Arts & Entertainment
Grassroots Effort Grows Into Queer-Led Community Hub in Gage Park
On a recent Wednesday morning, a group of children gathered inside a community space in Gage Park.
“We’re going to start by pushing in our chairs and getting up,” an instructor told the room.
The children were part of Pequeños Soñadores, a free summer camp run by the Gage Park Latinx Council. For eight years, the organization has offered a two-month summer program where neighborhood children can explore art, build community and have something to do close to home. But the camp is just one part of the work.
In a neighborhood where nearly 90% of residents identify as Latino and many families are rooted in Catholic traditions, the queer-led grassroots organization has grown into a hub for families.
“I feel like a lot of moms were looking for programming for their children,” said Katia Martinez, one of the organization’s founders. “And I feel like whenever I look at a community, specifically a Latine community, if you’re able to reach the moms, you’re able to reach everyone.”
Martinez and co-founder Antonio Santos were both born and raised in Gage Park. They returned to serve the neighborhood that shaped them.
“It made me feel really happy to be back in the community, but it also opened my eyes to the divestment that Gage Park faces,” Martinez said. “… Especially coming from the Loop area and having to take the train back and then asking myself, ‘Why are there not more trees? Why is it so difficult to even get garbage cans outside?”
What began as a grassroots effort to support local families has expanded over the years. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the council distributed groceries, connected residents with resources and advocated for the neighborhood’s first vaccine site.
“60632, which is the ZIP code we’re in, had the No. 1 mortality rate during COVID, and yet the city wasn’t responding,” Santos said.
Today, the organization offers youth programming, community events and workshops. One of those programs, Queer Riot, teaches young people about LGBTQ+ history.
“We run a program called Queer Riot, which is an LGBTQ+ history program for high school youth,” Santos said. “It’s our summer internship where they learn about the history of queer people, and particularly queer Black and Brown people in Chicago so that they can see themselves reflected in history books, which oftentimes is not the case for our community.”
The council’s services are open to everyone. But its leaders say their queer identities are not something they hide.
“You can look at our space right now; it’s a very queer space,” Martinez said.
That visibility can be especially meaningful in a community where many families are connected to Catholic traditions, the founders said.
“I grew up hearing those narratives of, like, ‘Let’s keep it to ourselves. You don’t have to broadcast it,’” Santos said. “But for us, it was important to broadcast it. … If people saw young people who looked like them — Latino, right? — from the community where they’re from, and they saw us doing acts of social service to benefit their families, that that would ultimately undo a lot of the stigma that has been taught to our community for generations.”
As Santos and Martinez showed WTTW News their space, they discussed life as young queer activists.
“In our culture, you’re taught to keep your head down, work hard and not look up,” Santos said. “But when you take a breath to look up, we see ourselves in the book ‘Making Mexican Chicago.’ We see ourselves in the Chicago History Museum. For me, we have solidified our place in history, and in Chicago’s history. And to be able to do that while still being alive is a blessing, because I know so many queer organizers in the past didn’t get their flowers until long after they were gone.”
“I hope that it inspires younger people to be free,” Martinez said, “and to know that they can organize and that they can also do youth programming and that they can do programming for adults and that you can be in community with others regardless.”
