Immigrant Solidarity DuPage Cultural Committee

“OUR MISSION IS TO EDUCATE, ORGANIZE, AND MOBILIZE DUPAGE COUNTY AROUND THE RIGHTS AND COLLECTIVE STRUGGLES OF THE LATINO COMMUNITY.”

Formed in Glendale Heights in 2007 by members of the Latino community, members and clergy from local houses of worship, labor movement activists and diverse social justice advocates. The formation of Immigrant Solidarity Dupage, reflects the changing demographic and social dynamic of Dupage County Illinois, a county located west of Chicago. Since the 1990’s Dupage, often perceived as an affluent and homogenous county, has seen substantial growth of the Latino community which settled in the county during times of economic growth which brought to the county many new jobs in the service sector, material handling and construction. Such growth coincided with the collapse of the Mexican economy in the 1990s creating a push-pull dynamic of thousands of people pushed out of Latin America and pulled into Dupage County.

The growth of the Latino community in Dupage is often met with a weak suburban-institutional structure. Suburban Latinos are often without institutional, governmental, political or economic support structures and representation. As such, the Dupage Latino community has frequently been the target of police racial profiling, labor abuse, housing discrimination, and scapegoating by local elected officials for short-term political gain.

Immigrant Solidarity Dupage was founded to combat these abuses and empower the Latino community initiating an energetic outreach campaign of educational forums, workshops, press conferences, rallies, cultural events and other mobilizations. The group also has taken many calls from all over Chicagoland aiding and supporting Latino workers and their families in many personal and collective struggles.