The fire element was absent, but the energy of the participants infused the gathering with warmth.
There, a healing circle was convened by Susana A. Banuelos, an Aztec/Mexica dancer, and community advocate María Velazquez, the executive director of Telpochcalli Community Education Project in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood, to guide participants into a welcoming space.
On the floor in the center of the circle, a tapestry embroidered with a blue flower and fringed edges set the tone. On top: items representing earth, air and water, four of the essential elements in Native American cultures: corn husks symbolizing
“We know that we can’t always solve problems, avoid wars and avoid conflicts,” but people can “create healing” in difficult times, said Banuelos, whose ceremonial name is Ollin Kuikatl Tekpatzin. She offered a series of prompts for a conversation between participants, and people spent a few minutes speaking softly with each other in pairs about their favorite childhood game to break the ice.
The second prompt was more profound—participants shared a time when they experienced a strong connection with someone outside of their race, gender, or community that “was grounded on truth, love and solidarity.”
For immigrants who are newly arrived or lack health insurance or the means to pay for services, healing circles can be a form of community-led mutual aid, “a way for communities to heal themselves,” said Maria Ferrera, co-founder of the Coalition for Immigrant Mental Health, which organized the convening. “We know that they don’t have access most of the time to mental health services.”
The convening took place Nov. 15, amid mounting fears of mass deportations and family separations, and aimed to foster resilience and offer practical strategies to the clinicians, social workers, nonprofit employees and community advocates who provide mental health and other services to Chicago’s migrant communities. The event opened with a panel of city leaders and experts who emphasized the urgent need for action post-election. Beatriz
Ponce de León, a longtime social services administrator who was named last year by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson as the city’s first-ever deputy mayor for immigrant, migrant and refugee rights, told the crowd that the city would defend and protect immigrants and newcomers.
“We’re going to stand firm in our welcoming city ordinance and the protection of undocumented people,” de León said. Chicago first declared itself a sanctuary city in 1985 when Mayor Harold Washington issued an executive order barring city employees from assisting in federal immigration-enforcement efforts and pledging that city benefits would not be denied based on immigration status. Since then, five consecutive mayors have vowed to protect immigrants, including asylum seekers and those without documents, and to refrain from cooperating with federal agents.
“It’s going to be hard, and people will challenge us—even in Chicago, people will challenge us,” de León said. “So I think all of us have to be ready to stand firm in support of that ordinance.”
Mayor Johnson reaffirmed his commitment to protecting immigrants in a Nov. 12 press conference, even if it means risking federal funding. “We will not bend or break,” Johnson said. “Our values will remain strong and firm. We will face likely hurdles in our work over the next four years but we will not be stopped and we will not go back.”
Other panelists urged advocates to support immigrant communities by continuing to create welcoming spaces, removing language barriers that keep migrants from accessing information and services and, above all, working with congressional representatives and other public officials to defend the rights and
María Velazquez and Susana Ollin Kuikatl Tekpatzin Bañuelos, led participants into a space of healing.
Photo Hannah Smith, courtesy of Coalition for Immigrant Mental Health
needs of immigrants.
The stakes are high, said Melissa Morgan, a clinical psychology professor at the University of Illinois UrbanaChampaign. The kinds of attacks now being aimed at immigrants can cause deep despair, anxiety, depression and other mental health challenges that can lead to long-term physical health issues and increase suicide rates, she said.
In a time of rampant misinformation and disinformation, immigrant communities in the U.S. have become frequent targets of ugly and dangerous myths and falsehoods spread on social media, such as the ones about Haitians eating pets that were amplified by Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance.
These kinds of lies and myths do real harm to immigrant families and children, causing serious physical and mental health effects, said Dana Rusch, an associate professor of clinical psychiatry at University of Illinois Chicago and director of its Immigrant Family Mental Health Advocacy Program. Combined with the threat of stepped-up immigration
enforcement, they can distort parents’ views of how welcome they are—even among groups that may not be threatened by deportation or other legal actions, she said. This undermines child development and community health, as well as fueling
parents’ fears, leading to higher levels of psychological distress, she said.
Mamadou Lamine Niang, a twentythree-year-old immigrant from Senegal, grew up on Chicago’s South Side and works as a case worker at an immigrant advocacy
organization that supports newly arrived Black immigrants with English language support, asylum assistance and other basic needs. He came to the meeting to learn how to better understand the mental health of the immigrants he sees on a daily basis.
At the conference, Niang talked about the ways that misinformation about immigrants is straining relationships between immigrants and AfricanAmericans in Chicago. The arrival of migrants and the placement of many on the South Side intersects with the city’s historic failure to address the needs of long-term Black residents, creating fertile ground for misinformation, he said. For example, some community members believe migrants get preferential treatment such as quicker access to benefits like housing or food assistance, further dividing groups that share similar challenges.
Niang is keenly aware of the city’s long-term neglect of the South Side, a place where Black residents have long felt the weight of disinvestment pressing down on them.
“I always wanted to play soccer, for
Beatriz Ponce de León, Chicago’s deputy mayor for immigrant, migrant, and refugee rights (left) prepares to join a panel at the Coalition for Immigrant Mental Health’s 4th Annual convening.
Photo Hannah Smith, courtesy of Coalition for Immigrant Mental Health
example, and when I came here, the only place that you could go play soccer is up north, like, all the way to the ‘burbs,” Niang said. To play and try out for teams, he’d take multiple buses and trains to the suburbs, where opportunities were available but costly. “The opportunities those kids have— those beautiful libraries, those beautiful soccer fields—they should provide that to the South Side.”
The conference also highlighted the efforts by volunteers in groups like the Mobile Migrant Health Team (MMHT) to provide support and health care to new arrivals. Established in 2023 by Sara Izquierdo, a third-year medical student at the University of Illinois Chicago, with assistance from Dr. Evelyn Figueroa, a family medicine physician at UI Health, the mobile team recruits volunteer medical students to deliver medical services to migrant families in the Chicago area. Many of the migrants were injured or sick from their journeys, endured harsh living conditions or faced health challenges after having their prescription medications confiscated at the border. The student-led team has done this work—without city support—since migrants began arriving on buses from Texas in August of 2022.
The city’s initial response to new arrivals “wasn’t perfect,” acknowledged Ponce de León, the deputy mayor. Still, she said, the city, Cook County and the state of Illinois came together to create a shelter system, with support offered by volunteers and nonprofits. “I’m really proud of what Chicago did.” Advocacy groups and undocumented Chicagoans have played a pivotal role in pushing the city to strengthen its immigrant-protection policies. The 2012 Welcoming City Ordinance, which formalized these protections, was passed during the administration of Mayor Rahm Emanuel after an extensive campaign by immigration advocates.
State laws like the TRUST Act and the Illinois Way Forward Act are also intended to create safety for immigrants. The Trust Act prohibits police from detaining individuals based solely on immigration status without a judicial warrant. The Illinois Way Forward Act, signed by Governor J.B. Pritzker in 2021, bans state and local contracts for immigration detention centers in the state.
The group that organized the convening, the Coalition for Immigrant Mental Health, has also put together resources for migrants, immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees in need of mental health services. A directory in English and Spanish list providers in Chicago and surrounding suburbs including the types of therapy offered, whether there’s a cost, and information about payment options, wait times, languages spoken at the facility, and whether a referral or ID is required for an appointment. The coalition also developed an interactive map that allows users to locate these services and legal services in Chicago and surrounding areas.
At the conference, Melissa Morgan, the UI-Urbana psychology professor, pushed back against the growing sense of despair felt by many people, including immigrants, in the aftermath of the election. She invoked the idea of radical hope, a term first introduced by philosopher Jonathan Lear to describe a form of hope that endures even when the future is uncertain, built on a sense of trust that new ways of living and meaning can emerge in times of profound loss.
“In psychology, we talk about radical hope and how we harness that is super important,” Morgan said. “Find little bits that can kind of keep us going, because if we all despair, the change isn’t going to happen.” ¬
Alma Campos is an award-winning bilingual journalist in Chicago and is passionate about telling stories of immigrants in the U.S. Born in Mexico, her path led her from Azusa, California, to Chicago’s South Side. Her work dives into the immigrant experience, capturing stories across a range of topics from mental health and labor to community resilience. She contributes to The Guardian, is a senior editor at South Side Weekly, and leads reporting on the intersection of immigration and mental health for the Chicago bureau of MindSite News. Her work has also appeared in WTTW, Crain’s Chicago Business and Univision.
Activistas y clínicos de Chicago unen fuerzas para apoyar la salud mental de inmigrantes
En un momento de grave amenaza, los activistas reavivan un movimiento para ofrecer sanación a través de la “esperanza radical” y prometen organizarse y proteger a los más vulnerables
POR ALMA CAMPOS, MINDSITE NEWS, PALABRA
Nota del editor: Este reportaje es el tercero de la serie “Luchas Invisibles” un nuevo proyecto periodístico que se enfoca en la salud mental de las comunidades de inmigrantes, refugiados y solicitantes de asilo en Estados Unidos. Comenzamos en Chicago, una ciudad fundada por un inmigrante haitiano que tiene la cuarta población de inmigrantes más grande del país. La serie es una colaboración entre la oficina de Chicago de MindSite News y palabra, una plataforma multimedia de la Asociación Nacional de Periodistas Hispanos. Este proyecto es posible gracias a la financiación de la Fundación Field de Illinois.
Menos de dos semanas después de que los votantes estadounidenses decidieran enviar al expresidente Donald Trump de nuevo a la Casa Blanca, casi 200 personas se reunieron en el lado sur de Chicago para un encuentro sobre un tema crítico: la salud mental de las comunidades inmigrantes en la nueva era de Trump. Llegaron a planificar y diseñar estrategias, pero lo que muchos deseaban, sobre todo, era un espacio de sanación que les ayudara a prepararse para el intenso trabajo y
movilización que les espera.
Susana A. Banuelos, cuyo nombre ceremonial es Ollin Kuikatl Tekpatzin Banuelos, es una bailarina azteca/mexica, y la activista comunitaria María Velazquez, la directora ejecutiva del Telpochcalli Community Education Project en el barrio de La Villita en Chicago, convocaron un círculo de sanación y guiaron a un espacio acogedor.
En el piso, en el centro de círculo, un tapiz bordado con una flor azul y bordes con flecos establece la pauta. Arriba: objetos que representaron la tierra, el aire y el agua, tres de los cuatro elementos esenciales en las culturas nativo americanas: hojas de maíz simbolizaron la cosecha de la tierra, una concha para el viento y tasas de arcilla para el agua. Faltó el elemento del fuego, pero la energía de los participantes le agregó calor a la reunión.
“Sabemos que no siempre podemos solucionar problemas, evitar guerras y evitar conflictos”, dijo Banuelos, pero la gente puede “crear sanación” en tiempos difíciles. Ofreció una serie de temas para una conversación entre los participantes, y las personas pasaron unos minutos hablando
entre ellas en voz baja sobre los juegos favoritos de sus infancias para romper el hielo.
El segundo tema fue más profundo: los participantes compartieron un momento en el que experimentaron una conexión fuerte con alguien de otra raza, género o comunidad, una conexión que “se basó en la verdad, el amor y la solidaridad”.
Para los inmigrantes que recién llegaron a Estados Unidos o que no tienen seguro médico ni los medios para pagar por los servicios, los círculos de sanación pueden ser una forma de ayuda mutua liderada por la comunidad, “una manera en que las comunidades se sanan a sí mismas”, dijo Maria Ferrera, cofundadora de la Coalición por la Salud Mental Inmigrante, que organizó la convocatoria”. “Sabemos que la mayoría del tiempo no tienen acceso a servicios de salud mental”.
Realizada el 15 de noviembre, en medio de crecientes temores de deportaciones masivas y separación de familias, la reunión tuvo como objetivo fomentar la resiliencia y ofrecer estrategias prácticas a los clínicos, trabajadores sociales, empleados de organizaciones sin fines de lucro y activistas comunitarios que brindan servicios de salud mental y otros tipos de apoyo a las comunidades migrantes de Chicago.
El evento comenzó con un panel de líderes municipales y expertos que destacaron la urgente necesidad de actuar tras las elecciones. Beatriz Ponce de León, una administradora de servicios sociales de larga trayectoria que desde el año pasado asumió como la primera subalcaldesa de la ciudad para los derechos de los inmigrantes, migrante y refugiados, le dijo a la concurrencia que la ciudad defendería y protegería a los inmigrantes y a los recién llegados.
“Vamos a mantenernos firmes en nuestra ordenanza de ciudad acogedora y en la protección de las personas indocumentadas”, dijo Ponce de León.
Chicago se declaró una ciudad santuario por primera vez en 1985, cuando el alcalde Harold Washington emitió una orden ejecutiva que le prohibía a los empleados de la ciudad asistir en los esfuerzos federales de cumplimiento de la inmigración y prometía que los beneficios de la ciudad no se negarían en función del estatus migratorio. Desde entonces, cinco
alcaldes de Chicago consecutivos se han comprometido a abstenerse de cooperar con los agentes federales y proteger a los inmigrantes, incluidos los solicitantes de asilo y aquellos sin documentos. “Va a ser difícil y la gente nos va a retar; aún en Chicago, la gente nos va a retar”, agregó Ponce de León. “Así que creo que todos tenemos que estar listos para mantenernos firmes en nuestro apoyo a esa ordenanza”.
El alcalde Johnson reafirmó su compromiso de proteger a los inmigrantes en una conferencia de prensa el 12 de noviembre de 2024, incluso si implica poner en riesgo los fondos federales. “No vamos a ceder ni nos vamos a quebrar”, dijo Johnson. “Nuestros valores se mantendrán fuertes y firmes. Enfrentaremos obstáculos en nuestro trabajo durante los próximos cuatro años, pero no nos detendrán y no vamos a retroceder”.
Otros panelistas instaron a los activistas a apoyar a las comunidades inmigrantes con la creación de espacios acogedores, eliminando las barreras lingüísticas que impiden que accedan a información y servicios y, sobre todo, trabajando con los representantes del Congreso y otros funcionarios públicos para defender sus derechos y necesidades.
Es mucho lo que está en juego, dijo Melissa Morgan, la profesora de psicología clínica en la Universidad de Illinois UrbanaChampaign. Los tipos de ataques que se
más altos de angustia psicológica, agregó Rusch.
Mamadou Lamine Niang, un inmigrante senegalés de 23 años que se crió en el lado sur de Chicago y trabaja como asistente social en una organización de defensa de inmigrantes que apoya ainmigrantes negros recién llegados con clases de inglés, asistencia con las solicitudes de asilo y otras necesidades básicas, asistió a la reunión para aprender cómo comprender mejor la salud mental de los inmigrantes que atiende a diario.
dirigen ahora a los inmigrantes pueden causar profundidad pérdida de esperanza, ansiedad, depresión y otros problemas de salud mental que pueden llevar a problemas físicos de salud a largo plazo e incrementar las tasas de suicidio, mencionó.
En una época de desinformación e información falsa desenfrenadas, las comunidades inmigrantes en Estados Unidos se han convertido en blancos frecuentes de mitos y mentiras peligrosas difundidas en las redes sociales, como aquellas sobre haitianos comiendo mascotas, que fueron amplificadas por Trump y su compañero de fórmula, JD Vance.
Estos tipos de mentiras y mitos le hacen daño verdadero a las familias y los niños inmigrantes, y afectan de manera seria su salud física y mental, dijo Dana Rusch, professora adjunta de psiquiatría clínica en la Universidad de Illinois Chicago y directora de Immigrant Family Mental Health Advocacy Program (Programa de Defensa de la Salud Mental para Familias Inmigrantes). Si se combina con la amenaza de una aplicación más estricta de la ley migratoria, (la desinformación) puede distorsionar la percepción de los padres sobre cuán bienvenidos son, incluso entre grupos que no están amenazados por la deportación u otras acciones legales, dijo. Esto socava el desarrollo infantil y la salud comunitaria, además de alimentar los temores de los padres, lo que lleva a niveles
Durante la conferencia, Niang habló de la manera en que la información falsa acerca de los inmigrantes está tensando la relación entre los inmigrantes recién llegados y los afroamericanos en Chicago. La llegada de migrantes y el hecho de que muchos han sido colocados al lado sur de la ciudad se cruza con la histórica falta de atencion a las necesidades de muchos residentes negros que viven ahí desde hace mucho tiempo, lo que crea un terreno fértil para la informacion falsa, dijo. Por ejemplo, algunos miembros de la comunidad creen que los migrantes reciben trato preferencial, como un acceso más rápido a beneficios de vivienda o asistencia alimentaria, lo que genera aún más división entre los grupos que enfrentan desafíos similares.
Niang es sumamente consciente del abandono a largo plazo de South Side de la ciudad, un lugar donde los residentes negros han sentido durante mucho tiempo el peso de la desinversión que los oprime.
“Siempre quise jugar fútbol, por ejemplo, y cuando llegué aquí, el único lugar al que podías ir a jugar futbol era en el norte, casi en los suburbios”, dijo Niang. Para jugar y hacer pruebas para equipos, Niang tenía que tomar varios autobuses y trenes hasta los suburbios, donde había oportunidades pero eran costosas. “Las oportunidades que tienen esos niños — esas hermosas bibliotecas, esos hermosos campos de fútbol— deberían ofrecerlas también en el lado sur”.
La conferencia también destacó los esfuerzos de los voluntarios en grupos como el Mobile Migrant Health Team (Equipo ambulante de salud migrante; MMHT por sus siglas en inglés) para brindar apoyo y atención médica a los recién llegados. Establecido en 2023 por Sara Izquierdo, una estudiante de medicina de tercer año
Miembros de Organized Communities Against Deportation (Comunidades organizadas en contra de la deportación) participaron en una marcha en 2017 en La Villita, en Chicago, para solidarizarse con la comunidad inmigrante.
Foto cortesía de OCAD
en la Universidad de Illinois en Chicago, con la ayuda de la Dra. Evelyn Figueroa, médico de familia en UI Health, el equipo ambulante recluta estudiantes de medicina voluntarios para ofrecer servicios médicos a familias de migrantes en el área de Chicago. El equipo ayudó a los migrantes que llegaban en autobús desde Texas, sin nada de recursos, a las comisarías de policía y aeropuertos. Realizaba revisiones físicas, suministraba medicamentos y los dirigía a clínicas gratuitas. Muchos de los migrantes llegaban heridos o enfermos debido a sus viajes, soportaban condiciones de vida duras o enfrentaban problemas de salud después de que sus medicamentos recetados fueran confiscados en la frontera. El equipo dirigido por estudiantes ha realizado esta labor —sin apoyo de la ciudad— desde que los migrantes comenzaron a llegar en autobuses provenientes de Texas en agosto de 2022.
La respuesta inicial de la ciudad a los recién llegados “no fue perfecta”, reconoció Ponce de León, la subalcaldesa. Sin embargo, afirmó que la ciudad, el condado de Cook y el estado de Illinois trabajaron juntos para crear un sistema de refugios con el apoyo de voluntarios y organizaciones sin fines de lucro. “Estoy muy orgullosa de lo que hizo Chicago”.
Grupos activistas y residentes de Chicago sin estatus legal han jugado un
solamente por su estatus migratorio sin una orden judicial. La Illinois Way Forward Act, firmada por el gobernador J.B. Pritzker en 2021, prohíbe que las autoridades locales firmen contratos con el gobierno federal para detener a inmigrantes.
El grupo que organizó la junta, la Coalición para la Salud Mental Inmigrante, también ha reunido recursos para migrantes, inmigrantes, solicitantes de asilo y refugiados que necesiten servicios de salud mental. Un directorio en inglés y español enumera proveedores en Chicago y suburbios cercanos, e incluye los tipos de terapia ofrecidos, si hay un costo, información sobre opciones de pago, tiempos de espera, idiomas hablados en las instalaciones, y si se requiere una referencia o identificación para obtener una cita. La coalición también desarrolló un mapa interactivo que le permite a los usuarios ubicar estos servicios y servicios legales en Chicago y sus alrededores.
“En la psicología, hablamos de la esperanza radical y la forma cómo la empleamos es súper importante”, dijo Morgan. “Hay que encontrar pequeñas cosas que nos impulsen, porque si todos perdemos las esperanzas, el cambio no se dará”. ¬
papel clave a la hora de instar a la ciudad a fortalecer políticas que protegen a los inmigrantes. La Ordenanza de Ciudad Acogedora de 2012 (Welcoming City Ordinance del 2012) formalizó estas protecciones durante la administración del alcalde Rahm Emanuel, cuando fue aprobada tras una extensa campaña por parte de los defensores de los inmigrantes. Leyes estatales como la TRUST Act y
En la conferencia, Melissa Morgan, la profesora de psicología en la Universidad de Illinois Urbana, se resistió a dejarse guiar por la creciente desesperación que sienten muchas personas, incluyendo inmigrantes, tras las elecciones. Invocó el concepto de la esperanza radical, un término originalmente introducido por el filósofo Jonathan Lear para describir una forma de esperanza que perdura aun cuando el futuro es incierto,
Alma Campos es una galardonada periodista bilingüe que vive en Chicago y tiene una pasión por contar historias de inmigrantes en Estados Unidos. Nacida en México, su trayectoria la llevó de Azusa, California, al sur de Chicago. Su trabajo se adentra en las experiencias de los inmigrantes y recoge historias sobre una amplia gama de temas (y de intersecciones), desde la salud mental y los derechos laborales hasta la resiliencia comunitaria. Colabora con The Guardian, es editora en South Side Weekly y lidera la cobertura periodística que se enfoca en la intersección entre la inmigración y la salud mental en MindSite News. Su trabajo también ha aparecido en WTTW, Crain’s Chicago Business y Univision. @ alma_campos
Rob Waters es un periodista galardonado especializado en salud y salud mental. Es editor fundador de MindSite News. Ha trabajado como reportero o editor en Bloomberg News, Time Inc. Health y Psychotherapy Networker. Fue escritor colaborador en Health Affairs. Sus artículos también han sido publicados por The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Kaiser Health News, STAT, TheAtlantic.com, Mother Jones y muchos otros medios. @robwaters001
Diana Hembree es coeditora y fundadora de MindSite News. Es una galardonada periodista y editora que ha trabajado como editora jefe para Time Inc. Health, como editora de noticias del Center for Investigative Reporting (Centro de reportajes de investigación), y como editora jefa de una empresa emergente de salud y medicina. Ha colaborado con Forbes.com, Columbia Journalism Review, Southern Exposure y muchos otros medios.También fue productora asociada del documental de PBS Frontline “The Great American Bailout”. Tiene una licenciatura en literatura inglesa y una maestría en sistemas alimentarios sostenibles. @legacyreporter
Mamadou Lamine Niang habla de su papel como asistente social en una organización de defensa de los inmigrantes, compartiendo sus conocimientos sobre los desafíos de salud mental que enfrentan los inmigrantes recién llegados a quienes asiste.
Photo Foto de Hannah Smith, cortesía de la Coalición por la Salud Mental Inmigrante
Objetos indígenas organizados en el centro de un círculo de sanación dirigido por Susana Ollin Kuikatl Tekpatzin Banuelos y María Velazquez, fomentando la conexión y la restauración entre los defensores de los inmigrantes. Foto de Hannah Smith, cortesía de la Coalición por la Salud Mental Inmigrante
PROJECT A BLACK PLANET
THE ART AND CULTURE OF PA N AFRICA
Musicians from Veracruz Teach Guitar, and Resistance, in Pilsen
The Altepee Collective is using traditional music to create a network of communities in Mexico and the U.S.
BY ALONSO VIDAL
Altepee, a music collective that hails from Veracruz, Mexico, recently visited Chicago as resident artists at 18th Street Casa de Cultura in Pilsen, where they hosted music lessons for children and adults in Pilsen. The group uses their region’s traditional folk music, son jarocho, to create learning opportunities to share with various communities in their travels.
Sael Blanco founded the collective with fellow local musicians in southern Veracruz eighteen years ago. They aimed to preserve the traditions of their communities and Indigenous groups, such as the Nahuas and Popolucas, whose cultural heritage has been largely forgotten over the decades.
Their music features string and percussion instruments: the leona, a large four-string bass, and the four-string requinto jarocha and eight-string jarana jarocha, both similar to small guitars. The musicians play these around a tarima, a square wooden platform performers dance on. This percussion instrument is the centerpiece of the celebration.
Today, Altepee has twelve members who travel throughout Mexico and the United States. They hold music workshops and participate in local radio programs, creating spaces to share their culture and foster dialogue.
This past month, the collective was represented in Chicago by Pipo Juárez, Gemaly Padua, Ulises González, Blanco, and his fifteen-year-old son, Emiliano. While here, the musicians taught music lessons at 18th Street Casa de Cultura.
The group drew comparisons between gentrification in Pilsen and Veracruz, and urged the community to take a collective approach to resistance, a message the organization has been promoting on its tours.
This interview was conducted in Spanish. It has been edited for clarity and length.
What was your first connection with the collective?
Emiliano: I’ve been part of the collective practically since I was born. But I’ve been more actively involved for about five years now.
Pipo: My first connection was as a fan. I loved all the music they made. I’m from the central part of Veracruz. They came to visit, just like they came here [to Chicago], to share and connect.
Ulises: I discovered this music at thirteen through my community and neighbors who played it. But I officially joined this process two years ago. It started as a hobby.
Sael: In the past, it was much more difficult to access music, books, or even knowledge about your own culture. Those of us who started the collective were already musicians, and we saw an opportunity to come together and start offering workshops. We thought, “This is how we’ll preserve the music, specifically campesino music.” In a way, that brought us closer to our communities. Even though we were
already living here, it made us look around and see things differently.
Can you tell me more about the themes in this music?
Ulises: A lot of this music’s speech lies in “singing about the everyday,” what exists in our surroundings and how we perceive nature. It awakened a curiosity in me to understand what I was singing about. That connection eventually became part of my identity.
Sael: It’s a part of our identity, of our people. It’s something passed down through generations. Today, it’s taught in workshops, but traditionally it was shared within families, through grandparents, fathers, mothers.
Connecting with elders enabled us to learn about the paths our ancestors walked, the uses of different plants, and the practice of making offerings. It broadens our perspective on reality and helps us take action. What are the key instruments of the son jarocho?
Ulises: There are the string instruments, including the requinto jarocho, which serve as a guide and carry the melody; the jarana jarocha, used to introduce the music and as an accompaniment to the melody; and the leona, which acts as a bass. We also use percussion instruments like the quijada de burro or the tarima
The tarima, a square box onto which dancers step, is the centerpiece of the celebration in which the son jarocho is performed. As musicians, we play for the dancers.
Sael: Because it grows in our region, our instruments are made from cedar. Over the years, the community has learned to work with this wood. I make instruments and make my living out of it. If you’re interested in the music or this tradition, you also have to care about the land—everything good and bad about it.
How would you define the relationships within the collective?
Sael: I always heard that collectives were formed in response to a specific problem and dissolved afterward. As a collective, we see ourselves as lifelong connections, like family. Music reminds us of the importance of being together. It’s a call not just to the mind but to the heart and spirit. In our workshops, we don’t just share music; we also share this message.
What has been your community’s response to the collective’s work?
Sael: When you host a fandango, [a type of dance party that originated Veracruz] you don’t get paid. You prepare food for everyone; you invest. It’s about giving. We’re not wealthy people. We’re workingclass folks, laborers, campesinos from
Colectivo Altepee members Sael Blanco, Emiliano Blanco, Ulises Gonzales, and Pipo Juarez visited 18th Street Casa de Cultura in Pilsen last month.
Photo by Alonso Vidal
the outskirts of town. Now our families understand. Now the community embraces and supports us. But that wasn’t always the case. Over time, as you expose people to the communal processes of collectives, they grow closer.
Emiliano: I live in an area heavily impacted by violence. Many young people there were involved in petty crimes, but they joined the collective and began distancing themselves from that. They started coming to us instead.
Why is it important to share your message today?
Sael: We live in times when people don’t look at one another. These cultural practices offer alternatives to a way of life driving us toward an abyss. Many of today’s social challenges stem from a lack of knowledge about how to live collectively or in community. We must learn to work together to resolve many societal issues.
Pipo: It’s a bridge that connects people, builds community, and fosters healthy environments for sharing knowledge. That’s a big part of what Altepee does: building bridges regardless of geography.
That bridge has reached Chicago. How did that happen?
Sael: You start by working in your community and connecting with neighbors, but eventually, you realize it’s not enough. Then you connect with another neighborhood, state, and, eventually, another country. In places like Chicago, there’s a rich cultural diversity—all valuable, none more than another. However, segregation has prevented communities from getting to know one another, creating many internal conflicts.
For over twelve years, we’ve had a connection with Jarochicanos [a Chicagobased music group]. But we know [son jarocho] music has been in Chicago for over thirty years. Thanks to the 18th Street Casa de Cultura space, we are resident artists, allowing us to offer workshops and share our music.
but with communities here who don’t just want to make music, but also think about building community—something often denied in this society. These workshops have also been spaces where children can come, listen, and connect with music rooted in tradition.
We come here hoping to contribute, but we also learn from the processes happening in neighborhoods like this [Pilsen]. Gentrification exists here, just as displacement happens in southern Veracruz due to mega-projects.
What similarities do you see between these struggles?
Ulises: Back home, you see the power of industry so clearly. Every night, there’s a glow in the sky from the flares. It’s striking. We often compare that glow to Tolkien’s Eye of Sauron [in The Lord of the Rings]. Society teaches you to ignore it.
Sael: Over there [south Veracruz], it’s like, “How beautiful is Mother Nature… Oh, there’s oil under there? Let’s extract it.” Displacement happens everywhere communities create something beautiful.
Many migrants leave their homes, families, everything behind to come here. They build something new, only for it to be taken away, too. Even our identities are on sale. They think that it’s something they can pay for. That is a mistake. I believe art and culture have always been a line of defense against that.
You are returning to Veracruz, but what’s next? Do you have any plans to come back to Chicago?
Sael: We hope to return to Chicago next year, in March, or the summer when it’s not cold. Meanwhile, we always look for other places to visit in the U.S.
Although only four of us are here now, there are many more of us doing the same work elsewhere. Wherever you are, look around, look at your neighborhoods, your communities. You’ll find people working to preserve something that belongs to all of us. ¬
What happens during these workshops?
Sael: The same work we do back home,
Alonso Vidal is a bilingual multimedia journalist and writer from Lima, Peru, based in Chicago.
Hilliard Homes Tenants “Heartbroken” After Fatal Shooting in a Vacant Apartment
Management has not provided answers to questions about the shooting or other building security issues, renters said
BY EMELINE POSNER
More than two months after a fatal shooting in the Hilliard Towers Apartments, tenants are still waiting for answers about what happened, whether it could have been prevented, and what it means for the building.
In the early morning of October 5, police responding to a call at 2030 S. State St. found a young man with apparent gunshot wounds in a vacant apartment on the building’s first floor, according to the department (CPD). He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Cook County Medical Examiner’s office identified the young man, twenty-one, as Kody H. VelazquezBrand of Oak Brook, Illinois. The homicide remains under investigation and no one has been arrested, according to a CPD spokesperson.
The victim was not a current or former tenant of the building, according to a spokesperson for Holsten Management Corporation, the real estate company that owns and manages the Towers.
“We were heartbroken,” said Anna (not her real name), a tenant who has lived in the building for more than a decade, and who said she did not know the victim. “It’s something that could have been avoided.”
The shooting occurred amid rising concerns about building safety and security, and an upcoming renovation, tenants said.
Tenants interviewed by the Weekly alleged that over the past few years there have been recurring security and habitability issues in the 117-unit building. That includes broken front
entry doors that don’t lock and other instances of people gaining access to vacant apartments.
Holsten has announced plans to rehabilitate all four Hilliard Towers. Renovations on the first two buildings are expected to begin in March 2025, but financing and a construction timeline have not yet been finalized for the building where the shooting occurred.
In the days leading up to October 5, building residents were aware that people were using the first-floor vacant apartment and notified security and management, said Lily, another tenant in the building. “Nobody listened,” she said. (Anna and Lily are pseudonyms for tenants in the building who spoke on the condition of anonymity, fearing
retaliation for speaking with the press.)
In previous cases, Holsten resecured other vacant apartments that were being used or squatted after being notified, tenants said.
Still, tenants want to see more proactive management, better communication and security practices, and improved living conditions.
In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for Holsten wrote that the homicide occurred in a “secured, locked” vacant unit and that the company has “re-secured the unit to prevent further access.”
Originally a Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) development built in 1966, the iconic brutalist complex in the South Loop is now a mixed-income
community, owned and managed by Holsten. There are four buildings on the campus, two designated for families and two for senior citizens. Though no longer managed by the CHA, many tenants in the mixed-income community rely on Section 8 vouchers, a rental assistance program managed by the CHA.
Renters in the family buildings formed a tenants union last November to demand improved living conditions in the two family buildings on the Hilliard Homes campus. Their demands to Holsten included better building security practices, along with addressing persistent roach infestations and faster repairs for leaks and mold.
At the time, Holsten senior vice president Jackie Holsten said, “we take their concerns seriously and will work with the residents of Hilliard to resolve their concerns.”
“Like nothing ever happened”
It’s not uncommon for investigations into fatal shootings not to result in arrests in Chicago. Between 2013 and 2023, in only 21 percent of fatal shooting cases did Chicago police make an arrest within one calendar year, according to a data analysis by The Trace.
Tenants said they wish Holsten had acknowledged the incident sooner, and provided more information about how they plan to improve building safety.
Property managers acknowledged a security incident that resulted in a loss of life in a brief email the following week, tenants said.
“You would think the security would
Hilliard Towers Apartments.
Photo by Tonal Simmons
be beefed up, but it feels the same way, nothing has changed,” Lily said. “You walk past the apartment where the young man was killed, [maintenance staff is] repairing and painting it like nothing ever happened.”
“I’m still shaken up from the incident, because someone lost their life,” said Larayne Wilson, the assistant director of operations for the Hilliard site. “I wish I had more information to share with the residents throughout the site and in the community, but I do not because I have not spoken with the police regarding it since.”
Deteriorating conditions
Over the past year and a half, the main entry door to the 2030 S. State St. building has repeatedly broken or been easily opened without a key, tenants said. The tenants union has asked management to find a permanent solution since it formed last November.
Wilson acknowledged the challenges keeping the door in good condition but said it was tenants’ use of the door, not the door itself, that caused damages.
“It’s not the parts, it’s the yanking on the doors,” Wilson said. “We are constantly fixing the main doors and the side doors.”
Tenants have repeatedly said that building security is one of their biggest barriers to feeling safe in the 2030 building. “I’ve come home—and not just coming home, but leaving to go out— where the front entrance door is wide open,” said one tenant in an interview with the Weekly last year. That tenant, who also requested anonymity at the time due to fear of retaliation, said that in her ten years in the building, she had also experienced serious water-related damages in her apartment that took years to fully repair.
“I’m frustrated and disappointed by management for this to be going on for so long,” the tenant said at the time. “I just want it to be a safe, clean building.”
For Lily, who has lived in the building for about ten years, poor building security has brought back traumatic memories of an ex she had a restraining order against who, years ago, showed up at her
Comic-style illustration drawn and provided by tenant (who asked to remain anonymous) depicting one of Hilliard towers with “black substance” pouring out of a window, two employees of the management company in hazmat suits looking on as a cockroach sprays pest management company employee with insecticide. .
apartment door in Hilliard without being buzzed in.
Lily believes that if tenants were in a building without a CHA subsidy, management would have installed a more solid doorframe or have a more consistent security presence. Instead, she said she feels like management doesn’t think it’s worth the investment. “It just feels like it’s a stigma of, ‘Oh, because we have some tenants who are Section 8… .’ They say it like, ’These people are this mastermind of breaking doors, you know, like these are top-notch criminals.’”
Holsten spokesperson Melinda Guerra provided the following statement: “Holsten Real Estate Development Corporation offers residents an affordable and quality place to call home regardless of how much they can pay, and we pride ourselves on our partnerships that allow for subsidized housing. We do not, and never would, restrict building safety repairs or maintenance based on the rate our residents pay for their housing.”
“We are excited about the major renovation coming soon to this building, and the chance to modernize our Hilliard Towers. In the interim, our commitment remains the same: to manage our mixedincome housing in a way that aligns
with our belief that everyone deserves affordable, quality housing.”
Failed inspections but years until a building-wide renovation
Holsten filed plans for a comprehensive $142 million renovation at two other buildings on the property, records show. The renovation will update both the interior and exterior of one family building and one senior building. In addition, the renovation will replace the building roofs and hot water plants, install all-electric kitchen appliances and introduce native landscaping on the campus.
Construction was slated to start by the end of this year, according to a funding application the company submitted to the City, which approved a preliminary application to distribute federal LowIncome Housing Tax Credit financing for the renovation. That timeline has been pushed back.
Wilson confirmed that Holsten intends to begin renovation work in February or March of 2025. The other two buildings, including 2030 S. State St., where the shooting took place, are slated to be included in the next phase of renovation, which does not yet have a timeline.
The plans for renovation come twenty years after the last full rehabs of the building. Between 2004 and 2007, several years after Holsten took ownership from the CHA, the company carried out a $98 million complete rehabilitation of the four building’s interiors and exteriors. That renovation won a Department of Housing and Urban Development design award for excellence in historic preservation.
The latest renovation announcements also come after years of failed inspections and a City building-code violation.
Holsten has failed five of eight inspections of the 2030 S. State St. building that the City conducted in 2024, and all but one of five inspections conducted in 2023.
In November 2023, the City filed a lawsuit against the Hilliard Homes I Limited Partnership over building code violations at the 2030 S. State St. building. Those violations included rusted and warped stairway doors on upper floors of the building and corroding concrete on its exterior facades.
The city’s complaint references a 2021 Critical Exam Report that provided recommendations related to the spalling concrete on the exterior walls. “No action has been taken since the Nov-18-2021 critical exam report recommendations,” the complaint reads.
To Anna, the renovation plans feel like a catch–22. She feels encouraged by the news of upcoming renovations, but worries that conditions will continue to decline in the coming years.
“The issue isn’t even that so much as what has happened to the building, the feeling of them not caring about the building or the residents,” said Anna.
“I would like for them to imagine that this is a building on Michigan Avenue or up north, and how would [they] would treat the residents there.” ¬
Emeline Posner is an independent journalist who lives and works in Chicago.
Little Italy Tea House Centers Chats and Culture
Living Water Tea House presents patrons with a wide selection of imported Chinese teas and a space for good conversation.
BY CHELSEA ZHAO
Tea is a social glue or excuse for us to sit down, know a little bit of each other, and find the right words to share,” said Shaolong Jiang, the owner of an authentic Chinese tea house in Little Italy, as he deftly prepared small cups of tea at the counter. “That was the idea of a tea house in the United States.”
Whether you’re sipping oolong while catching up on assignments or savoring a scoop of tea-infused gelato, Living Water Tea House is a relaxed environment enlivened by a sympathetic owner keen for good conversations. The tea house is lit up brightly and features a lush bonsai centerpiece, with small tea cups and instruments tastefully arranged across a set of shelves. The negative space of the white walls brings out the soft happy chatterings of tea enjoyers.
Jiang was a Chinese pastor at New Life Church in Bridgeport when he had the idea to create a community through sharing tea and deep talks. He first had the concept for Living Water when he visited a tea house in China that incorporated the Daoist principle of wu wei, or “doing nothing”. This seemingly contradictory philosophy encourages followers to be at peace while engaging in intense actions. An American equivalent may be something like being “in the zone.”
At the Chinese tea house, Jiang became drawn to the lively community of youth sharing personal stories. He started simulating that setting while in seminary in Chicago in 2018. Jiang began in a local church space with a group of twenty regular church attendees, before moving into a brick and mortar location in Little Italy in 2020. The name of the tea house, Living Water, is a reference to a passage from the Bible in which Jesus Christ says, “whoever believes in me, as Scripture has
said, rivers of living water will flow from within them”.
“I always have this quest for identity as a Christian or as a Chinese, and I always felt like I need something to make myself feel settled,” Jiang said.
Jiang has realized that quest through the tea house by creating a culturally inclusive space for Chinese international students.
Since its opening, the Living Water Tea House became a wellspring of imported Chinese teas and a welcoming space for Chinese student artists. The tea house first started selling milk tea to attract customers. Once Jiang secured a footing in the neighborhood, he incorporated traditional, authentic tea culture. Today, Living Water offers puer, oolong, jasmine, and green tea, as well as tea cakes and gelatos with corresponding flavors. Jiang said there are even some ideas underway for tea beers to appeal to local tastes.
“We find our way to be local and blend in with Chicago culture,” Jiang said. “We became a Chicago rather than a Chinese thing.”
While serving tea, Jiang likes to praise the tea from his hometown Qingdao—Laoshan green tea. Grown in the coastal region, the wind from the sea imparts the tea with a sweet melon aftertaste, Jiang says. Besides his gusto for the variety of tea, Jiang emphasized the importance of developing relationships with people in the supply chain in order to get the best teas.
“Tea is like wine, whiskey and cheese in that you must deal with a person [for your] personalized, small business to have a character,” Jiang said.
In the U.S., tea consumption is dominated by black tea—around 86 percent—followed by green tea at 13.6 percent, with less than a percent of other teas, according to the Tea Association of the United States Inc. Still, over the
years, Jiang has observed more American clientele who are just as equally interested in tea houses.
“A lot of Americans want cultural exposure or seek something outside their commercialized coffee, right? So that’s where we show up” he said.
Every other Friday night, Jiang also leads a small tea group in the Zhou B Art Center in Bridgeport.
Haotian Wang, a master’s student of sound arts at Northwestern University, has performed some of his compositions through collaboration with Living Water. At the Zhou B Art Center, he plays acoustic guitar and hulusi, a Chinese instrument made of a gourd and flute.
Wang said he first heard about Living Water through an online post that commented on the owner’s flair for storytelling and profound anecdotes. This piqued his interest to visit, and eventually to become a part of the music scene at the tea house.
Wang said what he enjoys most about Living Water is the opportunity “to connect with people from different backgrounds, and see how my music communicates about my culture, my identity, and to share them with people here in Chicago.”
At one such performance on November 15 at the Zhou B Art Center, while listening to Wang’s meandering and melodious music, tea enthusiasts gathered as Jiang swiftly boiled and cleaned the tea, then poured it into small cups while talking about its heritage and the tea culture. He handed off cups of tea to an occasional passerby at the gallery and asked for their feedback. ¬
Chelsea Zhao (she/her) is a contributing writer at the Weekly
Our thoughts in exchange for yours.
The Exchange is the Weekly’s poetry corner, where a poem or piece of writing is presented with a prompt. Readers are welcome to respond to the prompt with original poems, and pieces may be featured in the next issue of the Weekly.
Dime’s Declassified School Survival
Amid anti-bullying posters tacked to hallways and mandatory assemblies that only made things worse, a middle school girl is taking matters into her own hands and throwing them. She packs up her bag while finishing her sentence, and walks to the principal's office before being told.
One day my best friend gave a girl three extra years with her braces; knocked shorty between a chair and a desk that don’t separate and not even the teacher came between them. I reached in and discovered fists have targets but the elbows that wield them do not.
That was my friend for real, I didn’t care who wasn’t because she was, even if the reality she shaped herself around was harsh and unafraid to talk about somebody's mother.
Contrary to popular belief, there aren’t actually rules to defending yourself when no one else will protect you. When no one has your back, you learn to swing in every direction.
and I see my grammar school best friend in everything She taught me how to rip a brick off your facade and cast it,
knowing you’re sturdy enough not to fall. Don’t care if y’all don’t like me cause i don’t like y’all either, and I put that on your mama.
I’d pack my bag and call my mother myself, never got in trouble cause the trouble tried to get in me first, I was just defending myself.
They called my friend problematic, but I learned that some of us find ourselves having to be solutions because there aren’t multiple choices. They could never make me hate you because they could never make you hate yourself.
When someone questions your worth, sometimes you answer with your fists because it’s all you have and you are tired of being tested.
My teachers told me to try harder to be likable so I could make more friends, and my closest one taught me how to like myself enough to protect what I could not change.
and only one of those versions of myself never got jumped again.
I’ll let you guess which one.
THIS WEEK'S PROMPT: “WHO OR WHAT HAS GIVEN YOU THE STRENGTH TO PROTECT YOUR PEACE INSTEAD OF SEEKING APPROVAL?”
This could be a poem, journal entry, or a stream-of-consciousness piece. Submissions could be new or formerly written pieces. Submissions can be sent to bit.ly/ssw-exchange or via email to chima.ikoro@southsideweekly.com
Chima Ikoro is the Weekly’s Community Builder.
Guide by chima “naira” ikoro
Joffrey Company Artist Yumi Kanazawa. Photo by Todd Rosenberg.
Footworking to Jazz with Kaicrewsade
Rapper, composer, and mental health advocate Kaicrewsade shares his reverence for Chicago’s culture and the heart behind his first big project,
BY CHIMA IKORO
The downfall of K-Swiss was a revolutionary time for Chicagoans.
Juke, the grandchild of house music, rapidly absorbed the early 2000s and became a defining aspect of Black Chicago culture as it lives and breathes today. Despite being a ’98 baby, every time I see anyone I assume was born past 2000 levitate to the dance floor at the first sound of “Juke Dat Juke Dat” by DJ Rashad and Gant-Man, I can’t help but to ask in my most sincere auntie voice, “what’chall know ‘bout this!?”
So you can imagine how I felt hearing “ah shit, ah shit, that bitch got on K-Swiss” over electrifying jazz music on “RIP Rashad Harden,” a song by twenty-two-year-old Makhi Miller, aka Kaicrewsade, or Kai. This track, the first single dropped ahead of his debut album Yvette, pays homage to the late pillar of the footwork genre, DJ Rashad. His productions played a huge role in bringing juke to the global stage, along with legends like DJ Spinn, an inspiration of Kai’s who has shared stories about DJ Rashad with him personally.
“[People] don't know, DJ Rashad, DJ Spinn, all these [DJs], these niggas is respected all around the world,” said Kai. He expressed how impactful their unique contributions to music has been, defying the expectations the outside world may place on Chicago’s artists. “Even when I talk to Spinn today; Spinn is a Chicagoass nigga [and] one of the most genius producers ever. That's an inspiration for me, just remaining true to yourself.”
Hearing Kai speak about the reception of juke and footwork music reminded me that it’s hard to see the grandeur of something that feels so personal and niche. When I was in middle school at juke parties, I was not thinking about folks playing our songs in Europe. When I see people footworking or bobbing, even today, I don’t imagine that anyone would understand
what’s happening—because it’s it’s almost sacred. Kai even expressed that he sees these songs as “hymns” that embody nostalgia and express identity.
community, composition, jazz, juke, and interview with the explained it all.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
How’d We Get Kai as We Know Him Today?
Chima Ikoro: Where are you from?
Kaicrewsade: I’m from the West Side of Chicago, I grew up a little bit on the South Side of Chicago, and I'm also from Mississippi as well, Louisville. I do music, and I'm a mental health advocate, and more—I can’t think of it all off the top but I be helping the community and shit, it be fly.
How long have you been making music?
I’ve been rapping since I was a baby for real, for real, since I was like four or five. But I’ve been recording myself since I was fourteen.
How long have you been tapped into when
I was eighteen going on nineteen; I had just came back from my freshman year of school, and I was away—I graduated like mad pandemic, 2020, that's when I graduated high school. So my experience with college was, I went somewhere far just trying to get out the city, and then came back and did my sophomore year online, and I was not trying to stay at the crib, but it wasn't no more housing. So I had to stay in Chicago and do my shit online. That forced me to kind of be outside, I was back home with my homies, and my homies ain’t go to school, they was at the crib, so I was with them niggas, and I was with some of my homies that was in school in Chicago, like my homie Menace [Menace4hire], going to these different programs. That's how I found out about
Fourtunehouse. I was young as hell just going out to events—we were just always trying to be outside, and I was always trying to be on some music.
After dropping my first EP in 2021, being at Fourtunehouse and these open mics, hosting my own poetry club, people were fake finding out about me them type of ways. I would do really good on the rap shit and niggas just kind of paid attention.
I noticed a lot of people who are in community with Fourtunehouse on your project.
That’s why I did that. I wanted to make sure my first big project was a showcase of what my last three/four years was like. I started when I was eighteen, I’m twenty-two now, and even though it’s still the beginning, that was like an era for me too. Fourtunehouse was my first time really performing in Chicago on some rap shit. Getting cool with them, <i>woo-wop-da-bam</i>, birthed the relationships that led to my first show. It was a Fourtunehouse show, I think I opened, I don’t even remember who I opened for, but I was eighteen doing shit like that—that shit was beautiful.
So from fourteen to eighteen years old, what were you doing with your music?
I wasn’t dropping, I was just recording and showing my close friends. My pops was a really big motivator in my life for music because he fucked with my shit. I used to write raps on his phone, record me rapping over his phone and just leave it there for him to hear. He’d be like “Yo, this shit kinda tight.”
When I was in school I begged my nana for a MacBook, got a MacBook, and then finessed hella ways to get a microphone, headphones, all that extra shit. But I was recording off just the Apple
Kaicrewsade.
Photo provided
headphones for a long time. I was mixing my beats and shit, finding my beats, writing my raps, recording, just doing the best a fifteen, sixteen-year-old could do that don’t got no money for no studio.
I was rapping kind of good and playing it for my homies, they were some of my biggest [supporters], I’ve had some of the same friends since I was like eleven. It’s beautiful for them, what's happening to me, but they kind of knew this was gonna happen because I was always rapping like this to them. And they were always adamant about me putting it out into the atmosphere.
I wasn’t even tryna be a rapper, I was tryna run track and go to college. I’m in college now, I graduate next year, but I was tryna be a track star, and I ended up rapping!
What is a moment that if it hadn’t occurred you would not be presently making music?
I went back down South from the end of 2022 to the end of 2023. I was down South for a minute; I was in Atlanta, North Carolina, and Mississippi. Going down there helped me make the music I make now. And I hated it when I was down there. I probably would have still ended up doing this, but if I stayed in Chicago from eighteen to twenty-two, I don’t think I would have gotten better. And I wasn’t even on no rapping shit when I was out there, but it’s because I wasn’t rapping that made me so much better. I took so much time off, it changed my perception of rap. When I came back home, it was like, “Oh shit, I got some way better ways to do this.”
Note: On Yvette, at the beginning of the first track, you hear “You ain’t never really been to Chicago for real if you ain’t been to Uncle Remus.” (As a Sharks stan, that’s debatable, but I digress.)
Give me another “You ain’t never really been to Chicago for real if you ain’t never ____”
You ain’t never been to Chicago for real if you ain’t never got juked on. I’m [part of] the last generation of niggas that was getting juked on, I swear! I seen it with my own eyes. I was always at skating rinks, like my mama ‘nem, my big cousin
‘nem, all they did was go to skating rinks. I always was bad as hell, I was always with older people so I naturally was just tryna do whatever they was doing. You ain’t never been to Chicago if you never been juked on at the skating rink. Niggas would come to the skating rink and not skate!
My little brother and little sister, it’s cooked—it’s juke culture in general, obviously that’s part of it, but they’ll never experience that. That shit ended when I was like fourteen. They don’t know about when you’d go to The Rink and get all the lightup shit and you just wear it. I used to be one of the niggas that’d get the lil’ pacifier. [We laugh]
How did community and collaboration shape what you created on Yvette?
Yvette is basically about community. The whole project feels like the soundtrack to when I do my coat drives, when I do my poetry club, that’s what I made it for: organizing, community work. That’s why I got so many niggas on it. It’s only Chicago features on it.
[Editor’s note: Some artists on the project may not have been born in Chicago but are strongly associated with Chicago’s music and/or have lived here for a long time.]
I don’t know when I’m gonna do that again, so I wanted to make sure [I did it on] my first one out the gate. This project felt like a symbol, you only get one first project. So it felt like if I’mma go out the gate, I’mma be Chicago as fuck ’cause it’s all I really know. And I felt like I couldn’t really capture community if I didn’t have [these people] on it, and not even the biggest [artists] in the world; I had my [people] on it, and then [artists] who may be bigger but I built relationships with them on some natural shit, so in a way it’s still me showcasing my vision of what community felt like to me.
Everything I make, for the most part, I want it to be a soundtrack for Chicago. Most music I make is for Chicago niggas, so Yvette, that’s a thing I specifically made for folks from Chicago—if nobody in the world listen to this I hope Chicago people relate to it. Everybody else that like it outside of the city, it be love because it’s like “I didn’t even make it for y’all niggas.”
Did you have a clear direction for the sound that others helped you execute, or is the sound that we hear the product of collaboration?
I’m a composer, so I feel like everything I make is always going to be like—I hear the strings, I hear the chords, I hear the bass, I hear what needs to be added, I'm hitting the people up to do it for me. “I need this person talking for this amount of time,” “I need her to say some crazy shit,” like I’m always composing. I would definitely say people helped bring this alive for sure, people definitely added to it. Even going back to [my previous work], I’ve always been composing. I've always done it how I saw it, and had people that I envisioned for it be a part of it. So I would definitely say my music is a collaborative thing, it's just me conducting it.
How does your love for Chicago and Chicago's music reflect in the way that you chose features?
Everybody that’s on this shit is so important. Everybody that's on this project is somebody that I’m inspired by. I really don’t even want to work with [people] I’m not inspired by. I’d say for the bigger features like Lance [Lance Skiiwalker—the only Chicagoan on TDE, Kai later shared with me], Fem [femdot.], Zigg [theMIND], Nico [Nico Segal)] etc., I grew up listening to all of them. Those are people I had no notes for, I was grateful for them to hop on the project. The way I show love–this fake some shit I was gonna announce but I’ll just say it here: I put Zigg on track two, “Preroll”, because he was on track two on Telefone [Noname’s debut mixtape]. Shit like that mean a lot to me, Zigg was the first person I got on the project. And bro I was so happy cause the nigga was rapping, and it was like damn this is “Edgar Allen Poe” —Zigg!
My homies that’s on the project, like Menace [Menace4hire], Senite, Gayun [Gayun Cannon], SONNY, Kari [NombreKari], Lowlife, Aija [Aija Cymone], everybody that’s on some upcoming shit, I think I was trying to showcase where we’ve been at as far as Chicago on some underground shit. Niggas in New York are bumping this shit, they say it gives them that umph, it gives them that feeling, and they say it’s been a while
since they had that feeling. I just wanted to showcase [through] features what I’m inspired by and what got me here, and also where we could go type shit. That’s why I got my niggas on it, cause they’re raw, and the way [they] feel about me that’s how I feel about them, like “these niggas tuff’, the world gotta hear this shit.” That’s why it’s like six [people] on one song.
I wanted to make sure I gave everybody a baton like let’s see what you go do after this. People will be like “Damn, I fuck with Kai, I wanna hear this shit,” and then they’re put on to my homies.
So what are some non music related places that you drew inspiration from for this project?
I took my ass down South–I’m telling you, I could not have made this project if I wasn’t down South. I made Steve's Demo, I didn’t really know what to do next. So I left. I was like, “I'm gonna go back down South for a while, see my mama and shit.” That shit turned into, like, a longer time.
Even though I was out there kind of going through it, I was with family. I was seeing folks I ain't seen in a minute. My auntie had passed—my close auntie, somebody I was super close with—she passed May 2023. On Steve's Demo at the end of “Brookfield Zoo” it’s a woman singing "Happy Birthday,” that's my auntie Scooter. I went out there, end of 2022, not thinking nothing of it. And that was like my last solid eight [or] nine months with her, I didn’t even know. I was hating [being out there], didn't know why I was out there, and the whole time I was spending hella time [with] my auntie, being around a Black woman.
I was raised by nothing but Black women. Most of my time was spent around her [...] like just a cool-ass, mid-fifties woman giving me knowledge every day. She was somebody I fucked with that was super non-judgmental, so that helped our communication. I could be honest and vulnerable. That was my dawg, I miss my auntie.
When I was down South I was drawing a lot of inspiration from Black women, because I was with my mama, I was around my little sisters a lot, I was with my auntie, I was with the girl I was kicking it with at the time. When I was in Atlanta, I was part of different music groups, so I was seeing how people from different cities
approach music. That was beautiful to see; I met some close friends.
Being down South really helped me connect with myself as a young Black man, as a person who approaches jazz in a very respectful way, [and] as a person who loves and respects Black women.
And Now, Back to Juke Music
RIP Rashad Harden, what’s going on in this song?
I used to be at these juke parties, I was a badass kid just being young and dumb. And by the grace of God, my big homies that I was outside with was music heads, they was nerds, and I used to hear a lot of crazy shit. I used to hear hella DJ Spinn and DJ Rashad, on some riding around shit and at the skating rinks. DJ Rashad, he got this joint [“That Bitch Got on K-Swiss”], I wouldn’t even call them songs, I be calling them hymns. The “bang bang bang, skeet skeet skeet,” the “that bitch got on K-Swiss,” I don’t even consider them songs, those are like hymns. When I was a kid I used to love that shit. And I said, "If no other Chicago rapper uses this shit, I’m using it, because [anyone] can use it." And crazy enough, I’m surprised nobody has used it, so it was perfect timing. I was like, “blessings.”
I sampled [that song], didn’t think it would mesh well, crazy it meshed well, and that’s all it is. DJ Rashad is a legend.
I remember being a kid with other kids saying those expressions. My big cousins was in high school at the time, so all of these cool things were happening
and I’m just witnessing it. My family, my community is very Chicago-as-hell.
Rest in peace to K-Swiss [he laughs], I don’t know why [he said that], I still don’t know why, I never asked Spinn. But whoever pissed him off [while wearing] K-Swiss like…damn. I never heard a nigga stand on the opposite side of whatever DJ Rashad was talkin’ about in Chicago. Everybody was always on DJ Rashad's side, so I don’t know what happened, but yeah….
Do you think footwork or juke will ever die? Should we be trying to keep it alive?
I don't think it's gonna ever die, but I ain't realize how important it was to make sure we keep talking about that shit.
I definitely think Chicago artists, Chicago people, we gotta do more with talking about it and putting it in our music. But I always felt like our culture was something only we knew for real, and I think that’s what makes it raw. I always looked at it like a lot of other cities respected our culture because it wasn't something that was easily emulated. We kind of keep our shit fake to us.
I don't know if it's dying, but we definitely gotta keep talking about it and putting it in the music. Chance [The Rapper] was doing super well, bro definitely brought a bigger, wider audience to juke music.
Dreams for the Future
If you could bring one artistic resource Out South or Out West that you feel as
though you or your peers needed, what would it be?
I’ma be real, I don’t know if this is selfish, but off top, we need more record stores bro. I’m a record store nigga, my CD collection is crazy—I just got this Mary Mary—I got a crazy CD and vinyl collection. That’s a hobby I got, and I’m always up north! I don’t like driving up north every weekend or every other week to grab records.
The West Side, for sure, is empty as fuck. I think we need more record stores— that’s something I am scared of losing. I think with the new resurgence of social media, fans really love and appreciate records, so it might never die, but I be fearful of the idea of record stores leaving the world.
I went to my first record store when I was like four to six, my first record store was Hyde Park Records. My pops took me to that shit [during] the Hyde Park festivals. I did that from like six years old until I was like thirteen. Record stores is important; it’s the appreciation for music.
I think [as time goes on], everything’s consumed by music, but we’re losing physical appreciation for it. We’re losing buildings to just come into—I don’t know this because I wasn’t alive, but I imagine in the ’90s you could just go to a record store and talk to a nigga about music that you dont know. And I see it with older folks, so that’s where my imagination [comes from]. I think that type of thing brings us together more, I think more than ever we need shit like that. Like in the world, we need more reasons to be outside and talking to good,
kind people and connecting with music. It’s some [stores] going brazy, Miyagi Records, Hyde Park Records—and Miyagi Records is one of my favorites because they got discount joints. I don’t know why all the record stores are up north, I could count seven record stores off-top that’s up north and they be having heat.
I found some crazy jazz shit at [a store] up north, I ain’t even buy that shit cause I was mad! I ain’t gon’ bap, [Hyde Park Records] probably still the best record store on the South Side. I think it’s because they’re very youthful.
What is an accomplishment that will make your younger self proud once you achieve it? Say it as if you’re certain it’ll happen.
Aw yeah, for sure. I can do that now, lowkey! When I get my first tour, I’ll know I did some shit. I don’t know when it’s gon’ happen, but I know it’s gon’ happen if I keep doing this music and I keep getting better and hopefully things keep working out. I definitely believe I’ll have my own tour one day. ¬
This was an excerpt of the full, edited interview. Check out the rest online at southsideweekly. com.
Yvette by Kaicrewsade is available on Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, YouTube and more. You can follow him on Instagram @kaicrewsade!
Free Blues Friday Featuring Freddie Dixon Band
Epiphany Center for the Arts, 201 S. Ashland Ave. Wednesday, February 7, 8pm–10:30pm. Free. bit.ly/FreddieDixonBand
The second son of blues musician, songwriter and producer Willie Dixon, Freddie began his career playing with musicians in South Side blues clubs. He
was soon hired to play in his father’s band, The Chicago Blues All-Stars, and when his father died, he carried on the torch. Freddie is a member of the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame and produced the CD “3x3” with Blues legends John Watkins and Maurice John Vaughan. (Zoe Pharo)
WinterWellnessFest
the Way Project Inc, Aetna and others are partnering to host a winter wellness fest with free produce, coats, baby items, toiletries, vaccinations, resource vendors, health screenings and a wellness panel. (Zoe Pharo)
Chima Ikoro is the Weekly’s Community Engagement Coordinator.
Winter Wellness Fest
Kershaw Elementary School, 6405 S. Lowe
St. Saturday, December 14, 11am–2pm. Free, pre-registration encouraged. bit.ly/
The Ugly Sweater Kwanzaa Party
HUE Chicago, 67 E. Cermak Rd.
Saturday, December 14, 12pm–8pm. Free admission before 6:30 p.m., otherwise tickets range from $25 to $40 for early bird admission, price increases later for regular admission. bit.ly/UglySweaterKwanzaa
Formerly the Ugly Sweater Kwanzaa Crawl, now the Ugly Sweater Kwanzaa Party. Tickets can be purchased at various levels, all tickets include complimentary Black-owned spirits and jollof rice. Music by DJ KO and Kid Klay. (Zoe Pharo)
