Travel agencies offer specials to Guadalajara and Morelia. ÁGuanajuato, como te extra–o!–Guanajuato, how I miss you!–moans a popular bumper sticker. Souped-up car stereos and music store megaphones blast ranchera music, and the whole street moves along in an oompah-pah of melodramatic lyrics about love and lost girlfriends, living mojado (that’s “wet,” as in “wetback”), and borracheras, drinking binges. Two blocks north of where the Mendozas landed, the long heart of Pilsen stretches out: La Dieciocho, 18th Street. Pablo bought a used double bed and dresser with the earnings from his first two gigs, and a couple weeks later the family moved down the street into its own apartment. The mariachi leader found the family a single room in the back of an apartment at 18th Place and Loomis, a stone’s throw from the Church’s Chicken parking lot on Blue Island, where band members met before playing a job. “They told my husband, ‘If you want to work with us, you’ve got to come to 18th Street,'” says Elvia. The only condition was that the Mendozas, who were staying with a relative in the northwest suburbs, move to the neighborhood. By Friday, Pablo, a trumpet player, had work with a mariachi band. They reached the Chicago area on a Monday in 1995. Ten days after Pablo and Elvia Mendoza ran across the Mexico-Arizona border with their three small children, they found themselves in Pilsen. ![]() ![]() Best of Chicago 2022: Sports & Recreation. ![]() Best of Chicago 2022: Music & Nightlife.
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