Over a century has passed since the first wave of Mexican immigrants arrived in Chicago, many directly recruited by railroad companies. However, the history of Mexican and Mexican-American traqueros (railroad workers) in the Midwest remains overlooked. Through a community collection process and archival research, Ismael Cuevas will discuss the curatorial process of his inaugural exhibition, “Rieles y Raíces: Traqueros in Chicago and the Midwest,” which debuted at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago and ran from November 2025 through April 2026.
“Rieles y Raíces (tracks and roots)” aims to tell the story of traqueros (section hand workers) and the boxcar communities he discovered often built along the rieles (rails) they maintained.
Tuesday, July 14, 2026, at 7:00 pm Central Time
(8 pm Eastern, 6 pm Mountain, and 5 pm Pacific)
Ismael Cuevas is an independent scholar and a community curator. He is currently employed at the Chicago Park District as the Director of Legislative and Community Affairs. Using local archives, he analyzes the historical record through a political lens to write about Black and Latino communities in Chicago.
Ismael received his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his M.A. degree in Mexican American and Latina/o Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. In his free time, he is burping his newborn boy with one hand while the other hand is researching Mexican railroaders in the Calumet Region for the forthcoming chapter in a book titled Latinos in Northwest Indiana: History, Culture, and Community.
Don’t miss this fascinating presentation!
