In “Making Mexican Chicago: From Postwar Settlement to the Age of Gentrification,” Mike Amezcua explores how the Windy City became a Latinx metropolis in the second half of the twentieth century, offering a powerful multiracial history of Chicago that sheds new light on the origins and endurance of urban inequality.

The story of how La Villita and Chicago’s other Mexican enclaves developed is the subject of “Making Mexican Chicago: From Postwar Settlement to the Age of Gentrification.” The book walks the streets of the city’s Mexican communities and explores the history of the forces that shaped them.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot delivers remarks at a news conference Thursday, April 15, 2021 ahead of the release of police body camera video showing the March 29 death of 13-year-old Adam Toledo. (WTTW News via Chicago Mayor’s Office livestream)

Bodycam video released in the shooting death of 13-year-old Adam Toledo. Demonstrators across the city respond. CTU and CPS strike a deal on return to high school. And Obama Center on track.

Troy Hernandez, an environmental justice activist with Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization shows a piece of lead pipe obtained from his residence during his home renovation, Friday, April 9, 2021 in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. Hernandez recently spent $15,000 to replace the lead service lines bringing water into his home. (AP Photo / Shafkat Anowar)
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 In the modest bungalows and two-flats of Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood, there’s never a shortage of needed home repairs staring residents in the face. And then there is the less obvious but more ominous problem lurking in their pipes.

Since launching the Student Outreach and Re-engagement centers, or SOAR, Chicago Public Schools has helped 170 former high school dropouts earn their diplomas. Find out how the program works and what students are saying about it.