Mexicans in Chicago: Honoring the Legacy of Dr. Louise Año Nuevo Kerr Conference
Event Summary
The Mexicans in Chicago conference was held on September 16, 2016, from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. in Illinois Room B at UIC Student Center East, 750 S. Halsted Street. Hosted by UIC’s Latin American and Latino Studies program, the free, daylong event brought together more than 225 scholars, students, artists, and community leaders to honor the life, scholarship, and institutional leadership of Dr. Louise Año Nuevo Kerr.
Conference sessions drew inspiration from Dr. Kerr’s influential 1976 dissertation, The Chicano Experience in Chicago: 1920–1970, which documented the growth of Chicago’s Mexican population and examined how employment in the railroad, meatpacking, and steel industries shaped migration and community formation. Participants discussed Mexican life in Chicago before and after 1945, as well as the lasting importance of Dr. Kerr’s research to Latino studies, urban history, and Chicana scholarship.
The program featured an opening keynote by historian Deena J. González, who reflected on Dr. Kerr’s pioneering role as one of the earliest Latina historians in the United States. Jesús “Chuy” García, a UIC alumnus and Cook County commissioner, delivered the closing keynote remarks. Throughout the conference, speakers emphasized how Dr. Kerr’s work brought greater visibility to Mexican communities in Chicago’s historical record and continued to influence scholarship, public history, and community engagement.