Category: Rockford

Jaime García was born in Mexico City but immigrated as a young boy with his family to Rockford, Illinois in the early 1960s. As a lifelong United Methodist, Jaime was hired by the church to do outreach to the Spanish-speaking community in Elgin in 1970. Two years later, he helped found social service agency Centro de Información. Today, Centro continues to be the most important Hispanic-serving social service agency in Elgin and the region. In this interview, conducted by students at Elgin Community College, García talks about Elgin in the 1970s and the founding of Centro.