It was 1987, and attendees at the third annual Chicago Latino Film Festival hurried into the 500-seater 3 Penny Cinema at Lincoln Hall in Lincoln Park. Everyone inside mumbled about the projection of the 1983 Mexican film “Frida, naturaleza viva.” Outside, almost 1,000 people crowded over the brick walls of the building, attempting to purchase tickets for the film’s second showing at 9 p.m. Due to the high demand, Colombian-born Pepe Vargas, who helped to inaugurate the film festival as a cultural project in 1985, proposed a third showing. By 1 a.m., he screened the film for a third time. There were still people who were unable to get in.
This spoke volumes to Vargas. Two years earlier, he embarked on this idea with only two resources: $10,000 and a projection on a concrete wall.
Forty years later, Vargas runs the International Latino Cultural Center of Chicago, a nonprofit organization that has expanded from just film to offer programming that spans dance, poetry, and more.
“We are not a festival anymore,” Vargas said. “We are a multidisciplinary, year-round cultural organization.”
The ILCC represents one of many cultural organizations with a strong legacy that continues to uplift Chicago’s Latino communities. Whether the focus encompasses all art forms, as seen in the ILCC, or a specific art specialization, such as La Escuelita Bombera de Corazón in Humboldt Park, these centers strive towards a common goal: cultural preservation and awareness. For participants of these centers, their continuous existence gives them hope for the future of Latin American culture in Chicago.
Embracing the Pan-Latino identity
While some cultural centers have a learning space they can call their own, with large rooms and artistic decor, the ILCC is located on the sixth floor of a 14-story office building in Printer’s Row. With posters of past film festival editions decorating the beige walls, all the magic happens in an illuminated office space. There, three full-time staff work with citywide partners to ensure programming throughout museums, theaters, and schools.
According to the ILCC’s website, the nonprofit’s mission to communicate cultural preservation through the arts goes beyond “20 different nationalities.”
“Why do we do this? We do this to change the perception, to break stereotypes, to create awareness, to let people know who we are,” Vargas said.
After Vargas realized that forming an organization would allow him to create programming that expanded beyond an annual film festival, he established the nonprofit organization in 1987 under the name Chicago Latino Cinema. It later changed to its current name in 1999.
In addition to the annual Chicago Latino Film Festival, the ILCC hosts the Chicago Latino Dance Festival, which welcomes dancers from various Latin American countries and Spain, as well as the Chicago Latino Music Series, highlighting Chicago’s talent in Latin folklore, classical, and popular rock music.
Mateo Mulcahy, the ILCC’s deputy executive director for almost four years, launched the Chicago Latino Dance Festival in 2023. With over 40 years of experience working in the arts, Mulcahy organizes music and dance programming within the ILCC. For the dance festival’s first edition in 2023, he brought together 37 different dance groups, with 36 being local to Chicago.
One of them was The Mexican Folkloric Dance Company of Chicago. In front of a mesmerized audience, dancers moved swiftly through the stage, stomping their feet to a syncopated rhythm and creating waves with the skirts of their dresses. Bright and ruffled-pink attire and white boots brought their characters to life.
“There’s an enormous Latino dance community here that wasn’t being represented, that didn’t have the platform,” Mulcahy said. “For some, it was the first time they performed on a formal stage.”
Mulcahy said the ILCC was the first and only organization to present a “comprehensive Latino dance festival.” With indigenous, folkloric, and popular dance styles, the community immersed itself in a diverse set of Latin American rhythms. A standout in the first year was Villalba and Ghi Dance Couple, featuring Argentine tango. Under neon pink lights, the duo glided on stage to the fusion of bandoneon and piano, interlocking their arms and elegantly twisting their feet together.
“There’s so many gaps to fill, so when we see people out there celebrating their community and showing who they are, that gives us enormous satisfaction,” Mulcahy said.
The beginning of a dominating culture
When Vargas arrived in the United States in the 1980s, there were not many Latino cultural centers in Chicago. He said that while the Latino population continued to grow, mainly due to more people migrating from countries facing political disruption, the cultural presence that exists today was not as strong.
According to the University of Illinois Chicago’s Great Cities Institute, the Hispanic and Latino population in Chicago has more than doubled, from over 422,000 in 1980 to more than 819,000 in 2020. This makes Hispanics and Latinos the second largest group living in Chicago.
Chicago’s Hispanic and Latino population went from being 14% in 1980 to 29.8% in 2020, doubling its presence. These numbers have played a critical role in the visibility of cultural resources, including the arts, across the city.
(Source: UIC Great Cities Institute and U.S. Census Bureau) (Mariana Bermudez/Medill).
DePaul University faculty member Marisa Alicea, an expert on Puerto Rican communities across Chicago and patterns among U.S. Latinos, said the strong presence of Latinos in Chicago dates back to the 1950s. It all began with a need for better jobs. This has led to what she considers present “cultural hubs.”
“I think in terms of what attracted people originally, you know, it was those jobs,” Alicea said. “Working in the steel mill, working in the railroad industry, working in factories, and obviously, with the women, they first come to work as domestic workers.”
Alicea, the daughter of Puerto Rican-born citizens, was born in Pilsen, where she lived for the first three years of her life. Her family then moved to Wicker Park, located east of Humboldt Park, which is home to Chicago’s largest Puerto Rican community.
According to the Hunter College Center for Puerto Rican Studies, more than 94,000 Puerto Ricans lived in Chicago as of 2023, making it the second-largest Latino group after the Mexican population. Alicea said that with Puerto Ricans living in “different pockets of the city,” what makes them so unique is the high concentration of cultural and arts organizations that exist. They include the Puerto Rican Cultural Center in Humboldt Park and the Puerto Rican Arts Alliance in Logan Square.
Alicea said she knows friends and colleagues who live in other parts of the United States, such as New York, with larger Puerto Rican populations but no “central hub for the community.”
“We do have that concentration, that sort of public space and initiatives,” Alicea said.
Keeping traditions alive
A newer public space is La Escuelita Bombera de Corazón in Humboldt Park, a performing arts school rooted in Bomba, a traditional Puerto Rican dance. Founded in 2009 by director Ivelisse Díaz, it offers basic, intermediate, and advanced semester dance classes for youth and adults. According to its website, its mission is “not only to teach Bomba but to honor and uplift communities and elders who have sustained it.”
“While we’re trying to teach people about community, music, and culture, we’re also empowering them and fighting against erasure,” Díaz said.
Díaz has been dancing Bomba since she was 5 years old, considering it “one of the tools” that has helped her navigate life. At 21, she began teaching classes wherever she had the opportunity: in parking lots, on sidewalks, and in community spaces. Seeing how many people showed up planted the seed for what La Escuelita is today.
“I was able to see how this work can evolve and be sustainable for our people,” Díaz said. “It’s not a choice to love your culture. It’s a necessity.”
Recently, La Escuelita hosted “¡Baile Inolvidable!,” a free salsa workshop open to the community led by Kimberly Rivera from Chicago’s KR Dance Studio and Anissa Vega from the all-women bomba and plena group Las BomPleneras.
It was a Saturday afternoon, and the red, black, and yellow bomba skirts, pinned to mustard-yellow walls, swayed every time the entrance door opened, with over 20 women attending the workshop. The smell of lightly lit incense and the soft melody of Puerto Rican salsa welcomed participants as Díaz invited them to help themselves to complementary guava pastries and crispy red apples.
Participants let loose through body warm-ups, basic salsa steps, facial and arm combinations, and partner mirroring exercises. Finally, they all formed a circle and performed their favorite dance moves one by one. Through laughter and spirited energy, they left the workshop feeling a greater appreciation for the vibrant Puerto Rican culture within their reach.
“People really underestimate the power of having different generations in one room and bringing Afro-Indigenous practices through traditional music,” Díaz said. “It’s important to have that. Not a lot of people have it.”
Nairobi Young, a workshop participant who had returned to dancing six years ago, felt energized by the end, grabbing a mandarin orange on her way out.
“It takes the unnecessary pressures away,” Young said. “It felt really inclusive in a good way. There wasn’t any judgment.”
Young said spaces like La Escuelita contribute to Chicago’s cultural preservation by solely existing and “not changing that existence for anyone or anything.” She said taking salsa and bomba classes at La Escuelita is a great way for people to stay connected to their roots or learn about a new culture.
Thinking about future generations
Despite their building legacy, these cultural spaces still have goals to accomplish.
The ILCC hopes to engage youth by opening an actual building devoted to its programming in the near future. With this, it plans to offer summer camps and language instruction, enhancing its cultural mission. As deputy executive director, Mulcahy believes appreciating one’s culture as a child is helpful in the long run.
“The exposure that I had as a kid, growing up in Chicago, is what put me here in this position,” Mulcahy said. “I would hope we can get the youth involved in different disciplines.”
Victor Pastrana, an ILCC intern and student at the University of Michigan, appreciated the diversity of cultures he encountered when he chose to work with the ILCC.
“I’m Mexican myself, and I was hoping to learn more because I don’t know much about other Latinos,” Pastrana said. “I feel like that was something missing in my education.”
As part of a younger generation, Pastrana notices that most people attending the ILCC’s events are from an older crowd who already know about the music and culture. To change this, he said, “showing up” is a perfect way for younger groups to engage with the cultural spaces available to them and support their initiatives.
Díaz said that now, more than ever, more people are signing up to take bomba classes at La Escuelita, from 60-year-olds to 5-year-olds, something she had never seen before. As younger generations begin to explore Bomba and become grounded in their cultural identities, she hopes their curiosity to learn will drive its continuous growth.
“My hope is they continue to be reminded of who they are and how this is not a choice,” Díaz said. “This is a necessity that will always be connected with them.”
Cover Photo: Bomba and salsa dancers Kimberly Rivera (left) and Anissa Vega (right) lead La Escuelita Bombera de Corazón’s salsa workshop in Humboldt Park. The performing arts school is one of many spaces across Chicago preserving Latin American culture. Photo by Mariana Bermudez.