The Missing Exhibition: Building Aquí

When Reyna Ortiz decided to change her name, she discovered she would need to change society first. Like many trans people, Reyna’s chosen name didn’t match what was printed on her driver’s license—a name no one had called her since adolescence. Unless the law was changed, it seemed a part of Reyna would always be stuck in “the past.” For decades, an Illinois statute barred people with felony conv...

“Write about the tortilla factories and you’re dead.” That was the warning journalist Gary Rivlin received just days after publishing an investigation into the murder of Rudy Lozano — a labor organizer, political strategist, and rising force in Chicago’s Latino community whose work threatened powerful interests spanning organized crime, abusive labor practices, and the city’s political machine. In...

What does it mean to serve a country that doesn’t always serve you back? In this episode of The Missing Exhibition: Building Aquí , we trace the life of Frank Corona — a Vietnam War veteran and the first Latino firefighter hired by the Chicago Fire Department — whose story embodies both sacrifice and endurance. Corona agreed to put his life on the line overseas and at home, navigating racism from...

For more than forty years, Chicago has called itself a Sanctuary City—but what does that promise really mean?   Through the stories of Adriana Portillo-Bartow, a Guatemalan mother fleeing military terror in the 1980s; and Elvira Arellano, whose stand inside a Humboldt Park church after 9/11 reignited a national movement; Chicago History Museum curator Rebekah Coffman reflects on three distinct wav...

When students from a South Side high school confronted the Chicago History Museum over its lack of Latino/a/e representation, they set off a chain of events that led to a historic new exhibition—and a reckoning with the past. This episode also traces the life and legacy of Rudy Lozano, the activist whose name the students carried, and legendary folk artist Jesus 'Chuy' Negrete, whose corridos have...

When students at a predominantly Latino/a/e alternative high school in Chicago (Instituto Justice and Leadership Academy) realized that Chicago’s major history museum had no information about the Latino/a/e third of the city in its permanent exhibition, they took a stand—and made history. Building Aquí is a 4-part podcast that follows the students’ protest, the exhibition it inspired, and the long...