CHICAGO– On almost any given night, around 20 kids strap on boxing gloves at the Puerto Rican Cultural Center on Division Street in Humboldt park, a neighborhood long recognized as the heart of Chicago’s Puerto Rican community. Hip-hop music blares over the thud of bag punches as mostly high schoolers use the center as a safe haven for exercise.
The gym, Battle Bandera, features a boxing ring, weighted bags, jump ropes and mats. The walls are lined with both a code of conduct and artwork inspired by Puerto Rico and the Windy City. The gym seems as if it has always been about athletics, but that’s not the case.
According to Battle Bandera’s Instagram page, the program provides group boxing training to youths referred by Cook County Juvenile Probation officers, Restorative Justice Community Courts, Chicago Public Schools and the Alternative Schools Network. All athletes are paired with a case manager who offers mentorship, goal planning and access to resources, as well as a certified Restorative Justice Peace Circle facilitator who leads discussions aimed at building stronger community awareness.
“I built this gym. This whole place was desks and chairs,” said Jordan Geary, a former collegiate boxer at the University of Nevada, Reno, and center manager for Battle Bandera. “We cleared it out and built the ring by hand. Everything you see in here, we fundraised for and built ourselves about a year and a half ago.”
Geary, now a Master of Social Work student at the University of Illinois Chicago, loves to see the kids bonding beyond the ring. The center is designed to be a resource, but some believe it’s all they have.
“It’s literally my life. It’s all I do — school and boxing,” said Jeremiah Robinson, a 19-year-old who has been coming to the center for the past year and aspires to box in college.
Robinson said the start of the session is most important.
“[I’m] mentally getting ready for what I’m about to go through. Anything I go through during the day I have to leave at the door and have a clear mind,” Robinson said.
Yumerys Perez, mother of three student boxers and a 30-year Humboldt Park native, makes it a priority for her kids to be frequent visitors of the center.
“I bring them every day. This is like the only program I’ve been bringing them to because this is like the only program that really cared for the children and got involved with the teenagers around Humboldt Park,” Perez said. “I love how it keeps them busy and off the streets.”
Geary loves the sport, but the goal isn’t to turn every kid into a heavyweight champion. The gym offers classes such as responsible AI among others. It also invites public figures like the Cook County Public Defender’s Office, who taught about knowing your rights.
Beyond the cardio, the biggest lesson the kids learn is internal.
“It’s emotional control. Traumatic experiences are stored in our physiology. And when you do something like boxing or martial arts, all those things get pulled out of you and it forces you to process them,” Geary said.
The center is roughly 700 miles from the nation’s capital, but the teens still feel the effect of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement and zero tolerance policy.
During a “60 Minutes” interview, President Trump was asked if the ICE raids have gone too far. He responded saying, “they haven’t gone far enough.”
“We had a lot of young people here who are undocumented — from Venezuela, West Africa, Central and South America — that we don’t get to see anymore. ICE is not welcome in this gym, so anytime the news is here I just want to make that known,” Geary said.
Battle Bandera is also raising money to finish building out the gym. According to its GoFundMe page, the center hopes to buy training mirrors, cardio equipment, protective gear and secure lockers to support its growing youth programs.
Battle Bandera holds free events every day except Friday and Sunday for the remainder of the fall.
Brock Morgan is a North Carolina native and Magna Cum Laude Howard University alumnus currently pursuing a master’s degree at Northwestern Medill School of Journalism with a specialization in sports media.
Photo Credit: Jordan Geary leads the group in pushups at the end of a training session. Photograph by Brock Morgan, 10/23/25.