Sebastian Hidalgo grew up in Pilsen, an old Chicago neighborhood, when it was still Chicano through and through: Day of the Dead, Virgen de Guadalupe, Mexican Independence Day and other traditional festivals filled the community calendar. Murals from the late 1960s turned buildings into canvases, alleys into museums. And the food — “authentic Mexican” a restaurant critic called it — came straight from wherever the chef’s roots lay, be it Michoacan or Mexico City.
It was as if the Mexicans who settled the former Slavic enclave southwest of downtown in the early 1960s brought the old country in their bags to seed the new one. By the 1980s, the descendants of the Czech immigrants who named Pilsen a century ago (after a city in what is now the Czech Republic) had moved out. About 95 percent of Pilsen’s residents were of Mexican descent.
To Mr. Hidalgo, just 22 and a freelance photographer, Pilsen was everything.
The neighborhood, 2.8 square miles of cottages and three-flats (Chicago slang for three-family, detached houses), endured its share of inner-city ills – gang violence, poverty, drugs. But it had spunk. Growing up where activists and artists proud of their heritage – his heritage – received respect and support sparked his interest in engaging in local struggles and triumphs.
Especially now.
Pilsen, like working-class communities of color all over the country, is gentrifying. It began nearly two decades ago, but the pace has picked up since the end of the recession. New residential buildings have sprung up; wealthier, non-Latinos have moved in; and restaurants and pubs catering to the new demographic are inhabiting old storefronts.
In a pattern familiar to other rapidly gentrifying Latino neighborhoods, like San Francisco’s Mission District and Los Angeles’s Boyle Heights, Pilsen’s long-time residents are being pushed out. Mr. Hidalgo, as worried as anyone that the community could be lost, decided to document it.
Armed with a fellowship from City Bureau, a non-profit journalism lab that supports community reporting, Mr. Hidalgo spent just shy of two years capturing Pilsen’s everyday people. He calls the project “The Quietest Form of Displacement in a Barrio.” The “quiet” part refers to the alienation long-time residents experience every day.
Mr. Hidalgo, who first picked up a camera as a boy, has documented anti-Trump rallies, gentrification protests, a lowrider festival, an underground dance club, neighborhood icons and characters. On one otherwise ordinary day, he wound up at the scene of two separate drive-by shootings, rare in Pilsen, if not Chicago.
He also photographed a former community center, Casa Aztlan, on the day it became a metaphor for gentrification. The shuttered building’s facade was adorned with one of Pilsen’s oldest murals, an homage to famous artists and activists. The new owner, ahead of converting the building to 10 market-rate apartments, had the murals painted over in gray.
As a child, Mr. Hidalgo said, “I used to walk to Casa Aztlan just to see the murals as a reminder of where my blood came from. As an adult, seeing the murals painted over in gray was violent to me and to others who share the same history with the community center.”
He does not pretend to be objective about Pilsen’s upheavals, or deny that they affect him. “I see there is no separating my work and my life,” he said, “that I do this work to learn something about myself and to learn about the world. It doesn’t make me ill-equipped to do this type of conflict work, but rather allows me to put my heart and soul out.”
In fact, he began his self-education in photography as a boy in the emotional setting of his grandfather’s funeral. His godfather had brought a digital camera to take pictures for family members who could not attend. “He lent me his camera, saying, ‘Fill the memory as much as you can.’ And I considered this my first assignment.”
He knew then he wanted to be a photographer, he said. “Since then, I never put the camera down,” he said. He learned photography wandering Pilsen, “learning how light behaved in parks, street corners, invited homes and on human features.” Later, he realized photography offered a way to be a kind of “anthropologist.”
He plans to exhibit his project in Pilsen, and then other neighborhoods facing similar pressures of housing. ”I hope my photographs allow an audience to demand and scream for change,” he said. “To have them ask questions, to feel what the other person is coping with, and to consider the contributions of their circumstances. I want them to see with their hearts.”
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