Centering the Marginalized

With a population of over 2 million people, Chicago’s diversity of cultures and resident is apparent all throughout the city. Whether it is neighborhoods, such as Pilsen, Devon, Little Village, Boystown and many more, the city is filled with mixing cultures trying to cast their stake in the city. This has led to the city becoming sprawled with cultural and resource center there to service the many different identities that have come to call Chicago home.

The location of a cultural center is one indicating marker of the demographic makeup of a neighborhood. These are often placed in areas where they can have easy access to the community they are focused on.

The Center on Halsted, an LGBTQ+ focused space, is in Boystown, one of Chicago’s largest queer neighborhoods. Both the Puerto Rican Culture and Puerto Rican Cultural Centers are in Humboldt Park, a west side neighborhood with 49.7% of the population identifying as Hispanic.

The Japanese Cultural Center, located on Belmont Avenue right off the red line Belmont station, might appear to be in a surprising location. However, when the center was first established the Belmont neighborhood was largely made with Japanese people. Over the years as the demographics of the neighborhood changed the Japanese Cultural Center became the last standing symbol of what the Belmont neighborhood used to be.

Cultural centers situate themselves the way they do because they want to be able as accessible as possible to the marginalized communities they serve. These spaces offer educational programming, wellness services, and simply a place to be.

The Center on Halsted does all work. The story build is constantly bustling with people going in out to utilize the space.

The sign for the Center on Halsted informs people passing by of the meaning of each color on the gay pride flag.|Breya Jones

The first level is a hang out space. There are tables everywhere with places to charge electronics. The front desk is also on this floor, next to where front desk workers stand there are stacks of papers with information about the services that The Center on Halsted offers next to two large jars filled with both external and internal condoms.

The first floor of the Center on Halsted provides visitors with space to do work and spend time.|Breya Jones

The Center on Halsted has youth groups, senior groups and groups for the variety of sexual orientation and gender identities is serves. These groups meet mainly on the second level of the building. Up there are offices, more communal space, meeting spaces and a computer lab.

This is also the floor is the free HIV/AIDS and STD testing space. The free HIV/AIDS and STD testing the Center on Halsted offers is one of the most prominent programs.

On the third level of the building, there is a theater, garden, gallery and gym. The whole building offers free wi-fi for people using the space.

The third-floor gallery features works by and depicting queer people.|Breya Jones

Beyond the psychical space, the Center on Halsted offers programming and resources that might not be available to people otherwise. One such program is the Silver Fork program, a nine-week culinary training programming that was completely free to those who participated.

One of this participants was Mark Dalton, who participated in the program over the summer.

“It’s taught by two excellent chefs and they taught us basic culinary techniques, like knife skills, the 5 mother sauces, and a whole range of recipes that we each got to make in groups,” said Dalton.

Throughout the nine-week program, Dalton met people whom he became very close to.

“This program was highly collaborative and we had to work in groups every single day,” said Dalton.

During this daily collaboration, allowed the group to bond quickly. The swapped stories and connected over their identities of queer people of color. This bonding them into what Dalton described as a family.

This bonding experience is a part of what the Center on Halsted’s purpose is.

“It’s a safe space,” said Nanica Brown, an employee at the Center on Halsted, “It connects people.”

To Dalton, space makes him comfortable. It is space where he can be his most authentic self without fear of negative reactions from others.

“I’m already ‘out’ and don’t have to ‘come out’ to the people I meet there,” said Dalton.

DePaul University’s own cultural centers are trying to foster a similar sense of community. After opening in January of last school year, the Black, Latinx, LGBTQ+ and Asian Pacific Islander Desi American centers have had tried to like their larger counterparts in the city. They function as space to hang out, they have programming and resources and allow for identity-based clubs, such as Gender?, to have a meeting space.

Aaren Welt, a second-year DePaul student, prepares to pick up a new card in a game of UNO during Gender?'s recent game night meeting.|Breya Jones

Ahtziri Barba, a fourth-year DePaul student, surveys their cards in a game of Bang during Gender?'s recent game night.|Breya Jones

The cultural centers around the city provide a multitude of resources to those who they focus on and this at most times marginalized communities. However, finding these spaces can be difficult for those who do not live near or are not already aware of their locations.

A map or data set of Chicago’s many identity-based cultural and resource centers cannot be found on the Chicago Data Portal. Numerous searches of the website turned up nothing that came close to collecting data on the locations and information.

Em Katzman, a third-year student at DePaul who works at the cultural center, thought that the fact that there was no comprehensive list or map of the cultural centers in Chicago was ridiculous. They took it upon themselves to check for themselves. They were not impressed with what they found.

“If you can make a map of a dog-friendly park, you can do one for cultural centers,” said Katzman.

For both Katzman and Brown, the lack of a list is a clear sign.

“It shows how important they think culture is,” said Brown