(Ejojola\flickr)

Into the inferno. In go the orange earplugs, and we step into the belly of the beast. The guide shouts to us over the roar of the furnace, but even with our ear protection in the place is clamorous—a coal plant is a noisy place. More than anything else, though, the heat is intolerable. Our guide wears heavy long pants and boots with a shirt and work jacket and appears perfectly comfortable. The furnace itself is 1000 degrees Fahrenheit; that we can stand a few feet away from it and survive is incredible and uncomfortable.

On a chilly spring day, a group from the University of Chicago went to tour the Crawford Coal Plant at 36th and Pulaski in the working-class neighborhood of Little Village. We hoped to find out what a coal plant looks like, how it works, and what it does in the world besides generate electricity.

Built in 1925, in what were then the outskirts of Chicago, the plant still looks antique, though all the functional electricity-generating equipment has been retrofitted or replaced since then. The conference rooms are shiny and new, but entering the working part of the plant is like going back in time. Everything is dark and sooty, and clanging machines do their work without much apparent supervision. Our guide takes us up 12 stories in an elevator. On the roof of the plant it is calm. The skyline glitters in the east, and below it on the plant’s property lies an enormous pile of coal. This is the emergency store, which Crawford keeps on hand in case the supply chain is broken. Usually, though, barges arrive daily on the Sanitary Canal loaded with coal from the company’s other plants in Illinois. The plant was built on the Canal in part because of this transportation advantage, and in part for cooling purposes; water is brought in from the canal and discharged a few degrees warmer. Besides changing the temperature of the Canal, the coal plants presents other troubles to their neighborhood. Crawford and its partner plant Fisk are both owned by Midwest Generation, a subsidiary of Edison International, one of the largest electricity providers in the United States. According to local environmental organizer Ian Viteri, these coal plants are “cash cows” for Midwest Generation. Meanwhile, the neighborhood they inhabit, Little Village, has the highest rate of asthma in the city.

Viteri, the Clean Power organizer for the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) pins this squarely on the coal plants, which emit particulate matter that damages lungs, as well as carbon dioxide that contributes to global climate change. He came to LVEJO from other community organizing, including encouraging fine art and skateboarding after-school programs for kids in Little Village, and it’s easy to imagine him working with youth—he’s energetic, speaks quickly, and has a lot to say. Environmental justice for Viteri falls under the umbrella of social justice, and closing the Crawford and Fisk coal-fired power plants is just another way to help people in his community. Viteri’s current job is focused on increasing regulation of the plants’ emissions. To that end, he and LVEJO as a whole are supporting an ordinance proposed by 49th Ward alderman Joe Moore. He says that the Clean Power Ordinance, as it is being called, aims to improve air quality by regulating more strictly the levels of pollutants the plants can emit. Thirty different environmental groups in the city, including LVEJO, formed a coalition around this ordinance.

While Viteri would like to see the Clean Power Ordinance passed, his ultimate goal is to shut down the coal plants on the South Side altogether. He points out that the community does not use the electricity generated by the plants, gets no jobs from them, yet suffers all of the negative consequences of living in the vicinity of a coal-fired power plant. The electricity usage is debatable because the nature of the electrical grid makes it impossible to separate electricity from one plant or another, but Viteri claims that the electricity obtained from the coal burnt in the Crawford plant is sold east to Pennsylvania.

For Viteri and LVEJO, the environmental activism taking place in Little Village plays part of much broader climate concerns. Last month Viteri went to Bolivia for the World People’s Conference on Climate Change, a summit which hosted delegates from many developing countries that were, according to Viteri, “underrepresented at Copenhagen,” during the UN’s climate conference held last December. During the Bolivian conference, representatives drafted a list of proposals for the next UN climate meeting in Cancun. Viteri attended as a member of a twenty-person delegation from the United States whose travel costs were paid by the Bolivian government, in part so that the visitors could see that climate change has already affected Bolivia. “Bolivia’s surrounded by mountains. A few years ago they all had snow, but only one had snow when I was there,” LVEJO sees their local project of shutting down the coal plants on the South Side as part of a broader, global project.

At first, descending into the plant from the cool day is a relief, and my body revels in the warmth. But as we wind down and down on grate staircases right next to the furnace, the heat becomes too much. At one point, the guide opens a small door into the furnace and we stare at the orange-white flames. Down, down. Once in a while we stop as the engineer tells us how something works, or what it is supposed to do. Frequently, he tells us something he could change or forget, finishing up with “if you do that, everybody dies.” Down, down, dizzyingly fast in the heat and the noise, until we are below the ground, watching a conveyor belt full of coal speed by on its way to be transformed into powder. The furnace burns powdered coal, not the large lumps that look like charcoal briquettes. The powdering allows it to be burned more efficiently and hotter. The more heat, the greater the efficiency of power generation. Though the conveyor is clearly modern, a man is sweeping the floor next to it and in the darkness of the plant it feels as though he ought to be bare-chested and shoveling coal into the grinder as fast as he can, sweating in the heat. We continue on, and eventually reach a tall chamber covered in beautiful tiles, with skylights. This houses the generators themselves. Here electricity is made: enough for a million households at peak production, and the reason for the entire rest of the operation.

(Chris Diers)

At the end of the Crawford tour, I ask our guide about last October’s International Day of Climate Action protest at Fisk Power Plant, when more than 450 people rallied outside the to urge President Obama to take bold action at Copenhagen, and Alderman Moore promised to introduce the clean power ordinance that is now making its way through the city council. Our guide pauses for a moment and says, “It certainly doesn’t feel good when everybody hates you. We, the industry and individuals, really care about being environmentally conscious, but I think people forget how important our product is.” Fluorescent lights hum as we leave the power-generating area and re-enter the office space of the plant. As the tour concludes, another engineer emphasizes their parent company Midwest Generation’s involvement in the community. They offer scholarships at area high schools, and he says they try to be good neighbors. We thank them for taking time out of their day, and head back out into the cold, ready to return to electrically lit offices and classrooms. As we leave, I look down and see that my hands are entirely black with coal.

“S-E!” the girls shouted back in unison, voices filling the whole room.

The cheer kicked off Communities Day, an April 30th celebration of community organizations from South Lawndale, a neighborhood in southwest Chicago better known as Little Village. Communities Day is put together each year by the mentoring organization Women and Youth Supporting Each Other (“W-Y-S-E!”). On most other Friday afternoons, WYSE holds after-school sessions at Madero to discuss topics like conflict resolution and sexual decision-making. In a neighborhood with high crime rates, where over half of the residents are under 25 years of age, WYSE provides sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade girls with a safe, supportive space to talk about issues of importance to them. Last Friday, several other groups joined WYSE to speak with local youths. Communities Day was designed to give Little Village adolescents the opportunity to find their voices by encouraging strong friendships, and a sense of purpose and identity. “I think it’s really important for young men and women to find things that they’re passionate about and understand that they DO matter,” WYSE mentor Christine Wong said. “They can always use their creativity, vivacity, and energy to explore, become leaders, and create changes in their communities.”

Lugging apple juice gallon jugs, craft boxes, and poster board, mentees and mentors walked the half-dozen blocks from Madero Middle School to one of the two Boys & Girls Clubs in Little Village, a mural-adorned building at 25th and Sacramento. Crowding into the stuffy, bright teal-colored classroom, the girls found their seats while three mentors, still finishing their pineapple pizza, thanked them all for coming.

The first speaker of the afternoon, Analia Rodriguez from the Little Village arts organization Villarte, began with a simple question for the girls, “Where do you see art in our community?” Out of the bashful group of singers, dancers, actresses, and one aspiring comic book artist, a tiny voice called out, “graffiti.” For Rodriguez, graffiti is part of the neighborhood’s effort to create for itself a positive identity, which is part of Villarte’s vision. They support local business owners, school teachers, and adolescents in the creation of artistic spaces, including skate parks, storefronts, and film festivals, to exhibit the talent of Little Village, making it a place people would like to visit, instead of hurriedly driving through.

The Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) gave the kids another way to engage with their community. LVEJO has built plenty of momentum in the last few years, catalyzing the Chicago Park District’s announcement for a second park for the over 100,000 residents of the neighborhood and publicizing the dangers of the local coal factories. LVEJO is constantly coming up with new volunteer projects to mobilize Little Village adults and youth alike in the fight for cleaner air and open spaces. “Our parents always tell us that we are the future,” LVEJO’s youth organizer Carolina Macias closed. “But I think that’s wrong—we are the present. Why wait for the future when we can do something today?”

Correction: In the published version of this article, we mistakenly described WYSE as working with Bridgeport youth. WYSE works with youth from Little Village.

(Mehves Konuk)

The crowd at tonight’s meeting is here to talk about the government’s E-Verify program, an online system that allows employers to check the legal status of recently hired employees in order to determine if they are authorized to work. Employers who have registered with E-Verify submit the basic information that their new employees enter on the government’s I-9 employment eligibility form to be checked against information in over half a billion records in the databases of the Social Service Administration (SSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). On its website the DHS makes its pitch: “E-Verify is an essential tool for employers committed to maintaining a legal workforce.”

But according to the panelists at tonight’s meeting, the E-Verify program enables so much abuse by employers that it has become a means of institutionalizing discrimination. Officially, E-Verify can only be used to check the legal status of recently hired workers and cannot be used to screen applicants or long-time employees. It is also illegal to use the system selectively, to screen some new hires and not others. In practice, though, the program is used for all of these purposes, and as a tool for intimidation. Diego Bonesatti, director of the Proyecto de Acción en los Suburbios del Oeste (PASO, or West Suburban Action Project), describes the abuse. “Employers are fine with the workers until they stick up for their rights. If they’re organizing for better conditions, employers will use E-Verify and say, ‘Oh, look at this’…and use it as a way to fire them.” There are also serious concerns about the system’s accuracy. Official DHS statistics estimate an error rate at around three percent, but Bonesatti says that some have put the number as high as twenty percent. “Even with that three percent figure,” he says, “if the program became compulsory, we’re talking about three million workers who would have mistaken information.”

The program has existed as a pilot since 2007, but there have been efforts in Congress to make it permanent and compulsory, and recent developments have made the situation urgent. Previously, notification letters gave employees some time to clarify their legal statuses, but recently U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has only been allowing workers ten days before sending their signed registrations to the Department of Homeland Security. The recent escalation of the E-Verify program is partly due to national legislation. As a temporary compromise to the postponement of immigration reform until 2010, a mandate by the federal government begun on September 8 now requires all federal contractors to use E-Verify to confirm the work authorization of their employees. Bonesatti describes the escalation of E-Verify as part of a broader shift in policy. “The door-to-door raids are quieting down. Now we’re seeing more of what we call ‘virtual raids,’ which are a mix of E-Verify and audits of employers.”

CCWR’s meeting was a success in starting to educate the community about the E-Verify system and their rights in the face of its potential abuse, but there’s still no clear consensus on how to directly resist it. Martin Unzueta, founder and president of CCWR, emphasizes that E-Verify isn’t just an issue for immigrants or for the Hispanic community. “It’s a problem for everyone when families can’t buy what they need. We’re talking about the person who owns the corner store, we’re talking about the schoolteacher, about the priest. They should all be interested in what happens in the factory, because this discrimination has direct repercussions in the community.”

When the panel closes, the atmosphere in Casa Michoacán gets a lot more fun. A table set up at the back of the room serves up tamales, wine, and hot chocolate, and the stage is turned over to the entertainment. Musician and storyteller Chuy Negrete sings Spanglish protest songs: “We arrived at the city of Juarez…we arrived in Racine, Wisconsin.” Speaking to the crowd over the shuffle of guitar chords, he half-jokes, “Has anyone here ever had to pick cotton?” An older woman in the third row slowly raises her hand. “The señora!” he calls out, and moves on to the next chorus.

The next morning, CCWR holds a workshop in its headquarters, a few small rooms in an old warehouse building in an industrial area of Little Village. About three dozen people pack into a single room filled with folding chairs and decorated with signs from previous rallies whose Spanish slogans range from the simple (“We are fighting for our rights,” “Justice for all”) to the more specific (“Obama, what happened to what you promised when you were senator?”) A long table against one wall is covered with information about employment laws and social service programs, and on the wall behind there is a print of a nineteenth-century painting depicting an angry group of striking workers standing at the door of the factory owner’s home.

The families that show up today are here to get their questions answered by Carmela Gonzalez, a representative of the Illinois Department of Labor. They ask questions about unpaid overtime, missing paychecks, and other promises that their employers have made, delayed, and broken. Gonzalez gives general information about the laws that apply in each case, gives advice, and refers each questioner to other resources. E-Verify comes up in one case. For nine years, Javier Martinez worked fourteen-hour night shifts operating a forklift for IFCO systems, a company that manufactures and distributes reusable plastic containers. On September 17, he says, he arrived at work and was told there were inconsistencies in the answers he had given on his I-9 form nine years ago. His employer had run his information through E-Verify. Martinez has lived in the U.S. for seventeen years and has raised four children here. He is sure the discrepancies are errors of the system, but he isn’t sure what to do about it.

Workshops like these are laying the groundwork of CCWR, which sees itself primarily as a movement towards worker education. In an interview after the workshop, Unzueta describes the situation: “There’s a lot of fear in this community in dealing with the law, and there’s a lot of misinformation about workers’ rights.” Unzueta has spent years as an organizer in the struggle for immigrant rights. Making information available through references, translation, and workshops is critical to protecting workers’ rights, especially in the Hispanic community, where the language gap and the legal issues surrounding immigration, citizenship, and the right to work make it easier for employers to take advantage of their workers. “We want to educate workers about their rights under these laws so that they can become educators themselves, pass the information on, and organize with other workers.”

The formula is straightforward, but applying it to affect change isn’t. The workers at this meeting are trying to work through a confusing pattern of legislation that defines their rights to work in decent conditions, and the even more difficult struggle of making sure those rights are respected. When one woman gets frustrated with her employer’s demands that she pick up extra hours, Unzueta puts his hand up to stop her and says simply, “There are some things that are unjust that are not illegal.” There is a lot to be frustrated about here, but CCWR is not about throwing blame. Unzueta tells the crowd, “It’s not the Department of Labor’s fault. We enact the law. Who here has spoken with their alderman? With their representatives?” No hands are raised. After a pause he says, “There are no magic answers, and this will not happen quickly.”

During the meeting, a small girl in a pink jacket crawls around the tile floor in the middle of the room and under the chairs of the attendees. She laughs and claps her hands while her mother asks the speaker about the legality of compulsory overtime, trying to understand the difference between what she knows is right and what the law says is legal. This little girl isn’t old enough to understand the complicated questions about her family’s rights that are being discussed around her. Hopefully the answers will be clearer by the time she can ask for herself.

(Sam Feldman)

Rather than the standard reception of tortilla chips, El Faro changes things up a bit with curtido, a mix of pickled carrots, onions, and jalapeño peppers. Aside from the few minutes of struggle between the first taste and the arrival of the water I asked for, the curtido was pleasantly sharp and vinegary. Sensing its slow disappearance, however, our waitress brought a new starter of chips and a hearty serving of guacamole, which quickly won the approval of everyone at the table.

Unfortunately, El Faro falls into one of the main pitfalls of those who try to accommodate vegetarians—they never venture beyond soy for their meat alternatives, meaning almost every vegetarian option is just a new style of textured soy product. That said, El Faro knows what it’s doing when it breaks out the soy. The taco de soya chorizo, strongly and evenly flavored, ranks at the top of the veggie taco options, with the taco de soya pollo coming in at a close second. While the prices for the taco options are mind-blowingly cheap (under $2 a pop), keep in mind that they are also completely spare: each taco consists of the corn tortilla and seasoned soy, but nothing else.

Having never tried cactus, I settled on the nopalitos guisados for an entrée. As it turns out, I don’t like cactus. Served alongside black beans and rice, the thins slivers were peppery and slimy—vaguely reminiscent of the curtido, minus the jalapeño sting.

A friend’s torta veggie cubana was surprisingly good, and showcased fake meat as far as it can go before winning a place on thisiswhyyourefat.com, with three different soy variations, a fried egg, and mayonnaise (the dish also claims to feature beans, but we were hard-pressed to find them). Alternatively, the queso panela a la parilla is a comfortingly simple cheese sandwich, if the soy options become overwhelming.

While the menu offers up the vegetarian options as something of an equivalent to its standard meat options, no one in my group ventured into those pages, taken as we were by the many soy concoctions. Still, the beverage page garnered attention with its many jugos frescos, or fresh juices. Seduced by the Jugo de Hercules, a juice blend of five vegetables (celery being a prominent one), I drank with caution at first; the taste, intense and sugarless, was difficult to get used to. Maybe it was the placebo effect, but before long I was steadily sipping away, feeling infused with health.

The dessert options were as hit-and-miss as the entrées, with dry and cookie-like caramel empanadas that only hinted of caramel on the one hand, and “Faro cake,” a lovely joining of chocolate and custard, on the other.

While El Faro does what it can to mollify the vegetarian community, a meat-abstaining foodie would find better results at a place like Soul Vegetarian on 75th Street or the Chicago Diner in Lakeview. El Faro’s cuisine is more of an unsuspecting vegetarian’s delightful surprise upon being dragged out for Mexican by omnivorous friends, or a place to go when only Mexican-style textured soy will do.
El Faro, 3936 W. 31st St. Monday-Friday, 5am-10pm; Saturday, 5am-11pm; Sunday, 7am-10pm. All entrées under $10. (773)277-1155. elfarorestaurant.com

Memorably describing themselves as “Confederate glue goth tard-wave,” Wizzard Sleeve is led by Captain Beyonce’s unexpectedly wide vocal range, backed by three other misfits on indeterminate synths and a shuffling bass. Everything sounds like it’s sprayed in cough syrup and shellac. It’s simplistic without being minimal and dark without being Suicidal and it’s good music for drinking caffeinated malt liquor. You don’t lose much playing it over laptop speakers. Since 2006, they’ve released one 7” of their own as well as splits with Static Static (with whom they’ll play at Mortville), Amber Alerts (fellow blankdoggers and Alabamans), and Livefastdie, and have appeared on the (distressingly self-explanatory) Wild About Jenkem! compilation.

Unsurprisingly, their touring partners are mostly cut from the same shroud. Californian trio Static Static combine a drum machine with the live thing, though their sound leans more towards incoming warm jets than catacomb crawls. TV Ghost’s squalid, repetitive approach to being bummed-out verges on the humorless. Then there’s FNU Ronnies, a crew of belligerently inscrutable Philadelphians. Bad vibes and harsh tones are the unifying factors in this scene, and it oozes out of everything it touches.

With that in mind, it’s on second thought a little unfair to attribute so much influence to Blank Dogs. In large part you can explain his approach as reaction to the explosion of guitar-heavy garage rock microscene in the past few years. Cold beats and searing distortion are pretty much the opposite of the poppy (and of late, popular) stylings of the Black Lips or the King Khan & BBQ Show. But then again, there’s a lot of continuity between the garage and the Glue Wave. The melodies are simple and the instrumentation is primitive. We’re not talking about a transcendent experience here, but as shows for a rainy Friday night go, Wizzard Sleeve is a winning bet.
Third floor, Mortville, 2106 S. Kedzie Ave. October 2. Friday, 8pm. Free, but donations accepted. myspace.com/inmortville

best mexican brunch
La Haciendita
With as brisk a business on Saturday mornings as any trendy North Side brunch spot, minus the long wait and high prices, La Haciendita is a favorite of Gage Park locals. Pretend you’re one of them and seat yourself; order in Spanish if you can. The menu is a litany of well-executed Mexican standards, with standouts like spicy gorditas, al pastor and carnitas tacos, and several preparations of huevos (accompanied by the usual rice and beans, plus potatoes). Thirsty? Order an horchata or other agua and you’ll get 64 ounces for less than $3. 5151 S. Kedzie Ave. Monday-Saturday, 10am-midnight. (773)434-3864 (Robin Peterson)

best exotic ice cream
Paletería Flamingo
Ever wanted to try tuna-flavored ice cream? Probably not—but maybe you’ll want to try cactus pear-flavored, which is what this ice with the startling label means in Spanish. If that doesn’t interest you either, one of the several dozen other flavors of house-made ice, ice cream, and yogurt probably will—tamarind, horchata, flan, Parmesan, chile, and fruits from the familiar (lime, cherry) to the foreign (guanábana). Can’t decide? Try a sample, which the servers are quick to offer, or order a scoop each of two different flavors for about $2. Portions are relatively small, but the flavors are intense. Paletería Flamingo also serves ice cream shop staples like sundaes and shakes, plus Mexican favorites like paletas—all of them made with fresh fruit. Cash only. 2635 W. 51st St. 2pm-10pm, daily but subject to weather. Closed during winter. (773)434-3917 (Robin Peterson)

best thrift store
Village Discount Outlet
With its laissez-faire attitude toward organization, the Brighton Park Village Discount Outlet emphasizes the treasure-hunt aspect of thrift store shopping. Be prepared to dodge piles of discarded clothing and small children in the cramped aisles, and don’t count on privacy when trying on clothes—the closest thing to a fitting room here is the few mirrors scattered throughout the store, which serve well enough for judging whether that “Mahoney Family Reunion” T-shirt is tight enough. If you manage to navigate the store’s controlled chaos, you can leave with several outfits for less than $10. The housewares are also a potential site for steals among the clutter. Visit this weekend, September 26 and 27, for a fall clearance sale where everything in the store is half price. 2514 W. 47th St. Monday-Friday, 9am-9pm; Saturday, 9am-8pm; Sunday, 10am-6pm. (708)388-4772. vdoil.com/05.php (Robin Peterson)

best street food
La Veintiseis
The commercial heart of Little Village, La Veintiseis refers to the stretch of 26th Street between Kostner and Western Avenues. It’s a booming area—next to Michigan Avenue, it generates the highest sales tax revenue in the city of Chicago. Head west under the “Bienvenidos”-proclaiming pink arch at Albany Avenue, and the colorful storefronts and abundant street vendors evoke a city south of the border—not so far from the truth, as the neighborhood is home to the highest concentration of Mexicans in the Midwest. Vendors share the sidewalks outside businesses, as is the tradition in Mexico, selling street food like tamales, chicharrones (pork rinds), paletas, and—sometimes, if you’re lucky—$1 tacos. Vendors sell from 5am-10pm daily. (Robin Peterson)

best caribbean
Garifuna Flava
The menu at Garifuna Flava reflects the cooking of the Garifuna people in Belize and elsewhere in Central America, a fusion derived from African, Latin American, and indigenous cuisines. Fish, rice, corn, and bananas play prominent roles, and offerings range from familiar Latin standards with a Caribbean twist (guacamole served with plantain chips) to homey, comforting dishes offered few places else (cow foot soup, cassava cake.) The panades, finger-long corn patties filled with a mixture of fish and refried beans, are a standout, each crisp patty bursting with fresh corn flavor. The restaurant turns one year old in May, and they hope to bring in more live bands and Belizean entertainment in the well-appointed banquet hall next door. Lively Caribbean music, yellow-checked tablecloths, and sepia photographs of Belizean villages make the fluorescent-lit storefront a pleasant enough place to take advantage of their Wi-Fi and full bar, but the engaging staff, and endless amounts of fresh, hot plates coming from the kitchen make it extraordinary. 2516-18 W. 63rd St. Tuesday-Thursday, 11am-8pm; Friday-Saturday, 11am-2am; Sunday, 11am-8pm. (773)776-7440 (Helenmary Sheridan)

best mango sorbet
Los Mangos Express
Plastic mango trees and optical illusion art fill the bright orange space of the promising Archer Heights taquería Los Mangos Express. The restaurant proudly serves specialties from the Mexican state of Guerrero like picaditas—red or green salsa, smoky meat, queso fresco, and a dollop of sour cream constructed on a fried masa base, a bit like sopes. These masa cakes are much thinner, however, which gives them a superb texture, exactly halfway between chewy and crunchy. The standard taquería fare, prepared on a griddle nearly as wide as the restaurant, is outstanding as well. Good luck finding anything on the menu more than $5—Los Mangos is ridiculously cheap. Leaving room for dessert is mandatory, otherwise you’d miss out on the nieve de mango, the chili-spiked mango sorbet. Gooey and just a bit piquant, it seemed to consist of more mango than ice. The nieve de mango could really be their ticket to city-wide recognition. Word seems to be spreading—a couple seated nearby skipped dinner and made straight for the sorbet. 4888 S. Archer Ave. Monday, Thursday, Sunday, 8am-10pm; Tuesday-Wednesday, 8am-9pm; Friday-Saturday, 8am-12am. (773)247-6070 (Ellis Calvin)

Little Village Lawndale High School; courtesy of OWP/P

SJHS opened its doors in 2005 following community input about an ideal learning situation. The hunger strikers and other activists received a variety of responses, and petitioned the city to build four smaller autonomous campuses sharing athletic and other major facilities. Thus, SJHS has three sister schools within its own halls: Multicultural Arts HS, World Language HS, and Infinity: Math, Science, and Technology HS. But what exactly is social justice? The high school manifestation was a response to parents who emphasized “keeping the values of peace and equity,” according to the school’s mission statement. In principle, this means ensuring SJHS students “never forget the physical, spiritual, and communal struggle it took to achieve justice.”

But social justice is a rather vague concept, one that even the school has trouble defining concisely. SJHS proclaims its purpose as “assur[ing] that all students become critical thinkers through a curriculum that is rigorous, innovative, and implemented through meaningful school relationships.” The subjects of their critical inquiry: “real world issues,” addressed through the “lenses of race, gender, culture, economic equity, peace, justice, and the environment.” The critical back mapping framework is clearer—by graduation, students should “understand mechanisms of power: name source of power in situations [and] name victims in situations.”

Earlier this year, the aforementioned English teacher showed her ninth-grade class the movie “Hotel Rwanda,” and in ellipses-studded sentences she later wrote on her blog “Teach. Eat. Run. Chicago.” that she was thrilled with the connections they were able to make. It’s part of the Colonialism Framework curriculum: “ENSLAVE ——-> COLONIZE ——-> A. SEPARATE B. NOT KNOWING/NOT UNDERSTANDING C. VIOLENCE.” She only recently understood the connections herself, but with the help of colleagues, she’s realized the parallels between Belgian colonization, Rwandan genocide, and life in Little Village. A close paraphrase of her own writing: By enforcing distinctions between Hutu and Tutsi, the Belgians manipulated new tensions to cement their own power, and decades later those tensions not only persisted, but spiraled into genocide…being colonized as a person of color in an urban area (acting white, assimilating to white culture)…divisions between black and Latino communities…strength in number is broken…the rebellion never comes…again, fighting one another rather than fighting the real oppressor…gang conflict, racism, prejudice, fear…she absolutely loves this unit. She feels even better the following Tuesday when a normally quiet student goes wide-eyed and announces that just like the movie, Greater Lawndale has been divided to maintain the colonizer’s power.

But make no mistake—SJHS bills itself as a college preparatory high school. It offers four AP classes: chemistry, biology, physics, and calculus. Though many teachers dissent from the idea that standardized testing is a good measure of academic competence, the school concedes that it is indispensible for college acceptance. “Rigorously prepar[ing]” for the SAT and ACT thus earns a spot on the classical back mapping curricular framework, and the school offers test prep classes. A pep rally precedes the ACT exam, and Roosevelt University offers a complete scholarship to SJHS students who exceed a 3.0 GPA. Nevertheless, the results are disappointing. This year’s junior class averaged a 17 on the ACT, and 33 percent earned a 19 or higher. By comparison, the national average is almost 21. And according to the College Board, the middle 50 percent of Northwestern University freshmen score between 30 and 33, while at University of Illinois at Chicago they’re between 21 and 26. Scores on the Illinois PSAE test are similarly lackluster. Zero percent of the entering class “exceeded” standards in reading, math, science, or writing; in writing 40 percent “met” standards, in contrast to 16 percent for reading and math and 6 percent for science.

In a music class, another young teacher explores social justice through popular songs. His choice is “I Used To Love H.E.R.,” Common’s wistful 1994 protest against the commercialization of hip-hop. The song, which presents the growing popularity of hip-hop as the decline of a virtuous woman, is a soapbox for edifying the class about the co-opting of hip-hop into the mainstream. Drowned in that iniquitous flow, hip-hop became a vehicle for spreading “twisted consumerism agendas, racist stereotypes, marginalizing ideas about minorities and their goals…to urban youth only to keep them in their place in society: the bottom,” as he writes on his blog “Bank the Eight.” A few weeks later, he uses Bjork’s “Earth Intruders,” and it’s a springboard for learning the following vocabulary: industrialization, skeptic, paratroopers, turmoil, voodoo, and morbid. Later that day, a bomb threat is called in to the school. No bomb is found. The teacher muses that while growing up in New Jersey, similar hoaxes led to his school’s evacuation. Here, that’s too dangerous.

LVLHS is located just south of the Cermak Street division between predominantly black North Lawndale and predominantly Latino Little Village, once known as South Lawndale. More meaningfully, it’s the division between the Gangster Disciples and the Two-Sixes. The school’s uniform prohibits a wide range of potential gang symbolism—rabbits are a Two-Six sign, and six-pointed stars represent Gangster Disciples. The index of prohibited items extends: cell phones, hats, hoodies, uncovered tattoos, large belt buckles, visible undergarments, and uneven numbers of earrings in each ear, to name a few. But even if campus is relatively safe, the neighborhood isn’t. An SJHS student was killed last year, and this academic year has seen at least 32 CPS students killed already.

Return to the riot. It’s February 25—a restructured Wednesday, so students are dismissed at noon while teachers stay to work on staff professional development. Rumors of racial tension and violence have spread, and the English and music teacher have decided to patrol the front steps. Two girls start fighting—“a brown v. black” incident, as the English teacher terms it on her blog, and police rapidly separate them. More fights break out, and more police break them up. Ethnic slurs are hurled and a group of black students heads towards a CTA stop to catch a bus back to North Lawndale. The fighting continues, and students begin confronting teachers as well as the police and each other. There’s no bus present, and the black students, escorted by police and more teachers, keep walking. Kostner Avenue is blocked, and at the intersection with 31st Street a standoff begins. On the north side, Latino students and Two-Sixers exchange slurs and insults with the police-escorted black students clustered on the south side. When they finally reach the bus stop, the driver won’t let them aboard. The teachers petition the police for an escort, and finally the driver relents and heads to Cermak without stopping. Before the obligatory staff meeting, the English teacher cries a little.

At the meeting, SJHS teachers and staff decide to visit the 10th District police station “to show solidarity for our students and staff members who had been treated poorly by the police.” Forty of them arrive, and after some time, the commander agrees to see them all. It’s a long meeting, and the English teacher feels good about it. She wakes up early the next morning, sobbing.

Some nights, the families are cleared out and the Black Hole serves as a venue for hardcore punk shows such as Chicago Apocalypticrust Fest in early October, or last weekend’s Latino Fest. Located in a shopping center that also includes a taqueria, a bakery, and discount stores, The Black Hole probably holds the record for hardcore venue with the largest parking lot. On my first visit, I took advantage of this fact and found myself a nice roomy space away from all the ruckus. Parking the car, I observed a run-down RV in the parking lot. Occasionally people would emerge and later return. The RV would occasionally leave one parking space and move to another. Returning on Saturday for Latino Fest, I observed the same RV in action again. Unless crystal meth use has permeated hardcore culture, I suspect the goings on in this RV are not very hardcore.

Of course, the quality of the music was excellent at both Chicago Apocalypticrust Fest and Latino Fest. It spoke for itself and my analysis is worth little, which is why I’ve barely even mentioned it and instead focus on the venue’s sign and parking lot. A review would basically say: “Burst of insane brutality followed by burst of insane brutality. All songs were very short.” Fleshing out this point into 300-odd words would require me to make a lot of shit up and completely ruin the fun of the show, assuming that people who care about hardcore don’t completely avoid this section of the Weekly by now anyway.

Since the first festival was held last August, a diverse array of businesses and community centers has opened its doors to art. The first gallery space was Ageless Tattoo, a tattoo parlor whose own artwork is displayed on the bodies of neighborhood residents. This blurring of art and life is essential to Victor Montañez, an artist and educator whose work could be found at the festival in Universidad Popular. In addition to viewing his paintings, he invited visitors to touch them and move their multiple pieces so that they revealed new forms and meanings. “Art is alive,” he said. “It’s part of a movement and part of a culture, not dead and untouchable like the art in museums. We’re trying to break the paradigm of what art is, because if you restrict yourself you can’t evolve.” To this end, he helped students create the unity-themed murals on display, as well as his own revolutionary- and Santana-inspired paintings. Also exhibiting his artwork was Orlando, a high school dropout who turned to art “to show my friends I have something to say.” Each of his pen-and-ink drawings contains a complex storyline, inscrutable if not for his explanations.

Spread out in ten locations across Little Village, the festival sites included a school, church, and café, in addition to the regular galleries. Art was visible everywhere in the neighborhood: elaborate decorations on every other front porch, the Virgin Mary on the back of a jacket, even a wall around which a group of teenagers had gathered to observe the creative process of a graffiti artist. A home functioning as a gallery seemed most representative of the Little Village arts scene. Frida Blue Sky Studios was the first “real” gallery established in the neighborhood, and it continues to be a gathering place for local artists. Draped with vibrantly colored scarves, jewelry, and paintings, its rooms are inviting in a way wholly unlike most galleries. For its owners, Marya and her daughter Yvanha, this is the goal: “We’re trying to teach kids about art, because parents often don’t appreciate artists. They get amazed when they see what their kid has made.” Still, the mother of a student who lives next door won’t let her daughter come over for lessons. Like life, art can sometimes be dangerous.