Within minutes after meeting me, you will know that I am from Chicago. But when I say I am originally from the South Side, I mean the Far Southeast Side — the part of Chicago often overlooked.
It’s a point reinforced almost by design, since you drive right over the top of it if you are on the Chicago Skyway. This is a part of Chicago that offered hope for many Hispanic immigrants as they toiled alongside their immigrant brothers and sisters from Ireland, Germany, Poland, Italy and Eastern Europe, and with African Americans who were part of the Great Migration.
It is easy to overlook the Southeast Side, but when you look at the Chicago skyline that makes our city so iconic, you see the steel that came from it. Once those steel mills closed, the neighborhood changed. Jobs were gone, families left, and businesses closed. A once vibrant area has now become a shell of what it once was.
But when you were brought up to embrace the toughness of the Chicago Bears defense as a civic virtue, you embrace the tenacity forged in it by grads of Chicago Vocational, like Dick Butkus. And when you dance to “Sweet Home Chicago,” you celebrate the spirit of the people who live on the Southeast Side because you can’t forget “The Blues Brothers” was filmed there.
Go ahead and overlook this community and its people, but you will be quickly reminded of its legacy every day.
The legacy my family celebrates is not dissimilar from many others in the region. My grandparents settled in this community from Mexico in the 1920s, and while half of the family made the neighborhood of South Chicago home, the other half eventually settled in the South Deering neighborhood, another storied community that made up part of Chicago’s 10th Ward.
My grandfather, uncles and father all worked in the steel mills, and most served in the military. My family members were small business owners, volunteers and civic leaders. They worked long hours, took those extra shifts and learned additional crafts, all to put food on the table and shape a better tomorrow for their kids and grandchildren.
Being a father myself now, I try to pass on my family’s legacy at home to my son and encourage him to bring our home to everyone else. When I was his age, my siblings and I were taught the value of hard work, to help people when they need it most and always be present for others because sometimes just being there is all that’s needed. Those values have helped our community survive the toughest times and has made Chicago the great place it is today.
I consider myself lucky because I have seen these successes firsthand through my family’s work. I continue to see it. Because of their efforts, family members have gone on to become academics, artists, chefs, doctors, educators, lawyers, community activists, professional athletes, coaches, and political and strategic communications advisers. That last one feels a little different than the others, but trust me, it’s cool.
While we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, there isn’t a day that goes by that I’m not grateful for the sacrifices my family made and for being a part of the Mexican American story. My family members paved the way for so many of us and made sure that each generation that followed could achieve what they sought — that American dream.
Jon Paul “JP” Valadez grew up on the Southeast Side and works as a Chicago-based senior director at Avoq, a national strategic communications firm. For more on his family’s journey and the Southeast Side, please go to Mexican-American Journeys by the Southeast Chicago Archive & Storytelling Project.
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