Chicago Humanities Fall Festival

Schedule of Events:

10:30 am - 7:00 pm: Pilsen Day Art & Experiences

Curated by Alberto Aguilar, Artist in Residence
Encounter a journey through interactive events in Pilsen

Alberto Aguilar is proud to be the first Chicago Humanities Artist-in-Residence with curated programs that will give audiences a chance to encounter art in new and exciting ways and inspire viewers to make their own active connections. Engage with unique programs during a full day in Aguilar’s home neighborhood of Pilsen, on Sunday, September 29th.

RSVP Includes:

10:30am - 12:00pm: Museum Church with Starting Sermon
12:00pm - 6:00pm: Asco Exhibition Gallery On View at Pilsen Arts and Community House*
12:00pm - 1:30pm: Harry Gamboa Jr. – The Chicano Arts Movement
12:30pm - 5:00pm: Film Screening of Ritual #1 Encounters by Fernando Saldivia Yáñez
1:30pm - 2:15pm: Walking Parade to Asco Tour (PACH) with Nancy David Sánchez Tamayo
2:00pm - 7:00pm: Auto Portrait Spectacular, with 50 Ingredient Molé Food Truck
2:30pm - 3:00pm: Acidix music set at Auto Portrait Spectacular
4:00pm - 4:45pm: Joey Nebulous music set at Auto Portrait Spectacular
6:00pm - 6:45pm: Avantist music set at Auto Portrait Spectacular

Alberto Aguilar:
Artist in Residence

Alberto Aguilar is a Chicago-based artist that uses life stuff as a pliable material to create a meaningful connection with the viewer. This could include language, everyday objects or actual situations he finds himself in. Through their reconfiguration, subversion and juxtaposition a new meaning reveals itself. He doesn’t distinguish his art practice from other various life roles which provides freedom allowing him to be more careful and present in situations. Alberto utilizes a self-imposed framework which gives him clear direction producing a generative and prolific output. He chooses to create outside of a studio setting in order to interact with others and experience the world more fully. Through asking questions and an openness to being directed by people and his surroundings he regularly collaborates with others. Although written in third person the artist arranged these three hundred words you are now reading in order to have a shared moment with you. What were you doing prior to reading this bio?

He is a 2024 US Latinx Artist Fellow and a recipient of the 3Arts award. He has shown at various museums, galleries, storefronts, and street corners around the world which include: The Queens Museum (NY), El Torito Supermercado (St. Louis), Minneapolis Institute of Art, Outside of the Dollar General on US-56 (Elkhart, KS), Museum of Contemporary Art (Detroit), The entrance of Chicago City Hall, Museum of Contemporary Art(Chicago), Parque Fe Del Valle- a designated wifi area (Havana, Cuba), National Museum of Mexican Art (Chicago), El Cosmico Trailer Park (Marfa, TX), El Lobi (San Juan, PR), I-80 rest stop (Iowa). Along with his daughter, Madeleine, he runs Mayfield, a multi-use space which operates on the grounds of their home. He teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. What will you do after you are done reading this Bio?

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2:30 pm - 4:00 pm: The Forces Shaping Immigration with Geraldo Cadava

Four experts on an issue of local, national, and international importance

Immigration is one of the most important issues on the minds of voters this year. We’ve seen the effects of immigration’s politicization here in Chicago due to the arrival of thousands of migrants and refugees. Immigration, though, is much more than a political issue; for better and worse, it’s a transformational experience for migrants and their families as they leave often-desperate circumstances in search of something better and more stable.

It can often feel like the debate about immigration has no good answers. But we’re going to have to find solutions soon because the realities that drive immigration—political instability, dire financial conditions, climate change—aren’t likely to go away any time soon. Join UIC professors and immigration experts Ivón Padilla-Rodríguez, Adam Goodman, and Barbara Sostaita for a panel moderated by Northwestern history professor Geraldo Cadava as they discuss this issue of local, national and international importance and give you the tools to think about and understand one of the most critical challenges we face as Americans.

Geraldo Cadava:
Scholar, Author

Geraldo Cadava (Ph.D., Yale University, 2008) is a historian of the United States at Northwestern University. He focuses on Latinos in the United States, the U.S.-Mexico borderlands and Latin American immigration. Originally from Tucson, Arizona, he came to Northwestern after finishing degrees at Yale University (Ph.D., 2008) and Dartmouth College (B.A., 2000).

Cadava is the author of two books. Most recently, he wrote The Hispanic Republican: The Shaping of An American Political Identity, from Nixon to Trump, published by Ecco in 2020. His first book was Standing on Common Ground: The Making of a Sunbelt Borderland, published by Harvard University Press in 2013. He is working on a third book, an overview of Latino History since the Spanish conquest called A Thousand Bridges, to be published by Crown.

He is a contributing writer for The New Yorker, co-editor-in-chief of Public Books, and author of the Substack newsletter Latinos in Depth. Other writing has appeared in The Journal of American History, The New York Times, The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and elsewhere.

Cadava teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on Latino History, the American West, the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, migration to and from Latin America, and other topics in U.S. History, including Watergate, the musical Hamilton, the 2016 and 2020 elections, and the history of College Sports. He is also the director of the American Studies Program.

Dr. Ivón Padilla-Rodríguez:

Dr. Ivón Padilla-Rodríguez is a Bridge to Faculty Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of History at the University of Illinois Chicago. A social and legal historian of child migration, she is currently working on a book project that historicizes child-centered mechanisms and consequences of U.S. immigration exclusion. Her writing and research have appeared in peer-reviewed academic venues as well as national media outlets like The Washington Post, Time, and Teen Vogue. She has also authored policy briefs on the migration of children and women for the federal government and non-profits in the U.S. and Mexico. She is a proud member of the Migration Scholar Collaborative and a co-coordinator of the Newberry Library's Seminar in Borderlands and Latino/a Studies.

Adam Goodman:
Scholar, Writer

Adam Goodman is an associate professor of Latin American and Latino studies and history at the University of Illinois Chicago and a 2022-23 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. His interests include migration history, policy and law; Latino and Mexican American history; border and borderlands; social movements; racial and ethnic identity formation; and recent U.S., Mexican and Central American history.

Goodman’s award-winning book, The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Expelling Immigrants (Princeton UP, 2020), traces the US government’s systematic efforts to expel noncitizens over the past 140 years. It uncovers public officials’ use of force, coercion and fear to purge immigrants from the country and exert control over those who remain. The book introduces the politicians, bureaucrats, businesspeople and ordinary citizens who have pushed for and profited from expulsion. It chronicles the devastating human costs of punitive enforcement policies and the innovative strategies people have adopted to fight against removal and redefine belonging in ways that transcend citizenship. The Deportation Machinewas a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History and received the PROSE Award in North American History from the Association of American Publishers, the Henry Adams Book Prize from the Society for History in the Federal Government and Honorable Mention for the Theodore Saloutos Book Award from the Immigration and Ethnic History Society.

Goodman has written articles, essays and reviews for publications such as The Journal of American History, The Nation and The Washington Post. He has discussed Latino history and immigration policy in Spanish- and English-language interviews on Latino USA, Univisión, BBC Radio 4, CSPAN’s Book TV, Mexico’s TV UNAM and Canal 22 and BackStory, among other programs and outlets.

Goodman is a co-organizer of the #ImmigrationSyllabus project and a member of the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation History Advisory Committee. From 2017 to 2022, he served as a coordinator of the Newberry Library’s Borderlands and Latino/a Studies Seminar. The National Endowment for the Humanities, Fulbright Program, and Immigration and Ethnic History Society have supported his work.

Before moving to Chicago, Goodman was a Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and a visiting scholar at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in Mexico City. He received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Pennsylvania.

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5:00 pm - 6:00 pm: Documenting Lowrider Culture and Community

A panel discussion on expressing identity and culture through customized vehicles

Custom car enthusiasts in the Lowrider community have embraced vehicle modification as a form of cultural expression, challenging the pressure to conform in a society that frequently overlooks the artistic contributions and cultural identity of minority groups. Join us as photojournalists, cultural curators, and artists discuss the historical impact of Lowrider culture and its multigenerational reach.

Kristin Bedford:
Photographer

Located at the intersection of aesthetics and social realism, Kristin Bedford’s photography explores race, visual stereotypes, and communal self-expression. Through long-term engagement with communities, Bedford makes photographs that invite us to reconsider prevalent visual narratives around cultural and spiritual movements. Bedford’s monograph Cruise Night (Damiani, 2021), an exploration of the Mexican American lowrider community in Los Angeles, was a best-selling photography book in the USA the year of its release. Her photographs have appeared in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe and are held in numerous private and public collections worldwide, including LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), the Library of Congress and the Archive of Documentary Arts at the Rubenstein Library.

Bedford has given talks internationally about her projects, including presentations at Photo Days Paris, Parsons School of Design, Photo Saint-Germain, Pop-Up Magazine and on numerous National Public Radio broadcasts. Her work has been featured in leading publications including The New York Times, The Guardian, Smithsonian Magazine, The Royal Photographic Society Journal, Aesthetica Magazine, The Telegraph, CNN, Esquire, POLKA Magazine and the British Journal of Photography. Bedford holds a B.A. from George Washington University, an A.A. from The Fashion Institute of Technology and an M.F.A. from Duke University. Born in Washington, D.C., she lives and works in Los Angeles.

Armando Flores:
Artist

Armando Flores is a highly skilled artisan renowned for his meticulous craftsmanship in creating Lowrider scale models. Hailing from Tijuana, Mexico, he migrated to California with his family amidst the burgeoning Lowrider movement of the early 1970s. The passion for his artistry blossomed during this transformative era, drawing inspiration from the vibrant culture and innovation driving the Lowrider scene in America.

Over the years, Armando has garnered numerous accolades for his extraordinary works, showcasing them in prestigious museums and galleries. His miniature marvels have captivated audiences and earned him recognition as a master model builder. Today, he continues to captivate audiences nationally and internationally, sharing his passion and expertise with admirers and enthusiasts worldwide.

Slow & Low: Chicago Lowrider Festival:

Established in 2011, Slow & Low: Chicago Lowrider Festival celebrates the heritage of Lowriders. This curated community-cultural exhibition explores and presents Lowrider culture as an original form of American folk and contemporary art. These customized cars are a way of expressing beauty and self-expression by their owners, master craftspeople, innovative mechanics, and modifications including wire wheel rims with whitewall tires, custom pinstriping and upholstery, airbrush muralism, and other contributing visual aesthetics and material objects.

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