1) Support increased access to arts and support local artists in the Mexican community.  Arts practice provides critical opportunities for developing civic skills, building social support networks, and economic participation. Through engaging in informal arts and through continued and constant innovation of cultural practices, Mexican immigrants are creating significant social resources and reaching out to non-immigrants. The broad range of arts and cultural practices documented in this study are a vital part of the social fabric of the Mexican community.  Supporting arts and cultural practices through funding initiatives, more availability of public space, and recognition and validation of their importance will be a major contribution to assuring that Mexican immigrants can continue to contribute to the economic and social development of the Chicago Metropolitan region.  Local artists are a growing sector of the community and their efforts to foster creativity, promote transnational relations, contribute to educational efforts and neighborhood vitality should be recognized and supported by public and private institutions.

2) Support institutions, such as churches, social service organizations, public parks, libraries, and small businesses that serve as critical sites for Mexican artistic and cultural practices.  Also support the individuals within them who are bridges between recent Mexican immigrants who are predominantly limited or non-English speaking and non-Mexicans in Chicago communities who are limited or non-Spanish speaking.  The cultural bridging that these institutions facilitate and make possible are invaluable to the greater understanding and increased possibility for civic action for the collective good involving both Mexican and non-Mexican community residents.

3) Expand opportunities for immigrants to obtain employment training, English as a Second Language, and information on rights and responsibilities.   This study documented the initiatives and strategies that immigrant workers are taking to improve their livelihood under difficult conditions.   

4) Support school-based efforts to use arts and cultural education and increase arts education opportunities for teachers. Many schools serve as important sites for parents’ and students’ broader civic engagement, whether in relation to security and community policing, public health, or other issues of concern to neighborhoods and cities.  Data from the study indicate that teachers who incorporate the arts and culturally specific content and forms in their classes—including in non-arts focused courses—can simultaneously teach basic concepts, affirm students’ family and ethnic/racial experiences and identities, and encourage curiosity among students about their own and other students’ cultural uniqueness.  Teachers should be encouraged to expose their students and themselves to the diversity of Mexican culture (for example, by taking trips to predominantly Mexican neighborhoods in the Chicago area, to Mexican artistic and cultural events in Chicago.)  Study data also suggest that teachers who incorporate Mexican subjects and forms in bilingual events for parents also provide a point of entrée for parents to engage in the schools and become partners with teachers in assuring children’s successful educational development.  This approach allows schools, teachers and parents to shift away from a deficit-based to an asset-based relationship between families and schools in which parents are regarded as valuable and knowledgeable practitioners of personal and collective artistic and cultural practices and traditions. Arts education opportunities for parents at schools should also be increased so that they can become equal partners with teachers in the school-based element of their child’s educational development.

5) Create an information-sharing mechanism by convening local researchers, government personnel, hometown federations and other immigrant organizations, and social service organizations to facilitate information sharing, improve services to immigrants and strengthen support networks.  Creating an information-sharing mechanism through which organizations, researchers and city government personnel can remain informed of one another’s missions, objectives and projects will make delivery of social services more efficient.  This information-sharing could catalyze more effective and informed collaboration to build on the assets and meet the needs of the Chicago area recent Mexican immigrant population, including its informal and formal artists and cultural practitioners.

6) Support legislative efforts at the Federal and State levels to allow undocumented students in America’s junior high schools and high schools to apply for legal status if they have good moral character and have lived in the U.S. for at least five years.  With legal status, these students can go to college and eventually become U.S. citizens.  In addition, undocumented students who are college bound would be able to pay in-state tuition (rather than foreign student tuitions, which are typically much higher).


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