Chicago State University faculty go on strike

Chicago Latino Film Festival runs April 13–23

The Chicago Latino Film Festival is back for its thirty-ninth year, holding it down as the longest-running Latino film festival in the country. Chicagoans can catch screenings from April 13–23. The majority of the screenings are being held at Landmark’s Century Centre Cinema, located at 2828 N. Clark St., featuring films from countries like El Salvador, Cuba, Brazil, Mexico, and Guatemala. The festival will screen movies across genres and styles too, from documentaries like Silence of the Mole, which follows the repressive regime of 70’s Guatemala, to the Mexican dark comedy, Love & Mathematics, about a one-hit boy band member who resumes their career later in life.

Part of the entourage of films is Chicago-based artist and director Glorimar Marrero Sanchez’s La Pecera, which translates to The Fishbowl. La Pecera was the first Puerto Rican film to premiere at Sundance and is Sanchez’s feature debut about a woman who discovers she has cancer and decides to dedicate the remainder of her life documenting the damaging U.S military intervention on the island. La Pecera will be screened twice, on April 14 and 16 with Sanchez scheduled to attend both. Tickets can be purchased online via ChicagoLatinoFilmFestival.org or in-person at the film’s showing. 

Rooted and Radical poetry festival

Rooted and Radical, Young Chicago Authors annual poetry festival, is underway. Formerly known as Louder Than A Bomb, the festivals recently concluded preliminary events featured poets from all over Chicago, as well as teams from surrounding suburbs and Indiana. These teams gathered on the South Side at The Dusable Museum to participate in “bouts” and watch others perform. While the former festival was a competition using points and scores to determine which students advanced, participants are now required to vote and nominate their peers for awards. The festival also featured free auxiliary events such as Emcee Olympics, a rap competition, and LatiNext, an open mic curated to celebrate the Latinx community. Participants have decided which students will move on to the Semi-Final event which will take place on April 15 at The Dusable Museum. The following week, a group of twenty All-Star poets will be chosen to perform at the festival’s culminating event, The Rooted and Radical Final Showcase. Finals will be held at The Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum on April 22. Tickets for both events are available on youngchicagoauthors.org

Chicago State University faculty go on strike

On Monday, April 3, members of the Chicago State University chapter of the University Professionals of Illinois (CSU UPI, IFT Local 4100) went on strike in order to secure a fair contract. Union members have been bargaining with the administration for nearly a year and were joined by undergraduate and graduate students from departments across campus at a rally at 95th and MLK Drive. Dr. Valerie Gross, president of CSU UPI and an alumnus of CSU herself, pointed out that CSU faculty are some of the lowest paid in the state compared to similar institutions. President Zaldwaynaka Scott, meanwhile, received a sixteen percent raise last year, putting her annual compensation at $475,000 by some estimates, and has apparently not attended a single bargaining session all year. UPI President John Miller spoke to the crowd, “This is the powerful voices of our faculty staff and students calling on President Scott to listen to our demands and invest in our classrooms. She has no problem investing in herself and her administration.” As of press time, faculty were still on strike.