Chicago Reporter

Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series identifying how local minority organizations picked up the mantle to attempt to increase the Census Bureau count to avoid Chicago losing necessary federal resources and political clout. The numbers weren’t looking good. The count from Chicago’s Black and Latino...

Years before starting a landmark research project on abortion access, Diana Greene Foster saw firsthand the impact that banning abortion can have, through her grandmother Dorothy. Dorothy became pregnant at 19. It was not planned, and Foster thinks if her grandmother had access to a legal abortion, she would’ve gotten...

On June 28, 2022, the State of Illinois will be holding primary elections. Primaries are elections that political parties use to select candidates for a general election. Then each party’s candidates run against each other in that general election. Our general election in Illinois will be held on November 8, 2022.

As we get ready for summer here in Chicago, one thing on the minds of many residents is what will we do to stem the violence we are seeing across the city. In a survey commissioned during November and December of 2021 by Chicago Index, a collaboration between The Daily Line and Crain’s Chicago, less than one-third of city residents surveyed felt safe in their communities, with 46 percent deeming Chicago “very unsafe”. Exactly 703 Chicagoans were surveyed.. While some crime numbers are down, according to CPD sources such as fewer shootings this May than last, we have seen an increase in the number of crimes committed by juveniles. Ranging from the attack on Lincoln Park resident Dakota Earley, to the debacle in Grant Park that subsequently helped identify his offender.

Publisher’s Note: Mental health concerns dominate people’s minds, even as the pandemic eases, according to a new survey conducted by the newsroom collaborative, Solving for Chicago. The Chicago Reporter is one of the 23 newsrooms working cooperatively to cover pressing issues facing the public in the Chicago region.

Whether you are commuting to work or craving an ice coffee, the coffee scene in Chicago is sure to satisfy your cravings. Chicago’s coffee scene is increasingly seeing an emergence of Black and Latino owned coffee shops. The rise of these local coffee shops comes from people seeking collaborative spaces in their communities.

Today, Cinco de Mayo is celebrated in the United States with folkloric dances and Mariachis, with sombreros and fireworks, but especially copious amounts of beer and tequila. These young and inexperienced Mexican soldiers would never have believed that some hours later they would be celebrating as the French army, the one that had at the start of the century started a war with all of Europe and nearly won, was retreating under heavy rain.

“Cumpleaños feliz, te deseamos a ti,” our family sang “Happy Birthday,” to my wife, Adriana. “Cumpleaños felices,” we raised our voices as she celebrated another year with her new liver. Adriana had suffered from polycystic liver disease, a rare condition that causes cysts (fluid-filled sacs) to grow throughout the liver until the selflessness of a young woman saved her life.

Long before the fight with General Iron, the southeast side battled issues of environmental racism. It’s as much a part of the community history as the steel mills of yesteryear. I remember being at a community meeting 7 years ago that was held at “The Zone” a Christian youth...

The Chicago Reporter is committed to producing stories that identify marginalized communities’ challenges and opportunities. In recent months, the racial bias in home appraisals has dominated the conversation in Chicago, the state, and across the country. In Part 1 of Racial Bias In Home Appraisals, we outlined what thought...

The Chicago Reporter is committed to producing stories that identify marginalized communities’ challenges and opportunities. In recent months, the racial bias in home appraisals has dominated the conversation in Chicago, the state, and across the country. In Part 1 of Racial Bias In Home Appraisals, we outline what thought...

Anticonquista Café not only roasts their coffee here in Chicago, but harvests it from the high mountains of Guatemala. In mid-March, the owners of Anticonquista Café — Elmer Farado and his wife Lauren Reese opened a location at Hermosa and Logan Square. The shop is nicknamed La Montanita.

For 20 years, the U.S. proclaimed it went to war in Afghanistan for humanitarian reasons. The U.S. maintained it was “saving women” to secure democracy, advance women’s rights, or ensure the destruction of the Taliban to help women. Yet the talk about “helping Afghan women” was just a means to securing domestic support for an imperial war that only made matters worse for Afghan women. Now that we’re out, Afghan women are all but forgotten as we move on to lionizing Ukrainian women in ways the U.S. corporate media would never do for Palestinian women.

I was on Facebook complaining about my local Starbucks being closed for renovations. And a former coworker commented, how could I be so concerned about Starbucks when he didn’t even have a grocery store to shop at. My first-world griping had taken a serious turn. After talking to him, he informed me that he lives on the West Side in Garfield Park and that not only had their Aldi closed the year prior but that Sav-A-Lot, the lone grocer left in the community, was now temporarily closed because of failed health inspections. The community was now a food desert. Food deserts are prevalent in communities that are socio-economic disadvantaged. And while you often see communities of color linked together with the same systemic issues. The food desert issue is solely on the shoulders of those in the African-American community.

The first time DePaul junior, Ariana Collazo heard of an Afro-Latina individual in school was last year during her Afro Caribbean class when Haitian American novelist Edwidge Danticat came to speak to her class. “Listening to her story was really inspiring and I’ll never forget watching her,” said Collazo....

As we have braved the frigid weather over the last couple of weeks there has been a lot of attention on the homeless encampments that sprinkle the highways and various parts of the city. Good Samaritans have been purchasing hotel rooms for those who reside in the encampments. Coats and...

Since the pandemic, Chinatown businesses have faced massive revenue loss and xenophobia from people calling COVID-19 the “Chinese Virus.” Two years later, Chinatown had still not fully recovered. In 2020 former President Donald Trump continuously called COVID-19: the “Chinese Virus” ‘Kung flu” and claimed that it was not...

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s bill, Combating International Islamophobia Act, passed the US House by a 219-212 margin. Sadly, but unsurprisingly, this was a party-line vote. Democrats at last felt compelled to move following Congresswoman Lauren Boebert’s racist attacks on Omar who is Black and Muslim. Boebert has falsely and...

The Little Village community is again mourning the death of a child due to gun violence. Eight-year-old Melissa Ortega was running errands with her mother, Araceli Leaños, on West 26th street on Saturday when a gunman opened fire. Melissa was struck twice in the head and later died at Stroger Hospital.

We have major problems in this country in how we think about and get appropriate government assistance to Arab Americans. Social workers, translators, housing and transportation experts, health workers, and community-based funding agencies all face three substantial difficulties. First, the U.S. Census folds Arab Americans into the category “white/Caucasian,” making...