‘Unwavering spirit’: Fest celebrating Mexican culture returns to Glendale Heights

Immigrant Solidarity DuPage’s Monarch Butterfly Festival offers an evening of Mexican music, culture, food, and community celebration from 4 to 11 p.m. Friday, Aug. 7, at Camera Park, 101 E. Fullerton Ave. in Glendale Heights.

Live cultural performances will showcase the diverse traditions spanning immigrant communities in DuPage County. Local food vendors also will offer authentic flavors from across the Americas.

After last year’s cancellation, brought on by significant challenges facing the immigrant community and fears surrounding the beginning of Operation Midway Blitz, the festival’s revival stands as a powerful symbol of resilience.

“The Monarch Butterfly Festival has always colorfully and powerfully represented transformation and endurance,” said Gaby Hernández Chico of Immigrant Solidarity DuPage. “Its return this year reflects the unwavering spirit of our immigrant families, who continue to rise, rebuild, and flourish despite adversity. Like the monarch, immigrants pollinate and consistently improve our communities.”

This year’s festival, themed “Cultural Resistance,” will highlight how preserving culture and community is a powerful form of resistance.

The Art Corridor will feature a live, on-site painted mural honoring Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez and an additional art installation featuring distinguished Chicago-based Mexican artists and muralists famous for their noteworthy and culturally important work in Pilsen, including Hector Duarte, Roberto Ferreyra, Alma Dominguez, Patricia Acosta, Gabriela Juarez and Leticia Servín.

The musical entertainment will feature the Mexican rock bands Los Corb and El Circo, as well as the Zacatecas-style band Banda Super Ranchera.

Also performing will be the intergenerational Chicago-area dance collective Calpulli Ocelotl-Cihuacoatl and the Huehuecoyotl Aztec Dancers, as well as Colectivo El Pozo, a Chicago-based bilingual Spanish-language theater company.

Attendees also can join in family-friendly activities celebrating the monarch butterfly’s ecological and cultural significance.

Stop by the community resource booths connecting attendees with Immigrant Solidarity DuPage programs, advocacy efforts, and volunteer opportunities.

“It is a very difficult time politically and economically for our community with ICE raids, high gas and food prices, fear of going to work, etc.,” said Hernández Chico, who is also co-director of the Casa DuPage Workers Center. “But we continue forward bravely and we are reminded by history that the best of the Mexican community, and what we are most proud of, is our culture and our people.”

“This year's Monarch Festival is inspired by the monarch butterfly itself,” said Cristobal Cavazos of Immigrant Solidarity DuPage. “Reminding us to live to the fullest, in spite of obstacles. The colorful wings of our souls will take flight — not to escape, but to find our strength!”

To make a donation to Immigrant Solidarity DuPage, visit immigrantsolidaritydupage.net/donate.