WWHP and Roosevelt University jointly hosted “Immigration: Hopes, Resilience and Challenges,” on March 26, 2025, at RU’s Gage Gallery. As people arrived, they enjoyed a buffet set out for them by RU. The formal part of the event began with stories read by members of the audience, followed by a moderated 3-person panel of experts, and ended with members of the audience asking questions of the panel and joining a discussion.
Audience members read stories of immigrants, of how a foreign country’s government can make life impossible for its citizens to survive in their own country, of American citizens’ comments on objecting to the help immigrants receive, and, finally, of a volunteer organization that helps immigrants along with less fortunate Americans. Highlights included a live account of immigration from WWHP board member Brigid Duffy who immigrated with her family from Ireland; the story of an Iraqi woman, kidnapped as a girl, whose family fled Iraq after giving all their money to save her from kidnappers; a Venezuelan businessman describing how the Maduro government forced small businesses to sell their products below cost, held up imports at customs, and finally almost removed cash from the economy. The immigrants’ stories spanned the 1940s to the present day. Finally, a Chicagoan who co-founded “La Tiendita,” a free store that gives away clothing and small household items in Coppin AME Church on the South Side, spoke about its assistance to the community.
The moderated panel included UIC professor Xóchitl Bada, Professor, Department of Latin American and Latino Studies; community organizer, Dixon Romeo, Executive Director of Southside Together; and Sendy Soto, the Chief Homelessness Officer of Chicago, herself an immigrant from Guatemala. Shia Kapos, a reporter for Politico, and author the newsletter, Illinois Playbook, led the panel’s discussion of immigration in Chicago.
Kapos first directed the panel to speak about the crisis that occurred when Governor Abbott of Texas sent busloads of Venezuelan immigrants to Chicago. Sendy Soto spoke about the City resources poured into handling this crisis and the position of the Johnson administration to integrate housing needs for migrants with the existing shelter placement for homeless. Chicago’s budget, she said, had no line item devoted only to migrant support, and she announced that for the first time there was no waiting list for families seeking shelter.
Romeo acknowledged the resentment felt by long-time Chicago residents when resources were immediately available to Venezuelans and Haitians as they got off the bus. Migrants were largely placed into Black neighborhoods, he said, because housing was cheaper there. Southside Together supports tenants’ rights, both of migrants – Haitians and Venezuelans – and of longtime Chicagoans who are being exploited by unscrupulous landlords. When Kapos asked him how he thought largely Black neighborhoods, now with migrants living there, would look in five years, he believed they would simply be low-income neighborhoods.
Kapos asked Xóchitl Bada to put this crisis in a historical context. Bada spoke of times during WWI when Blacks were recruited to work in the stockyards while white workers were fighting in the war. Both Blacks and Mexican workers were used as replacement workers, strike breakers in the packing houses. Both were discriminated against; both were sent to live in the worst neighborhoods. At times they were in conflict with one another. Despite the City’s history with newly-arrived groups used to undermine other workers, Bada was somewhat optimistic that the groups would eventually be integrated into the whole. Her biggest fears for the newly arrived is that they would be exploited in the labor field.
For the final 15 minutes Shia Kapos took questions from the audience for the panel. When the presentation was over, some audience members lingered in conversation over the buffet.
You can watch a recording of the program here.
Thanks to Sandra Frink and Margaret Rung for their contributions to this event.