En Español
In case your eye caught the woven strands of pink and orange yarn or the acquainted triangular patterns, you would possibly assume you have been within the mountains of Colombia or the seashores of Mexico. Nevertheless, even when you had by no means left Illinois, these items of wearable artwork would nonetheless be inside arms attain.
Kilk is an organization devoted to selling the work of South American artisans and bringing Latinx tradition to Chicago. It sells luggage, earrings, blankets, and extra that characterize Latin American artwork. Nevertheless, like every ardour challenge, this enterprise started with an thought.
Lorena Vargas, a Mexican lady dwelling in Chicago, began her firm, Kilk, after touring by way of 37 completely different nations.
Simply two months in the past, Vargas was nonetheless working full-time, reminiscing about her travels over the previous two years. Vargas defined that she hadn’t traveled hoping to begin an organization. As an alternative, she discovered inspiration from the folks she met on her travels world wide.
“You meet these artisans, you meet their households, you see their houses, you see how they work, and also you see how they dwell. The abilities to make these merchandise have been handed down from technology to technology,” Vargas defined.
Whereas pointing to a multicolored flowered bag she added, “There are generations of ardour in these works.”
Vargas has been selling Kilk by way of a number of pop-ups, together with the Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Expo. In line with Vargas, Chicago’s Latino neighborhood loves with the ability to carry their tradition within the type of luggage or clothes.
Vargas stresses the significance of understanding that Latin America is made up of a number of nations with utterly completely different cultures. She needs her firm to mirror the great thing about these variations.
In line with the Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Chicago has the fifth largest focus of Hispanic-owned companies in the US.
Vargas and different Latinos in Chicago, are integrating their tradition into the framework of town and its folks, one bag at a time.
Gabriela Hamburger Medailleu is an Worldwide Research and Journalism scholar at Northwestern College, working in direction of a profession in photograph and video journalism. She has labored as a videographer for Chicago’s non-profit FORA, and has produced tales for Northwestern Information Community. She is initially from Massachusetts, and her household is from Cali, Colombia. Her work has a lens of social justice, grassroots activism, and neighborhood views.
Writer’s Notes: This story, amongst others, was produced by undergraduate college students within the bilingual reporting class at Northwestern College’s Medill Faculty of Journalism, Media & Built-in Advertising Communications.
Led by Prof. Mei-Ling Hopgood, the category goals to assist journalism college students apply delicate and moral engagement and reporting with multicultural communities in Spanish and English. College students visited the Illinois Chamber of Commerce Enterprise Expo at Navy Pier final fall and interviewed native enterprise homeowners.
