Taking Off in the City

Mexicans have been moving to Chicago in significant numbers since the early 1900s; and the city has continued to be home to one of largest Mexican populations in the U.S. In spite of labor-exploitation, discrimination and repatriation, as well as housing, schooling, health and other problems, they became an indelible part of the Chicago and U.S. immigrant experience. Delgado traces the arrival of Mexican immigrants to the city's Jane Addams Hull House area; he portrays how that community developed and how the establishment of the U. of Illinois at Chicago pushed Mexicans south toward the 18th Street Pilsen area, where they formed the political, commercial, and artistic world which would later emerge. Taking off in the City is the earliest book-length study of Mexican Chicago and its most important settlement area written by a member of that community. Delgado presents the dynamic evolution of Chicago Mexicans and the contributions they made in spite of the tribulations they faced. Today, we may see his effort as one of the first to highlight the importance of this population to the history and future of Chicago, Latino/as and the U.S.-Gilberto Cárdenas, Professor Emeritus, University of Notre Dame From his pre-publication reflections on Taking off in the City. A well-known lecturer on Mexican Chicago, and a native of the city's Near West Side, Antonio Delgado earned an M.A. in History at the U. of Texas-Austin, a second M.A. in Public Administration from City University of New York and a Ph.D. from the U. of Illinois at Chicago in Public Policy Analysis.