Raices Chicago Story Coalition

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Raices Chicago Story Coalition

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Raices Chicago believes that storytelling is central to community well-being.

Raices Chicago cree que el acto de contar historias es fundamental para el bienestar de la comunidad.

09/15/2026

We are kicking-off LATINE HERITAGE MONTH with an EXCITING announcement!!

Raices Chicago is excited to announce the release of the Cultivating Raices 2026: The State of Latine Archives and Stories report. This report is a first-of-its-kind assessment of the state of Chicago’s Latine histories.

The report examines where Chicago’s Latine histories are being preserved, who is doing that work, how accessible those histories are to the public, and what resources are needed to strengthen community-based preservation efforts. The report was produced through Raices Chicago’s Mapping & Connecting Chicago’s Latine Community Archives Project, funded by the Ga***rd & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation and Terra Foundation for American Art.

Read the full report and learn how to support Raices Chicago as we continue the work of uplifting Latine stories at raiceschicago.org/reports or scan the QR code to access the report.

For media inquiries please reach out to Ivan Guzman at [email protected]

08/25/2026

Raices Chicago had the privilege of attending the Congreso Leadership Summit: Aqui Estamos 2026 by the folks in Latinos in Heritage Conservation ! Raices Chicago was donated a table to share our work with those attending the summit. We spoke to some incredible folks from California to Detroit who truly inspired us with the way they were innovating ways to preserve Latine cultures across the United States. Our co-founder Liliana also moderated the Migration, Labor, and Infrastructures of Belonging panel on Thursday, August 20. The panel explored how migrant and working-class communities create and preserve their own systems of documentation through foodways, oral history, spatial analysis, and the reconstruction of erased geographies. Though we almost lost our voices from all the talking; we had an incredible time and were left embolden in our journey!

07/25/2026

Part 2 of 2: Earlier this month we announced that Raices Chicago Story Coaltion convened an advisory committee to inform and shape the development of the Cultivating Raices Coalition (CRC) which will launch in 2027 and gather Latine organizations and individuals to connect, support, and collaborate together around the preservation and sharing of Chicago Latine Stories. We wanted to highlight one more committee member in this work Ivelisse Diaz from La Escuelita Bombera de Corazón ! Thank you again to all our committee members who joined us in this important moment as we move the preservation of our stories forward!

07/06/2026

We have been hard at work! Raices Chicago Story Coalition is excited to share that in the months of April and June we gathered an advisory committee of Latine organizations and individuals to help us define what a coalition to support and strengthen the preservation and sharing of Chicago Latine Stories should look like. Our committee members shared their experiences, their needs, provided feedback regarding how to best identify and bring together Chicago Latine cultural makers, informed community guidelines, and shared their hopes and dreams for the future of our Latine cultures in this city. We want to deeply thank our community members for taking the time to dream with us and for creating a space rooted in radical honesty, joy, and passion. As our organization’s name suggest; the preservation of our Chicago Latine stories is a collective effort. We look forward to officially launching the Cultivating Raices Coalition soon and we hope that you will join us in our mission to preserve and amplify the often marginalized stories of Latines in Chicago!

Thank you to our committee:
Angelica Hernandez Digitizing the Barrio
Antonio Pazaran Instituto Gráfico De Chicago
Antonio Ramirez Chicagolandia
Diana Solis Diana Solis
Jackie Rodriguez 18th Street Casa de Cultura
Jorge Felix Puerto Rican Arts Alliance
Jorge Valdivia Chicago Latino Theater Alliance (CLATA)
Raquel Aguiñaga-Martinez National Museum of Mexican Art
Dr. Rosa Cabrera UIC Latino Cultural Center
Thais Beltran Nuestro Chicago Archives
Veronica Ocasio The National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture
Yaritza Guillen Yaritza Guillén
J. Omar Magaña OPEN Center for the Arts
Teresa Magaña PACH Gallery
Jorge Mena UIC Latino Cultural Center

06/25/2026

Announcing the first iteration of the Cultivating Home Archives: The Diana Solis Collection!

Raices Chicago Story Coalition mission is to support the preservation of Latine stories whether they are in cultural institutions or in the homes of our community members. Helping with this project is Ada Marys Lorenzana, a Chicago raised graduate student in history from the University of Illinois Chicago. As well as archivist Kathia Perez, recent MS graduate in Library and Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Raices Chicago is excited and honored to be working alongside such incredible Chicago talent!

06/01/2026

We are kicking off PRIDE month with an EXCITING announcement!

This collaboration will strengthen El Archivo, PRAA’s digital community archive documenting the history of Puerto Ricans in the Midwest, while launching the first phase of a dedicated LGBTQ+ Collection.

This project was initiated in 2023 by PRAA’s exhibitions and collections program director Jorge Felix who later pulled in Raices Chicago co-founder Liliana Macias. This work represents PRAA’s ongoing archive development and Raices Chicago capacity building efforts to address the underrepresentation of Puerto Rican and Latine LGBTQ+ histories in Chicago archives.

Jorge and Liliana have begun the oral histories collection of Latine LGBTQ+ community members and supporting them in this work is Anais Cezanne Caro.

The official collection will be unveiled to the public in February 2027! We are excited to unequivocally showcase that without the stories of LGBTQ+ Latines the histories of Chicago are incomplete.

We want to express our gratitude to the Donnelly Foundation for supporting this work.

05/30/2026

Raices Chicago Story Coalition recently led a series of storytelling workshops with students from the Association of Latin American Students (ALAS) club at Instituto Health Sciences Career Academy (IHSCA). This was a continuation of the youth engagement in public history that Raices Chicago began last spring with Dr. Joanna Maravilla and the ALAS student club led by Ms. Mayra Ramirez and Ms. Alondra Sepulveda.

Students listened to the oral histories of local street food vendors and interpreted these stories through art with the guidance of Raices Chicago co-founder Ivan Guzman. Their final art pieces honored the migration journey of these important community members.

The art pieces are on full display as students enter the school.

01/12/2026

Español abajo:

Please help us welcome Anaís Cezanne Caro (They/She) to the Raices Chicago team! Anaís is one of two archivists that are co-leading the creation of a report that will help us locate and identify archives that hold Chicago Latine stories. Their work is pivotal to Raices creation and launch of a directory that connects these collections across institutions and supports their accessibility.

We are grateful to Anaís for sharing their incredible archival practices with us to help us in this work! Learn about their Chicago Story through these images they curated:

We want to thank the Terra Foundation and the Donnelly foundation for their generous support for this work.
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¡Por favor, acompáñennos a darle la bienvenida a Anaís Cezanne Caro (elle/ella) al equipo de Raices Chicago! Anaís es una de las dos archivistas que codirigen la creación de un reporte que nos ayudará a localizar e identificar archivos que contienen historias de la comunidad latine de Chicago. Su trabajo es fundamental para la creación y el lanzamiento por parte de Raices de un directorio que conecta estas colecciones entre diferentes instituciones y facilita su acceso.

¡Agradecemos a Anaís por compartir con nosotros sus increíbles conocimientos en archivística para ayudarnos en este proyecto! Conozcan su historia en Chicago a través de estas imágenes que ella misma seleccionó:

Queremos agradecer a la Fundación Terra y a la Fundación Donnelly por su generoso apoyo a este trabajo.

Address

1637 W. 18th Street
Chicago, IL
60608

Website

http://www.raiceschicago.org/

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