From Venezuela to Chicago: The History of a Mass Migration
Wednesday, September 16, 2026
4:00 p.m.
Frick Center, Founders Lounge
Contact Information
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Antonio Ramirez is an associate professor of history at Elgin Community College (ECC), where he directs the Chicagolandia Oral History Project, which documents the lives and work of Latinos in the Chicago suburbs. Ramirez also co-founded and directs ECC’s Center for Civic Engagement, a nonpartisan, student-led campus political education center. He is this year’s Sylvia Mendez lecturer. This lecture is named for the civil rights activist who, as a child in 1944, was at the center of a landmark federal court case that ended school segregation in California, paving the way for the nationwide Brown v. Board of Education decision.
The Sylvia Mendez Lecture
Admission is free but reservations are encouraged.