Tony Figueroa

laurenmeranda — Sun, 04 Sep 2022 20:02:02 +0000

Tony Figueroa

Waukegan community leader, interviewed 2022

Tony Figueroa describes his parents’ lives in Puerto Rico and their arrival to Waukegan, Illinois in the 1940s. The Figueroas were among the earliest Puerto Rican migrants to the Chicago area.

Alma Nevarez has worked at Elgin Community College since 2007 and is currently a Custodian Lead. In Clip 1, she describes her first job after high school at City Hall in her hometown in the Mexican state of Durango. Her family, though, was poor and Nevarez eventually decided to migrate to the United States in the early 1980s for higher wages. In Clip 2, Nevarez describes living in Franklin Park and working at a brush factory in the early 1980s. There were few Mexicans living in the area. Nevarez studied English and eventually earned enough to rent her own apartment. She also describes how she fell in love with her future husband at a dance in Mexico. In 1987, the couple married and settled in Elgin. In Clip 3, Nevarez describes the positives and negatives of doing custodial work at Elgin Community College. She explains that she has always taught her own children to treat everyone with respect regardless of their social status or job.

Tony Figueroa describes his father’s experience working in foundries in Waukegan. He remembers the vibrant African American neighborhood where he and many other Puerto Ricans lived.

Tony Figueroa describes the founding of the Puerto Rican Society in the 1950s and its development into one of Waukegan’s most important organizations under the leadership of Edwin Montano and others.

English, Lake County, Puerto Rican, Story, Video Based, Waukegan

Waukegan – Chicagolandia

Tony Figueroa

Tony Figueroa

Waukegan community leader, interviewed 2022