Exhibit spotlights Mexican American heritage in Aurora

Leo Zarko pointed out his grandfather and a young girl he thought to be his mother in a photo that is part of the Mexican-American exhibit on display at the Aurora Historical Society.

“I’m excited about it. I think this is amazing. I think it’s great someone is chronicling it for Aurora,” he said.

Zarko’s grandfather, George Gonzalez, became a community leader in the original Mexican-American community that migrated to Aurora in the 1920s to work on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. The older ones among his nine children, which included Zarko’s mother, Dorothy (Vera), lived in the boxcars that the railroad provided for housing in Eola, an unincorporated community adjacent to Aurora.

“She told us how difficult it was,” Zarko said.

Zarko had brought in family photos of his own to add to the display.

That’s exactly the reaction that the exhibit “Creating Mexican-American Identities: Multiple Voices, Shared Dreams” is intended to evoke from those who come to see it, said John Jaros, executive director of the Aurora Historical Society.

“The photos are key because that’s where people can really spot their relatives,” he said.

The exhibit first was shown two years ago at West Chicago City Museum, where it had been put together with funding from the Illinois Humanities Council and the History Channel. Written in Spanish and English, the display includes panels documenting the two Mexican boxcar communities of railroad workers that existed in West Chicago, but the exhibit also was designed to travel, said Sally DeFauw, curator of West Chicago City Museum.

“We realized there were many other communities that had significant Hispanic populations with similar stories,” DeFauw said.

The exhibit moved to the Elgin Public Library before coming to Aurora, where it will remain up through Oct. 14.

Mexican heritage

The Aurora Historical Society has added photos and information provided by the Aurora Hispanic Heritage Advisory Board as well as by Mexican-American families in Aurora to the exhibit, Jaros said.

Prominent among them are the Nila family, whose patriarch, Senobio Nila, died in 2008 just two months shy of his 107th birthday. Hector Jordan, Aurora’s first Hispanic police officer and a U.S. special narcotics agent, had a sister who married into the Nila family. Jordan was beaten to death by a gang in 1970, but his nephew, Michael Nila, became the highest ranking Hispanic officer in the police department before retiring in 1999.

Michael’s sister, Dilia Nila Basile, an employee of the city of Aurora’s public information office, was the grandniece of Senobio Nila and granddaughter of Senobio’s older brother, Augustine. She said her grandfather had worked on the railroad in several states before settling in Aurora and raised his four children with the help of other relatives after his wife died.

Both the Nila and Jordan families were honored when streets were named after them, Nila Avenue and Hector Jordan Way.

“Like so many other immigrants, the Augustine and Senobio Nilas of the world quietly lived a life of contribution through hard work, sacrifice and commitment; owned homes, raised families and paved the way for future generations to prosper,” Basile, a member of the city’s Hispanic heritage advisory board, wrote in an email.

The Aurora area boxcar community grew to 1,000 by the late 1920s. The railroads had turned south of the border to recruit workers after a 1921 law restricted immigration from Europe, Jaros said. Mexicans fleeing the unrest unleashed by the Mexican Revolution, from 1910 to 1920, looked to the United States for a better life.

At the Burlington reclamation plant in Eola, the Mexican workers recycled parts from railroad cars and engines. The boxcar camp they lived in closed in 1934 because many workers were deported back to Mexico during the Great Depression, Jaros said.

However, several Mexican families stayed, bought homes on the northeast side of the Aurora, and found work in factories.

Stories to share

Subsequent migrations started in the 1960s and by the 1970s, several of Aurora’s Catholic parishes had become primarily Hispanic, Jaros said. According the 2010 U.S. Census, Aurora’s population of nearly 198,000 is now 41 percent Hispanic.

“A lot of people think it’s a recent phenomenon. In big numbers, it is. (But) there’s families that were here in 1923,” Jaros said.

The first Mexican communities were self-contained and there appeared to be few racial tensions, Jaros said.

“A lot of the sons of these original immigrants served in World War II,” he said. “They considered themselves Americans.”

Zarko said his grandfather settled in Aurora and felt strongly about keeping the family’s Mexican heritage alive.

“He was a quiet man, but very strict,” he said.

Zarko said the exhibit has given him the chance to match up names of relatives that he remembers hearing about as a kid at family get-togethers. He’s posted news about the exhibit on his Facebook page and is telling friends.

“What an opportunity to share,” he said.

Anyone with stories, photos, documents or artifacts to share about Aurora’s Mexican heritage may contact (630) 906-0650 or ">ahs@aurorahistory.net.

If you go

What: Exhibit titled “Creating Mexican-American Identities: Multiple Voices, Shared Dreams”

Where: David L. Pierce Art and History Center, 20 E. Downer Place, Aurora

When: Noon to 4 p.m. Wednesday to Friday through Oct. 14

Cost: Free; donations accepted

Info: (630) 906-0650