Luis and Lorena Muñoz are originally from Talca, Chile. In this interview, they describe coming of age under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, the fear-filled climate of their youth, friends who were arrested or disappeared, and facing Chilean police during protests against the regime. The couple shares the joys and difficulties of moving to Mexico and later the United States. They raised their children in the Elgin area.
Mary Decker was born María Margarita Rodríguez in 1944 in Crystal City, Texas. Her parents moved to Aurora, Illinois in 1950 where her father worked at Austin-Western’s manufacturing facility. Margarita was a precocious and athletic child. She later became a community leader in Aurora, married welder Stanley Decker, and worked for the Aurora Urban League. Decker eventually became one of two Spanish-speaking real estate agents as Aurora’s east side Mexican immigrant population boomed in the 1960s. In this interview clip, Ms. Decker describes her advocacy on behalf of immigrants in Aurora and her successful campaign running for Kane County Board in 1972. It is likely that Ms. Decker’s victory in that election made her the first Latino or Latina elected to a county-level political office in Illinois history.
