Saca Tu Bandera: a History of Latino Symbols in the Elgin Area

Saca Tu Bandera: a History of Latino Symbols in the Elgin Area

On May 27, 2023, a South Elgin High School administrator refused to allow a student wear a Latinx-themed scholarship stole as she walked across the stage during the school’s graduation ceremony.

Many in the Latina/o community were upset. In order to better understand this reaction, it is important to acknowledge the long history of tension over Latinx symbols in Elgin and the region.

Though Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and other Latina/o people have lived in Elgin for decades, the Latinx population in the area soared in the 1990s and early 2000s. In fact, up to the present, Latinx suburban communities have been among the fastest-growing of any communities in the Chicagoland area.

As a result, different sites of racial conflict emerged in the 1990s and 2000s. Some white residents opposed the presence of Mexican flags, while many Latinx residents defended their right to celebrate their heritage.

During these years, controversy over Mexican flags was visible on the front pages of Elgin’s two local newspapers, the Courier-News and Daily Herald. Fights over these symbols — flags, sashes, certain arrangements of colors — represented unresolved tension amidst demographic change.

Put simply, as Elgin and the area grew more Latino, some residents panicked when they saw symbols of that change.

Uproar over Mexican Flags

In 2000, Guadalupe Perez, a 23-year-old Mexican American woman was featured on the Courier News’ front page after she flew two flags—one Mexican and another American—on a makeshift flagpole tree branch in front of her home in Carpentersville. Perez was celebrating September 16th, Mexican Independence Day.

Local residents became angry that the Mexican flag was flying above the American one and, according to Perez, started yelling at her from their cars. One resident called the Carpentersville police chief and the village manager to complain. When that didn’t work, the resident contacted the FBI, U.S. Marshals and U.S. Attorney’s office to report the placement of the flags. The journalist at the Courier-News, seemingly sympathetic to Perez’s critics, also placed a follow-up call to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Chicago to ask whether similar flag-related cases had ever been prosecuted.

The presence of Mexican flags had been irksome to some area residents for many years, often flaring up around Mexican Independence Day. Seven years earlier, the Courier News featured a front-page story claiming the presence of Mexican flags hung in public around the holiday created “pride and discomfort in Elgin residents.”

The journalist spoke with both Mexican and white Elgin residents. He found that some local Latinx businessmen like Abel Diaz proudly displayed both flags. But Diaz also criticized Mexican youth who he believed didn’t understand Mexican history and patriotism. Many other Latina/o interviewees wholeheartedly supported the presence of the Mexican flag.

However, some white residents criticized the presence of the Mexican flag. Local man Bob Krauss said flag waving by local Mexicans was “a little overdone.” Another resident asked, “What’s wrong with the American flag? They should go back to Mexico if they want to do that.”

In subsequent years, area residents complained through letters to the editor about a Mexican flag flying over La Movida, a Latino nightclub. One letter writer told the paper that “surely there is something you can do to get this flag properly displayed with a US flag over it.” Another person argued that the U.S. flag should always be flown above the Mexican flag and that residents should “call the police if there is no American flag flying above it.” The following year, an Elgin resident wrote to complain of a Mexican flag flying over an apartment building in downtown Elgin. This time, the newspaper’s editor, stepping beyond the presumption of objective journalism, promised that “the landlord will be contacted to see if this matter can be resolved.”

Despite this long history of complaints, Guadalupe Perez — the young Carpentersville woman who flew two national flags in front of her house — was unapologetic about raising the Mexican flag. After the Carpentersville police chief visited her home and “asked her to fix the problem,” Perez refused to budge. “It’s my First Amendment right,” she told the Daily Herald.

The Carpentersville city ordinance committee disagreed, and unanimously voted to instruct city staff to look into crafting an ordinance that would prohibit or fine actions like Perez’s.

The Larkin High School Incident

The most vitriolic controversy around flags came in 2005, when an Elgin high school student wrote a paper lashing out at the Mexican flag and Mexican students.

The student’s essay began by saying, “Certain holidays should not be celebrated in school specifically Mexican Independence Day.”

Referring to Mexican students, the essay continued by claiming, “They disrespect America…coming to school wrapped in Mexican flags…If they like Mexico so much, why don’t they go back to their poor, poverty-ridden piece of land they call a country.” The student claimed that during the previous year’s Mexican Independence Day, Latino students tossed an American flag on the ground and raised a Mexican flag.

The essay concluded by threatening, “If it was up to me, they would be expelled, beaten, wrapped in their flag, set on fire and tossed over the border.”

After an English teacher rejected the essay, it was found plastered in halls around the school.

At the time the student penned the essay, Larkin High School, one of five large high school in the massive Unified School District 46 and the state’s second largest district after Chicago Public Schools, had a student body that was close to 40 percent Latino.

Larkin High School parents were understandably upset and the school officials agreed to hold a meeting to address the situation. News reports of the meeting described parents as divided over the issue and possible school violence that might stem from it. Some of the over 100 parents who gathered in the school library on a Tuesday night worried of a violent “Columbine-like scene” in the future for the high school.

Parents interviewed by a local journalist expressed fears about “a tragedy happen[ing],” discrimination, and a “brewing resentment toward Spanish-speaking children by English-speaking students.” Another parent said administrators need to help students get along. Other parents argued that Larkin officials needed to address negative feelings toward minority students.

Some parents, however, were sympathetic to the student who wrote the essay. One parent referred to the alleged incident involving the Mexican flag as “treasonous.” Another parent argued that in the context of budget cuts, “some students see money being spent for non-English-speaking students and they see it as unfair.” Another Larkin parent called the student’s essay “personal reflections,” and argued that “the student who wrote that paper was obviously looking for attention…And they’re getting it. What they ‘think’ is still their right as an American.” The Daily Herald framed the incident as a free speech issue, and called the essay adolescent “musings that Mexican holidays should not be celebrated in American schools,” while ignoring the text’s threats of violence.

Soon after, local news reported that the U-46 school board voted to expel the student for the remainder of the school year. The vote took place in mid-May, which meant the student was expelled for about a month.

In the early 2000s, these kinds of tensions were also present at higher levels in the district. The same year Larkin High School was dealing with the violent essay about the Mexican flag, U-46 was sued for allegedly discriminating against minority students. A prominent education blog explains that, “several Hispanic and Black families, represented by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund filed a federal class-action suit in 2005 that accused the district of discriminating against Hispanic students in school assignments, school closures and ELL services.”

The district later paid out a multi-million-dollar settlement to resolve the claims. A judge acknowledged that the gifted program was discriminatory, leading to a major overhaul in the district’s gifted program and other services.

Conclusion

As we discuss the South Elgin High School incident in 2023, it’s important to remember the longer, lost history of the backlash against Latinx symbols in our area. These conflicts are indicative of a larger conflict over the area’s identity. As Elgin and the region continues to become more Latinx, important questions remain:

Will Latina/os continue to be seen as outsiders by other residents, or will they be welcomed as fellow community members?

Will some residents harshly resist Latinx symbols, culture, and contributions, or will they warmly embrace them?

The answers to these questions are up to each of us.

In the meantime, Latinx residents should continue to raise their flags and celebrate their culture. Doing so only enriches our diverse community.


Sources: Courier-News, Daily Herald (Gail Borden Public Library Microfilm)

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Latinx History in Unexpected Places

Latinx History in Unexpected Places

by Antonio Ramirez

In April 1972, a young Mexican American woman in Aurora, Illinois made history.

That month, twenty-eight-year-old Maria Margarita Decker won election to the Kane County Board. She was likely the first Latinx person to be elected to a county board in Illinois.

When we think of important events in American history, we rarely think of Latinas or Latinos. If we do, we tend to celebrate the accomplishments of Mexicans or Puerto Ricans living in big cities in California, New York, or Texas.

Latino Americans, though, have lived, struggled, and thrived in unexpected places throughout the history of the United States. The tales of lesser-known, everyday Latinx trailblazers in surprising places–suburbs and rural towns, isolated farms and factory floors–are an essential part of American history. Without their stories, the history of the United States is incomplete.

Maria Margarita Decker’s historic election in suburban Kane County is a good example. Many have long believed that Cook County Commissioner Irene C. Hernández was the first Latino or Latina to be elected to county-level political office in Illinois.Hernández’s personal story fits the pattern of a likely “first” in Latinx history: she lived in Chicago, the Midwest’s largest urban center, and was a respected public servant in the city’s Latinx community for many years. She was appointed Commissioner by Mayor Richard J. Daley in 1974 and won four subsequent elections. Today a Chicago middle school and park both bear her name.

Clipping of a newspaper article image. Photo is black and white and shows a number of folks in a room with wood paneling listening to a seated Mary Decker and a man standing next to her.
“Aurora Latin Americans Angry Over Mass Arrests,” Beacon-News, September 26, 1973.

Last year, though, I saw Decker’s name mentioned in a fifty-year-old Chicago Tribune article. I wondered if it was correct that a young Mexican American woman in a distant Chicago suburb had been elected two years before Hernández’s historic Cook County appointment.

I decided to try to track Decker down. I got help from Kane County archivists, the former mayor of Aurora, a historian, and a tiny south Texas newspaper.

One day, my phone rang. It was Maria Decker.

She told me how she was born Maria Margarita Rodriguez in south Texas and moved to Aurora, Illinois as a young girl. Her father founded the Aurora Latin American Club, which is still in existence. Her mother helped new immigrants settle in the suburb.

Maria eventually married Stanley Decker, became a realtor, and found lots of work selling homes to Spanish-speaking newcomers. Soon she was well-known in Aurora’s Mexican community. When she ran for county board in 1972, she wasn’t sure she could win the votes of Aurora’s white residents. So, she ran for office as “Mary Margaret” Decker, rather than using her ethnically Mexican names. Decker’s strategic move followed the practice of generations of Latinx people who have Anglicized their names to counteract racism.

After winning her the election, Decker called out the racial discrimination against candidates with Latinx last names like those of two other candidates that year: Martínez and Plata. The election results were “indicative of an ingrained prejudice,” Decker told local newspapers. “I, with an Anglicized name, won, while Mr. Martínez and Mr. Plata lost,” she explained.

Decker kept speaking up on behalf of Aurora’s Latinx community. In 1973, she led a protest against a massive immigration raid at Aurora’s Hi-Lite 30 Theater. Immigration officials had roughed up dozens of local Latinx residents and arrested or deported eighty more. Decker led rallies in which hundreds of Latinx Aurorans showed up to demand justice, garnering media attention from across Chicagoland.

Mary Decker’s story points to the long, untold history of Latinx activism in unexpected places such as suburbs. In the early 1970s, the Mexican population in Aurora and the rest of greater Chicago was beginning a decades-long boom. By the early 2000s, the Latinx population in suburban Chicago was larger than that of the city of Chicago. Today, most Latinxs in the Midwest’s largest metropolitan area live in the Chicago suburbs, not the city. The Illinois county with the highest Latinx population percentage today is Decker’s suburban Kane County, not Chicago’s Cook County.

I should know. Latinx students at Kane County’s Elgin Community College, where I teach history, make up a large and growing part of the student body. For several years, my students and I have used oral history to document the history of these suburban Latinx residents through the Chicagolandia Oral History Project

Our dozens of oral histories have made clear that, today, like in Decker’s time, Latinx voices still struggle to be heard. Latinx voters still battle to be fully represented in elected offices in Chicago’s suburbs and across the state. Despite the fact that Latinx residents of Illinois have had the largest population growth of any group, they are still sorely underrepresentedat all levels of government.

All of us should remember that unsung heroes like Maria Margarita Decker have made history in unexpected places across Illinois and our country. We should study forgotten accomplishments like Decker’s, and use them to inspire our own quests for justice. And we should recognize that, by knowing Latinx history, we better understand American history.

In 1967, One of Elgin’s Earliest Latinx Organizations was Founded

In 1967, One of Elgin’s Earliest Latinx Organizations was Founded

The Latin American Civic Organization was one of Elgin’s first Latino-run organizations. It was founded after an incident between Elgin police and three Latina women in downtown Elgin in 1967. The women were chatting in Spanish when police officers told them to disperse. The women, who didn’t understand English, kept talking. Police arrested them and took them to jail.

Community residents quickly contacted Felix Santana, a leader in Elgin’s Puerto Rican community. Born in Naguabo, Puerto Rico in 1927, Santana served in the U.S. Army Infantry in Puerto Rico during World War II and in Korea with the Air Force. He later moved to Elgin where he worked as a histology technician at St. Joseph’s Hospital. Santana and his wife Geraldine raised four children while Santana ran a weekly Spanish radio show, a Chicago-based Spanish- language newspaper, and sold Spanish-language records from his home at 283 Brook Street.

Santana spoke with police, who released the women.  He called a community meeting that was attended by an estimated 600 Mexican and Puerto Rican residents of Elgin, more than a quarter of the suburb’s entire Latina/o population at the time. That night attendees began organizing the Latin American Civic Organization, whose primary goal was to establish a better rapport between Latino Elgin and the police. The organization elected Santana as its first president. Over the next several years, the organization helped Elgin Latina/os find employment, learn English, and secure housing. The organization ran a space on State Street between Chicago and Highland where it organized dances and parties and helped needy families buy Christmas gifts.

(Photo: Elgin Courier News, Oct. 2, 1968. Santana is seated in center of the front row.)

Over the Last 40 Years, Latinxs Have Taken Over Chicago’s Suburbs

Over the Last 40 Years, Latinxs Have Taken Over Chicago’s Suburbs

Latinxs have taken over many of Chicago’s biggest suburbs. In the past few decades, cities like Aurora, Elgin, Waukegan, and Joliet have become majority or near-majority Latino.

Since 1980, suburban Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Central Americans have grown from small groups of a few thousand to bustling Latino communities full of culture, pride, and political power.

In fact, today most Latinxs in Chicagoland live in the suburbs. That’s right. Since 2004, the suburban Latinx population has been larger than the number of Latina/os living in the city of Chicago.

The Chicagolandia Oral History Project was created to document this dramatic change. We are asking Chicagoland suburban Latinxs: What brought you to the suburbs? What kinds of economic and cultural contributions have Latina/os made to Chicagolandia? What challenges and opportunities have you found in the suburbs?

If you are Latino and grew up in Chicago’s suburbs, we want to hear from you!

Click on “Share Your Story” on our website to tell us about being Latinx in Chicago’s suburbs.

Or search “Chicagolandia Project” on Instagram and to check out pictures of suburban Latinxs.

If you have a picture to share, let us know and we’ll share it!

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