Mexicans

In These Times is a political magazine, focusing on leftist ideals, activism, and the socially disenfranchised.

<em>Near West Side Stories: Struggles for Community in Chicago's Maxwell Street Neighborhood</em> is an ongoing story of unequal power in Chicago. Four representatives of immigrant and migrant groups that have had a distinct territorial presence in the area&mdash;one Jewish, one Italian, one African-American, and one Mexican&mdash;reminisce fondly on life in the old neighborhood and tell of their struggles to save it and the 120-year-old Maxwell Street Market that was at its core. <p> <em>Near West Side Stories</em> brings this saga of community strife up to date, while giving a voice to the everyday people who were routinely discounted or ignored in the big decisions that affected their world. Though slaying that dragon&mdash;fending off the encroachments of those wielding great power&mdash;was nearly impossible, we see in the details of their lives the love for a place that compelled Harold, Florence, Nate, and Hilda to make the quest.</p>

"The stories presented here tell tales of a new Chicago, a Chicago that, like the Scott Mutter montage that fronts this book, is made up of diverse images that suggest new ways of seeing. They provide alternative interpretations of life in the city. What you will find in this collection is a a multi-cultural neighborhood in print, a neighborhood which has yet to surface on Chicago streets, one which is perhaps still years away in a city that touts its culturally plural make-up while still enforcing rigid boundaries between segregated neighborhoods. Murder by industrial pollution (often masked by self-abuse), racism, homophobia, the disintegration of family life, the struggle for control of one's own body and mind, the troubles facing a growing elderly population, the subjugation of minority cultures to the rich, the white, the male, are all issues confronted by the writers of these stories. They speak through a range of voices, creating a new, urgent sense of Chicago Realism. These storytellers provide testimony to a new Chicago, a Chicago that while steeped in American tradition challenges the narrow boundaries of its stereotype. They speak to a changing America, an America that has awakened from decades of a false, prosperity-driven revelry with a reality hangover. They speak of an America that must now begin to turn its attention to the social and environmental problems it has too long ignored." - From the back cover