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Compared to the Southwest, Kansas had a much smaller Mexican population. Thus, community formation, often close to places of work and worship, was vital to foster a sense of belonging in a foreign place. Topeka resident Natividad Morales described that “I think the beautiful part of all this is the unity of our people that stuck together. They protected one another. They saved their money. We couldn’t spend it nowhere. We were not allowed in any of the city parks at all, much less swim.”[1] He then used the term colonia or colony to describe this newfound  built community. Morales explained that the term colonia conveyed a sense of group solidarity amongst the newly arrived Mexican people.[2] Although looking at Mexicans in South Chicago, Latinx Historian Michael Innis-Jimenez describes a “third space” created by Mexican immigrants in the Midwest to ameliorate feelings of isolation. The third space included “sites for celebrations, sports venues, mutual aid societies, and other alternative areas where Mexicans could work against the effects of discrimination.”[3] Innis-Jimenez insisted on the inclusion of cultural celebrations as spaces of resistance because he claimed that when members of the community came together to celebrate a cultural holiday that they “visibly represented and enacted their Mexican culture.”[4] 

 

[1] Morales, 3.

[2] Morales, 3.

[3] Michael Innis-Jiménez, Steel Barrio: The Great Mexican Migration to South Chicago, 1915-1940, Culture, Labor, History Series (New York: NYU Press, 2013), 213.

[4] Innis-Jiménez, 11.