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The Mexican Community Committee of South Chicago [MCC] was created sometime between 1959 and 1961 "to provide a youth welfare program under the leadership of local residents to meet the needs of the children in general and to help alleviate the problem of juvenile delinquency." ["8th Annual Banquet"]. Like its predecessor, the Russell Square Community Committee, which had served youth in the South Chicago neighborhood from 1934 to 1959, the MCC was sponsored by and received funds from the Chicago Area Project. Its principal goals originally were to assist Latino youth who had trouble with law enforcement. To do this, it maintained a close relationship with local schools and police officials. By the 1970s, large amounts of government funding enabled the MCC to expand its operations. It ran tutoring programs for elementary school children, it ran "a full-day camp program for several dozen youngsters during the summer," it aided "youngsters who had run away from home," and it offered help to senior citizens in the community. [Scholossman, p. 34] The MCC also an adult-education program called "Project Venceremos." This program "offered instruction in English as a Second Language, preparatory courses for a General Education Diploma, and Central YMCA college courses." [Schlossman, p. 35, footnote 3] The MCC appears to have closed sometime in the early 2000s. [Chicago History Museum]
Sources Consulted
"8th Annual Banquet Sponsored by the Mexican Community Committee of South Chicago," February 18, 1967, folder 9, box 1, Mexican Community of South Chicago records, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Illinois at Chicago.
Chicago History Museum. "Mexican Community Committee of South Chicago records, 1956-1999." [Finding Aid] 2010.
Schlossman, Steven, Gail Zellman, and Richard Shavelson, with Michael Sediak and Jane Cobb. "Delinquency Prevention in South Chicago: A Fifty-Year Assessment of the Chicago Area Project." Prepared for the National Institute of Education. Rand Corporation, 1984. http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2008/R3142.pdf . Accessed March 26, 2014.
This collection contains minutes, correspondence, event programs, and information on programs for youth that were run by the Mexican Community Center of South Chicago during its first decade. It also includes two pamphlets, one from 1920 and one from 1940, that deal with Mexico or U.S.-Mexico relations.
Access restrictions -- Available without restriction.
Use restrictions -- Available without restriction.
Mexican Community Committee of South Chicago Records, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Illinois at Chicago