Archival Images

1970-1979

The first full decade where the central population of Lafayette was Puerto Rican and Black (see the “Comprehensive Timeline” page to learn historical context for the shift in demographics). This decade comes with an increase of Black and brown teachers, not only allowing the shifting demographics of students to see themselves in their teachers more but many hearing themselves through language by having more bilingual teachers than ever before. In 1974, a group of 160 teachers from Puerto Rico flew on a plane to Chicago to meet the growing need for Bilingual educators in Chicago. Many of these teachers ended up teaching at Humboldt Park schools like Lafayette Elementary, Chopin Elementary, Von Humboldt Elementary, Clemente High School, etc. In addition, a notable part of this decade was the removal of 10 or so rows of chairs in 1972 to accommodate the cultural shift of everyone staying at school for lunch instead of going home for lunch (as cultural norms of expectations for mothers started to shift especially in the early 1970s). In 2014, the stage of the auditorium was built outward in this open space accommodating the programming at ChiArts High Schools, but the open space can be seen below in a handful of these archival images.