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Little Village’s Mexican identity sustained it during COVID-19. That community spirit may also be ‘the ticket out’ of the pandemic recession.

On 26th Street near Kostner Avenue, a mile and a half from the terra-cotta arch that serves as the gateway to Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood, a small plaza is named for a Mexican American U.S. Army soldier.

The focal point of Manuel Perez Jr. Memorial Plaza is a monument honoring Perez, who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for service during World War II. The space, one of the few open areas in a densely populated neighborhood, has been the site of local veterans’ ceremonies and, more recently, a Christmas tree lighting, but is in need of repair.

This summer the plaza again will host Mercado de Colores, a weekly open-air market selling organic produce and handmade goods reminiscent of markets found in villages across Mexico.

Often cited as the second-highest grossing shopping district in Chicago after the Magnificent Mile, Little Village’s identity is on full display on 26th Street — from the street vendors who sell elotes, or corn on the cob, to the arch with its “Bienvenidos a Little Village” sign greeting visitors.

Little Village’s community relied on that Mexican flair — the opportunity to converse in Spanish, the cheaper goods and services, the authentic cuisine and street vendors — as many businesses struggled to keep their doors open last year.

As Chicago anticipates a full reopening by June 11, local businesses and community advocates say its Mexican identity will be key to the neighborhood’s recovery.

“The more they leverage the cultural identity, the more successful they will be,” said Kim Close, chief operating officer of the Little Village Community Foundation. “People are always going to come to Little Village for something, even just nostalgia. That’s the ticket out of it.”

Started last summer by a local nonprofit, the market at Perez Plaza is one of 16 projects recently approved for a total of $2.3 million in funding through Chicago Alfresco, a city grant program aimed at improving Chicago’s outdoor dining and community gathering spaces.

The market, which has grown from 10 vendors last year to 17, is expected to draw more visitors to the far end of Little Village’s 26th Street shopping corridor, widely known across the Midwest as a destination for authentic Mexican culture. But for the women of the nonprofit Un Nuevo Despertar — A New Awakening, an organization that supports victims of domestic violence, the market is more than a boost for the local economy.

“We’re doing this because it’s a part of our culture,” said Maria Diaz, who works at the organization. “In Mexico a lot of what we do is outdoors, and people love that. It’s a way of coming together. It’s a way of connecting, and also what’s being offered in the Mercado is handmade. So that is something we have kind of lost throughout the years, and it’s sad because it’s part of our culture.”

The Little Village Community Foundation secured the $100,000 Chicago Alfresco grant, which includes $75,000 for infrastructure improvements at Perez Plaza and $25,000 for programming. Choose Chicago, the city’s tourism bureau, is administering the Alfresco program and recently named Little Village one of 10 neighborhoods it is promoting through a new neighborhood tourism initiative. A product of the COVID-19 task force spearheading the city’s recovery, the program is investing $800,000 to fund social media and other marketing efforts highlighting Chicago’s neighborhoods.

The neighborhoods Choose Chicago is promoting aren’t necessarily tourist destinations, but several are near areas more popular with visitors, said Rob Fojtik, director of neighborhood strategy for Choose Chicago. The list also includes Chinatown, Pullman, South Shore, Bronzeville, Garfield Park, Humboldt Park, Albany Park, West Ridge and Uptown.

Choose Chicago is working with community groups to decide how to promote the neighborhoods and studying how visitors to Chicago travel and spend their money across the city, whether they come for a convention, to attend a sporting event or to visit family.

“I think neighborhoods are our differentiator in Chicago,” Fojtik said. “They’re what make us unique and interesting. It is a window onto the world. You don’t need a passport, and we would be foolish not to make it a cornerstone of everything we do when we promote our city.”

In the 60623 ZIP code that includes Little Village, the dollar value of sales dropped about 9% in 2020 from the previous year, according to a Tribune analysis of monthly sales tax collections from the Illinois Department of Revenue. In the 60616 ZIP code that includes Chinatown, the dollar value of sales decreased about 29%

Unlike other parts of the city that rely on traditional tourists, cultural destinations like Little Village depend on residents and visitors who identify with the ethnic background of those places, said Stacey Sutton, an associate professor of urban planning and policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Population density is another factor that has helped cultural enclaves like Little Village stay afloat during the pandemic, Sutton said. “You have enough people to support that corridor,” she said.

Little Village’s cultural identity plays an important role in the community’s efforts to restart in-person events after a quiet 2020.

The Little Village Chamber of Commerce is seeking a city permit to host the annual Mexican Independence Day Parade, which the chamber organizes each year in September and draws about 400,000 spectators, said Executive Director Ivette Treviño. Last year, the chamber canceled the parade because of restrictions on large gatherings, so families celebrated by organizing a caravan of cars, waving the Mexican flag through the Loop and on Lake Shore Drive.

In February, the chamber surveyed 438 businesses along the 26th Street corridor, 36 of which closed permanently because of the pandemic, Treviño said. But the wave of closures some experts predicted nationally did not materialize in Little Village, even though many Latino-owned businesses did not benefit from government coronavirus aid programs, she said.

“We will open up our own business with our personal savings, or we will borrow money from family,” she said. “We definitely bootstrap our business, and we don’t go out and look for loans, venture capital or equity investments. It’s just not in our culture.”

That longtime community support helped many Little Village stores through the pandemic.

Sergio Sanchez, owner of Sanchez Bike Repair, said he didn’t apply for federal assistance because business was strong last year as people avoided public transit and demand for bicycles and repairs increased. But Sanchez cites other reasons for his success.

“I think it’s because we are cheaper than most other bike shops, and people come to me for same-day repairs,” he said. “And other people, especially customers from the suburbs and Indiana, make the drive and come to me in confidence because I can speak Spanish. We can communicate better.”

Evelyn Flores, owner of the quinceañera dress shop Alborada, received a $23,000 loan last year through the Chicago Small Business Resiliency Fund, a loan program the city launched to aid small businesses during the pandemic. But it wasn’t enough, she said.

What kept Flores’ business running was support from the community, especially Latino families. Nearly 40% of her shoppers are from neighboring states, with people from Ohio accounting for the bulk of those customers, she said.

“Throughout the years, we have built a loyal clientele,” Flores said. “And they are the ones that have saved us.”

On a recent Friday, Guadalupe Lugo, of Posen, visited Little Village and bought a few snacks from a street vendor. Lugo, 30, lived in the neighborhood for about 15 years until moving because of the crime level in the area. But she still visits regularly to support the Mexican community.

“We as Mexicans can find certain things here we can’t at other places,” she said. “That’s why it’s important (for me) to spend my money here. Our blood is here and our roots are here.”

Last spring, as many businesses were forced to close during a statewide shutdown to minimize the spread of COVID-19, neighbors would stop by La Catedral Cafe and Restaurant to buy a cup of coffee or a carryout meal, owner Ambrocio Gonzalez said.

“We thought we were going to close because no one was going to come by and get anything,” he said. “But we were wrong because we had all the neighbors going there, even for a small thing.”

Now, to prepare for the boom in summer business as the city fully reopens, Gonzalez is looking to expand. Space inside the restaurant is tight, so he recently obtained a zoning change to open a patio at the vacant property next door.

As businesses in the neighborhood look to make a full recovery, Gonzalez said they have another worry on their plates — crime. Recent fatal police shootings of Adam Toledo and Anthony Alvarez weigh heavily on the community, Gonzalez said.

“We don’t just worry about the pandemic now,” he said. “We have to worry about the safety of the neighborhood, the guests, the employees, our safety, the safety of the children and everyone. It gets frustrating for all of us.”

The women at Un Nuevo Despertar are no strangers to the effects of violence. They hope Mercado de Colores can bring positive change by providing an outdoor gathering place, and a source for naturally made products that will reconnect residents with their roots, Diaz said.

They also hope visitors to Little Village will see the neighborhood is about more than the crime they may read about in the headlines.

“It’s opening the door to a new beginning. It’s opening the door to showing people that, no, it’s not just violence, because violence is an act of one or a few people,” Diaz said. “But it’s not the entire community.

“Unfortunately, a few bad apples have given Little Village a bad name,” she said. “But if you look beyond that, you see it’s absolutely gorgeous.”