As part of the Chicago Architecture Center’s annual architecture festival program, Open House Chicago, Stories of Im/Migration – Sites of Unity shares the voices, memories, and stories of several Chicago Cultural Alliance Core Members and community stakeholders in Chicago as they reflect upon their cultural stories of im/migration and the local sites where their community has gathered, then and now, as they have made this place their home.
Their stories celebrate the hyphenated-American communities that they have built here and the impact they have had on the fabric of our city. They also reveal the profound effects of racism, xenophobia, and bigotry as well as moments of perseverance and pride. Key to this conversation is the term im/migration, which has come to envelop a more inclusive and equitable understanding of the many paths all people have taken to arrive where they are today—whether they were always here, such as First Peoples, immigrated from another place of their own volition, or were forcibly estranged from a former homeland as a product of chattel slavery, a byproduct of war, or imperialism.
This program will highlight sites we may not be aware of in our own neighborhoods and will take the form of a 60-minute panel discussion richly illustrated with photographs from several Chicago Cultural Alliance Core Members’ archives, including maps of where associated sites are located in Chicago neighborhoods. Panelists will feature photographs of one or several significant community sites in the Chicago area accompanied by their own personal stories associated with their community’s im/migration to Chicago. After individual stories are shared, the panel will convene and discuss commonalities, or differences in experience, and consider Chicago’s great places of unity.
This year’s Open House Chicago is expected to happen between October 16-25 where attendees can look forward to both in-person and remotely accessible experiences that unlock fascinating stories about neighborhoods across Chicago!
For more information about our program contact Andrew Leith: [email protected]
And for more information about Open House Chicago: openhousechicago.org