Seven decades ago, the federal government launched a cruel, mass deportation effort known as Operation Wetback. In Chicago, this program commenced just as Chicagoans began to celebrate Mexican Independence Day, resulting in the detention and deportation of thousands of Chicagoans of Mexican descent. Fast-forward to today, as we prepare for Mexican Independence Day in Chicago, Mexican Americans continue to experience unjust and overt enforcement of immigration laws, including threats of mass deportation — being described as a “bloody” process — from one major party presidential candidate.
Mexican Independence Day has grown into a large, lively, culturally significant event for Chicagoans and Midwestern Mexicans alike. This celebration is no different than St. Patrick’s Day — an event where people flood downtown, often inebriated, and disrupt traffic, make noise and draw national media coverage, and everyone proudly proclaims to be Irish for the day. Chicago has a long, proud history of welcoming different cultures into the city’s life, a process that makes Chicago richer and a more enjoyable place to live. As part of living in a large, diverse city, we also recognize that these celebrations may bring some inconvenience with them, but the city responds appropriately, welcoming the revelry while ensuring the process is as coordinated and safe as possible.
Yet for Mexican Independence Day, there is disparate treatment. Currently, the city is contemplating extraordinary measures aimed at blocking car caravans, many festooned with large Mexican flags, from making their way along downtown streets. Indeed, the Chicago Police Department commander responsible for the Loop declared that CPD will have “zero tolerance” for caravans entering the downtown area.
This approach is not helpful.
The commander even suggested the city could close the downtown area at several access points that would stretch from Division Street on the North Side to 18th Street on the South Side. The closures, by design, result in limiting the predominantly Mexican participants access to the city — a city where the majority of participants work, go to school, raise families, own businesses and pay taxes.
These restrictions are wrong and send a signal that not only are Mexican Americans not welcome downtown but also that other residents have to be protected from them.
Editorial: The city acted like the Mexican Independence Day celebrations were a new problem. Why?
Beyond the unjust message this plan sends, the logistics of enforcement are also troubling. How will such a blockade be enforced? Will police, for example, restrict access to the area for people planning to attend the theaters in the Loop? How will people access the Mexican Independence Day celebration slated for Grant Park? Would people have to prove that they live there or have a dinner reservation somewhere in River North or the South Loop and then be granted access? Would drivers who appear to be Mexican be subject to additional scrutiny simply because of their appearance?
Given CPD’s history of racial bias in the use of stop-and-frisk and the recent data regarding its mass traffic stop program, can we trust that a blockade would be enforced in an even, nondiscriminatory manner? It doesn’t look good.
We also cannot overlook the trauma this type of plan inflicts on our community. Structuring barricades, checking IDs, all of it, exacerbates how Mexican Americans are constantly “othered” and made to feel like unwanted visitors in their own home. Mexicans have lived in and built Chicago for more than 100 years, but somehow city leadership thinks it is OK to ask them for papers? Our community cannot abide by this mistreatment.
Instead, city leaders must take seriously their responsibility to figure out how to manage large celebrations in a way that is safe and inclusive — just as they do for all other events that disrupt traffic. Chicago is a global welcoming city, and its leadership should take advantage of the eagerness of countless people to visit the city by making this the destination to celebrate Mexican Independence Day. To do anything else is to brandish a sign to 1 million-plus Mexicans who live in Chicagoland — one that reads, “No Mexicans allowed.”
Colleen K. Connell is executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, and Luis Gutierrez is founder and CEO of Latinos Progresando.
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