latino

Candidates and interest groups have been doing all they can for months to try to attract voters to the polls on Tuesday. But there’s one group of people they may not be reaching effectively: Milwaukee's Latino voters.

That might be because it's hard to characterize the Latino voting population. Immigration, for instance, isn't at the top of the list for all Latino voters.

For more than a quarter century, Latino Arts, Inc. has been celebrating Latino culture through music and art. From the Mariachi orchestra made up of local school children, to hosting international musical acts and artists in its facilities within the United Community Center on the near south side, Latino Arts serves as a model for arts education, urban youth development and cultural engagement.

The new Mexican Consulate in Milwaukee was formally inaugurated this afternoon. Among those taking part were Mexican Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu and Gov. Scott Walker.

The consulate, located at 1443 N. Prospect, will provide services for Mexican nationals, such as help in procuring legal documents.

Original story from February 16, 2016:

All Lismari Montes, 15, had to do was find the bottle of prescribed sleeping pills that were hidden in her parent’s room. “I’m done” was all she could think as she walked upstairs to her room, yearning for escape from her exhausting fight with depression.

Anger drove her to this point. She was angry at her family and herself. “I like to think of it as a snowball,” she said. “It went from this little tiny issue … to the point where I didn’t think [it] was worth living.”

It probably comes as no surprise to hear that the Latino population in the Milwaukee area is skyrocketing. As with many cities around the country, people of Latino descent represent a much larger proportion of the population at large than at any other time in the nation’s history.

The strings program at the near-south side's Latino Arts has been hailed for providing top-notch education, free of charge, to low-income Latino students across Milwaukee. 

One highlight of the programs is their annual Guitar Festival for area youth. In fact, it was such a success that it grew to include not just a student competition, but also master classes for the whole community.

To mark May Day, the start of May when advocates for immigrant rights rally across the country, we explore the lives and work of several local Latino poets. The breadth of their work has been growing, right along with the population.

Latinos now make up the largest minority group in Wisconsin – at 350,000 strong, but Oscar Mireles knows, it wasn’t always this way.

“I did a lot of traveling when I was in my 20s, and first question when people found out I was Chicano and I was from Wisconsin they go “I didn’t know there were Chicanos or Latinos in Wisconsin,” Mireles says.

Among the many cultural events that Milwaukee’s Latino Arts has put on over the years, the musical offerings are among the most distinctive.