Glamorous Quinceañera dresses and an Indigenous ceremonial mask are among the items that will be on display in “Aquí en Chicago,” an upcoming Chicago History Museum exhibit celebrating the long history of Latinos in the city.

WTTW News visited the museum for an exclusive preview.

“We have a lot of interesting material in the exhibition — from photos, oral histories, cultural treasures, garments, textiles, artwork,” said Elena Gonzales, curator of civic engagement and social justice at the Chicago History Museum. “There’s a lot of representation from local artists.”

The project has taken years to develop. The idea came from a group of high school students at Pilsen’s Instituto Justice and Leadership Academy who visited the museum in 2019 and noticed a lack of representation for Latinos.

“The students are in my vest pocket every step of the way through this project,” said Gonzales. “They each wrote letters to the (Chicago) History Museum describing the harm that it perpetrated on their communities to find nothing about their histories here.”

Gonzales has been working on the upcoming exhibition for the last four years.

“Latine communities are all over the city — not only in Pilsen or Humboldt Park or Little Village, but in every single community in Chicago,” Gonzales said.

Latinos are the second largest racial group in Chicago, representing nearly 30% of the city’s population, according to the 2020 census. Part of the exhibition will feature a digital scrapbook where Chicagoans can share their photos.

“You will be able to browse and view in the gallery, and everyone can submit their photos of events, people, places that they feel are important to the Latine stories of Chicago,” Gonzales said.

The collection features images from a popular candy store that opened in Little Village in the 1990s, along with snapshots of a local artist painting a mural in the 1980s.

The exhibition also explores Indigenous populations with Latin American heritage, including the Kichwa community.

“It’s an Indigenous community from Ecuador,” Gonzales said. “There’s a local community of about 30 to 40 Kichwa Otavalo families here in Chicago.”

Other pieces will dive into the history a Quinceañera, the coming-of-age celebration for a young woman turning 15.

“We were fortunate to work with Mi Quince World, which is a shop on 26th Street here in Chicago, to create these beautiful gowns that are now part of the permanent collection of the Chicago History Museum,” Gonzales said. “So the one behind me is the charro-style gown, which speaks to a very Mexican heritage in particular.”

Collections and pieces are currently being put together. In the meantime, an artist is painting a mural at the entrance of the exhibition.

“I want people to feel included, I want people to feel visible,” Gonzales said. “I want people who are allies and maybe are not Latine themselves, I want them to feel that they are also part of this Chicago.”

The exhibit is slated to open in October at the Chicago History Museum.

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