Chicago Irish & the Green River

Growing up in Chicago, you quickly come to learn that the Irish community is a force to be reckoned with, from plumbers to politicians, parades to pastimes. Although I'm half Irish, half Mexican, my parents felt very strongly about not losing either heritage, so we had close ties to the Irish community of our city. I grew up Irish Step dancing and playing fiddle. My brother played tin whistle, joining sessions in the neighborhood pub or the regional Fleadh. My parents passed down a plethora of old folk songs, so I could regale you with anything from a ballad to come-all-ye.
I also grew up helping my dad in the garden, and he'd tell tales of my grandfather's love for roses and my great-grandmother's homemade tea. For me, the luck of the Irish meant searching for shamrocks in our local city park, practicing the gift of gab with friends and family, and enjoying potatoes in any form you can cook em.
However, there's another side to Chicago's Irish culture and traditions, where we're known for dumping dye into our local river, and drinking copiously from dawn til dusk each March. This prompts violence, litter, and debauchery, (where many are protected from serious charges by a shield of white privilege and connections to the police force). My family isn't a bunch of teetotalers by any means, but traditions of moderation and a traditional religious holiday have been altered by American gluttony and excess. We also have long traditions of altering our local ecosystem, from the Irish canal workers who reversed the flow of the river, to the stockyards workers who dumped endless refuse into Bubbly creek, to Irish machine politicians who put toxic industry next to residences, valuing the bottom line over people's health.
Looking back, the Irish have a strong connection to the environment, prompting the original love of all things green. A people in tune with the rhythms of the ocean were drawn to the midwest similarities of our inland sea. Reduced by poverty and English domination to only one variety of potato, the famed Irish potato famine should have taught humanity the important lesson of biodiversity. Growing many varieties of any species, especially food, makes us more resilient when disasters strike. Instead companies like Monsanto have narrowed the range of seeds and foods grown in the US, building monopolies on Roundup-ready varieties, and hurting our resilience in the face of coming climate change. I wonder if Monsanto founder and Chicago-born Irishman John Francis Queeny had really intended a system this short-sighted.
I know the river reversal was a historic necessity in the face of uncontrollable sanitation issues, I know the low-wage stockyards workers didn't have much say in the waste their industry produced, and I know the river dye isn't actually toxic. Local plumbers have used the solution for years to check our pipes for flow problems. But try telling all that to the invasive species currently encroaching on our city and our Great Lakes system, or the people still living on the river watching bubbling methane gas affect their quality of life, or think about the lesson we're showing our youth, that it's ok to dump things in the river if it's all in good fun.
As we prepare for a celebratory season this March, I invite my community to consider what it is we're celebrating when we dye our local waterway, consider how we move forward from the mistakes of our past, and consider the fine line between fun and mockery. I'm not going to go and guilt you for wearing a green glittery top hat or shame anyone for wanting to have a good time. Just know there is much more to Irish culture than St. Paddy's day. We should celebrate the good green earth we were blessed with, rather than trashing our city streets with beer cans. Can't we make the river greener by adding more marshland reserves, trees, and waterside oases? Which elements of our heritage will we pass on to our children? And how can we do justice to our past by being good stewards of this planet for our future?

Want to learn more?
The photos above are from the Vivian Maier exhibit at the Chicago History Museum, taken at the Chicago St. Paddy's Day parade in the 1960s. Check out a video of the river dyeing here.

Want to help contribute to seed biodiversity and get a good start on your garden?
Check out the UIC Heritage Garden's spring seed swap this Sunday at the Hull-House museum

Want to help clean up the river in Chicago? Join the Friends of the Chicago River at LeBagh Woods on Foster this Saturday

Want to see some music and dance and other Irish culture this weekend? Check out the Irish American Heritage center on the North side or Gaelic Park down South

Chocolate: Drink of Gods, Food of Mortals - The Exhibit

Last Spring I had the joy of curating an exhibit for the UIC Latino Cultural Center, based on a series of public programs we hosted exploring the many dimensions of Chocolate. The exhibit was put on display in April 2015 in the UIC Library, where it remains on display until April 2016. Check it out while you have a chance!

So why chocolate? you might ask. Chocolate has its roots in the heart of the Americas, where indigenous communities saw spiritual and cultural importance in this bitter drink. Since the 15th century, when European colonization brought the continents into more contact, Chocolate has spread from its Latino origins around the world, where it has become important to many other cultures as well. Theobroma Cacao (the tree that produces Chocolate's base ingredient) grows only in tropical regions, but the later stages of processing usually happen in wealthier northern industrial countries. This transnational nature of chocolate ties together many people, and many structural systems of labor, environment, and cultural concern. Chicago has also been a hub for chocolate production, reaching its peak as the Candy Capital of America in the mid-20th century.
Chocolate is something that ties us together, but can also help us to see stark differences between our cultural and economic situations. Chocolate growers in Cote D'Ivoire might have never actually eaten the final product they're producing, while factory workers in Chicago might work long hard hours. Indigenous growers in central America recognize the ways Theobroma Cacao is intertwined with the whole rainforest ecosystem, while someone in Japan might marvel at a massive chocolate waterfall in a local mall. Check out the full online exhibit here.

Here's a couple of examples of objects and labels I created for the exhibit:

Theobroma Cacao Tree Replica
Paper Mache; Chicago, USA
LCC Staff, 2015

This replica was made by students at the UIC Latino Cultural Center out of recycled materials, but real cacao trees can grow up to 40 feet tall! The Theobroma (“Food of the Gods”) cacao tree is originally from the rainforests of Central and South America, where shade, heat, and humidity are essential for this sensitive species. Tiny midge flies pollinate the tree’s white flowers, which then fruit into large multicolored cacao pods.
Today, chocolate sales expand around the world, but the areas it can grow are actually shrinking. Climate change and devastating deforestation are threatening the future of the cacao plant, along with many other essential products from the rainforest. This important ecosystem is the source of 80% of foods used by the developed world, from avocados to essential medicines. Be mindful buying tropical resources to help protect the rainforest for future generations.


 
Children in Hull-House Courtyard
Photograph; Chicago, USA
UIC Hull-House Yearbook collection, 1895

“Our very first Christmas at Hull-House, when we as yet knew nothing of child labor, a number of little girls refused the candy which was offered them as part of the Christmas good cheer, saying simply that they “worked in a candy factory and could not bear the sight of it.” We discovered that for six weeks they had worked from seven in the morning until nine at night, and were exhausted as well as satiated. The sharp consciousness of stern economic conditions was thus thrust upon us in the midst of the season of good will.”

– Jane Addams, 20 Years at Hull-House, 1910

Today, UIC stands in a neighborhood that was once dense with industrial factories, sweatshops, and tenement housing. Many children never attended school, but rather worked to support their families. Hull-House advocates like Jane Addams and others made great strides to limit child labor, improve local working conditions, and increase access to education and recreation. Despite this progress, these issues remain relevant in Chicago and around the world.
Was child labor involved with producing your holiday candy?


Molinillo
Wood; Mexico
2006
Early waves of Latino Chicagoans arrived in the 1910s and 20s, bringing with them different cultural practices and chocolate recipes! The 1930s and 40s saw new waves of Latino immigration, drawn by jobs like chocolate production. By the 1950s, the neighborhood around Halsted and Polk streets was the heart of Mexican Chicago. When the University took over in the 1960s, much of the community moved southwest to Pilsen and La Villita, but symbols from the old neighborhood remain, like St. Francis Church on Roosevelt or Cordi Marian Settlement on May Street. This chocolate stirrer (molinillo) could have been purchased at the nearby multicultural Maxwell Street market, alongside other chocolate utensils.


How does chocolate connect to your life? Contribute your own choco-story to the project here.
Want to see the traveling exhibit come to your library or exhibit space? Contact the UIC Rafael Cintrón Ortiz Latino Cultural Center at lcc@uic.edu

Green Cleaning Guide

Working as an intern with the Field Museum's Keller Science Action Center this summer, I had the great opportunity to help with the Chicago Climate Action Toolkit. The Toolkit is a project that's taken many years to come together, starting with Field Museum anthropological research into many Chicago communities. Building off of the interests of community members and organizations, action plans were implemented, and following guides provide inspiration and opportunities for other people to continue the work with their own communities. Find out more about the toolkit here.

After working with the toolkit for much of the summer, leading educational programs, connecting with community organizations, and editing toolkit tools for wider uses, I launched into a new project. Partnering with the Chicago Coalition for Household Workers and the Latino Union, we worked to create a guide that would help people think about the environmental, labor, and social issues involved with cleaning. Helping people make healthy, safe, and sustainable decisions everyday can also mean giving them the tools to make their own inexpensive cleaners. Find the Green Cleaning Guide here or read our introductory text here:

"Cleaning your home is a part of everyday life, whether you do it yourself or hire someone to do it for you. And if you are the person being hired, you may even do a double shift by not only cleaning your own but also someone else’s home. This guide gives valuable information for everyone involved in creating a healthy home. Green cleaning not only keeps homes and workplaces healthier, but reduces the number of toxins we put into our wider environment and reduces how much our consumer spending contributes to climate change.

 
Sustainability, or “going green,” includes more than reducing our carbon footprint. It extends into doing things in ways that maintain the health and safety of people in the places where they live and work. When we talk about green cleaning it includes reducing carbon footprint, reducing exposure to toxins, and approaching cleaning work in ways that avoid injury or otherwise improve well being. This guide introduces ideas for making these sorts of improvements in how we do green cleaning. Perhaps unique to this type of guide, it also offers advice on how to talk about green cleaning so you can get family, roommates, employers, or employees on board with making these mutually beneficial improvements to the environments you share."

As a continuation of this whole conversation, and in recognition of the gendered and unequal conditions many house cleaners face, local Pilsen community center Casa Michoacan is partnering with the UIC Latino Cultural Center and the Latino Union to explore green cleaning next Saturday. Want to come? Check out the Facebook event here.


Want to find out more about the work of the Chicago Coalition of Domestic Workers? They're opening a Worker's Center in Albany Park to Domestic Workers next week March 8th on International Women's Day, with a Grand Opening Event from 10:30-1pm at 3416 W. Bryn Mawr. 

Want to find more tools? Check out the whole Chicago Climate Action Toolkit here, to find information about retrofitting your home, eating better, discussing climate change with others, or enjoying nature for better overall wellness.