A Weekend In the Windy City

One of the good things about living in Springfield is the fact that you're so close to Chicago. Since I'm from Chicago, that's one of the GREAT things about living in Springfield. Instead of the 6.5 hour ride from LaPlata, MO that I had to take while I was a student at Truman State University, I get to get on a seldom late 3.5 hour train heading straight to Chicago. (Not to mention the props in not having to travel a half hour out of the city you live in to a station in a town some people called Klansville!)

My whole purpose in going home for Labor Day was that my family was supposed to be throwing my cousin and I a graduation party. As soon as I walked in the door on Thursday, I found out that the party had been cancelled. Happy? Ummm, no. As a brand new graduate student, I can tell you that I have a load of things to do (readings, studyings, meetings, NAPS), so I was kinda irked that I came home for nothing.

On Friday, I was supposed go up to Chicago's Northside, and spend the night at my sister's brand new apartment (she is getting her Ph.D in Sociology at UIC), but that fell through after she woke up with a sore throat and was afraid that I'd catch it.

Sidenote: I constantly get the cold or the flu. And the shots don't help me. For all you people who are just entering college or thinking about going, know this, like love, college is a battlefield! Spaces as cramped as dorm halls and campus housing, with that many people crammed into them, are usually known as PROJECTS! So you WILL get sick my deary. Just remember to wash your hands, don't put her hands in your face, and when you see someone cough, RUN the other way screaming bloody murder! Sidenote over.

So, around this time, I was really feeling as if I had just wasted a whole weekend. But thankfully, Saturday came and saved the day!

After a much needed trip to my doctor (don't worry about your girl, I'm fine), I was able to go to the Mexican Fine Arts Center on Chicago's Southwest side to see an exhibit called The African Presence in Mexico: From Yanga To the Present.

I had been wanting to see this exhibit alllllll summer, but never got around to it. I ended up going on September 2, the day before it closed! Yay! The exhibit was incredible. I learned so much about Africans in Mexico, or Afro-Mexicans, the role in Mexican history, their past as a minority, and their current position in Mexico. Yanga was an escaped enslaved African (I don't use the term "slave;" it strips away the identity of the person you're referring to) who fought the Spaniards so well that they eventually caved into him and gave him his own land. Can you believe that? A whole country giving into a person with almost NO power?

They also talked about the stereotypes that Afro-Mexicans (a term that was created in the 1970s) have endured through the years. Looking at some of the pictures of the caricatures, I thought I was looking at pictures of American history. Afro-Mexicans were portrayed in the same primate-like way that African-Americans were. And they, also like African-Americans, have suffered from having many parts of their history systemically erased or looked over in an effort to belittle their contributions to their country.

I don't know if I'll ever have the chance to see another exhibit like that in my life, so I was so glad that I got to see it this weekend.

My little excursion ended on Sunday morning when I took the train back to Springfield. Strangely enough, I was kinda glad to see the Land of Lincoln again. I guess it's grown on me. But nothing, no nothing, will ever replace the Windy City in my heart!

Here's a slideshow for your viewing pleasure.