Timeline of the Puerto Rican Community in Chicago
1998 The first Annual Cuatro Festival is held, sponsored by the Puerto Rican Arts Alliance. It has become the largest indoor Puerto Rican event in Chicago, attracting several thousand to each year’s sold-out performances.
1997 The Casita de Don Pedro is officially opened on the 4th Annual Fiesta Boricua during a special inauguration event with Puerto Rican icon Lolita Lebron. La Casita, a project of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center, is a garden-gallery created by students of teachers at Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos High…
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1993 The first Fiesta Boricua is held. This cultural extravaganza, which has grown to become one of the largest one-day outdoor festivals in the Midwest, draws close to 200,000 people from flag to flag along Paseo Boricua. Sponsored by 26th Ward Alderman Billy Ocasio and the Puerto Rican Cultural Center,…
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1993 The Puerto Rican community focuses on the struggle to erect a statue of Puerto Rican nationalist leader Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos in Humboldt Park. This struggle leads to the creation of Paseo Boricua two years later.
1993 Paseo Boricua, the commercial heart of Chicago’s Puerto Rican community, is officially inaugurated on January 6th, Three Kings Day, with the unveiling of two steel Puerto Rican flags which are 45 tons, 59 feet high, and 56 feet across. The flags are located on Division Street, one by Western…
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1992 Luis V. Gutiérrez is elected to U.S. Congress, becoming first Puerto Rican/Latino to serve from the Midwest. As a result of his tireless advocacy for progressive issues such as the end to the bombing in Vieques and legalization for the 11 million undocumented workers in the United States, Gutiérrez…
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