Cook County – Chicagolandia https://chicagolandiaoralhistory.org Oral History Project Tue, 04 Nov 2025 02:02:52 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 https://chicagolandiaoralhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/websiteAssets-18-150x150.png Cook County – Chicagolandia https://chicagolandiaoralhistory.org 32 32 Erika Villegas https://chicagolandiaoralhistory.org/2025/11/04/erika-villegas/ Tue, 04 Nov 2025 02:02:50 +0000 https://chicagolandiaoralhistory.org/?p=1135

Image: Goodman Theater

Erika Villegas

Volunteer Organizer, Interviewed 2024

Erika Villegas is a Chicago-area realtor and community leader. Erika was born and raised on the southwest side of the city and lived in Mexico for a few years as a teenager which helped her become fluent in Spanish. She established herself as one of the top residential Realtors in Chicagoland serving a wide variety of buyers and sellers.

In this clip, she describes encountering the first migrant families and quickly realizing the massive scope of the issue. She describes the initial steps she took to organize her community into what would become a robust care network that spanned multiple police districts.

This full interview with Erika Villegas was taken as part of the Illinois Legislative Latino Caucus Foundation’s “Our Heroes, Our Stories” project. For more, see the tab on the Chicagolandia website.

]]> Mark Jaeschke https://chicagolandiaoralhistory.org/2025/11/01/mark-jaeschke/ Sat, 01 Nov 2025 15:40:37 +0000 https://chicagolandiaoralhistory.org/?p=803

markjaeschke.com

Mark Jaeschke

interviewed 2022

Mark Jaeschke was born in Lima, Peru but was raised by his adoptive parents in Arlington Heights, Cook County, Illinois. In this interview clip, Mark describes how being a transracial adoptee and growing up in a mostly-white suburb led him to struggle with his identity early in life.

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