Migrants’ first Christmas in Chicagoland

The Nativity set inside the house in Oak Park was complete with all the typical figurines, except one conspicuously missing piece: The baby Jesus won’t be displayed until Christmas Eve, per a long-standing tradition from Venezuela brought by a group of migrants who found an unexpected home in this western suburb.

They set up the creche a few days before Christmas with their host, 69-year-old Elaine Pierce, a retiree with terminal cancer who recently opened her three-bedroom home to a half-dozen asylum-seekers in need of housing.

Over the summer, Pierce had read in her church bulletin that a local nonprofit was seeking food and blankets for new arrivals, as busloads of asylum-seekers were sent to Chicago from southern states, spurring a local migrant crisis that continues to mount. Pierce had offered to let a few new arrivals live in the extra rooms of her roughly 1,000-square-foot house, where she’d previously been living alone.

“What they really needed was a place to stay,” Pierce said. “I just thought this was the right thing to do. … I am so grateful for the gifts I’ve been given all my life that I have to give something back.”

More than 26,000 migrants have come to Chicago since in late 2022 — some by bus and some by plane — many living here in makeshift shelters and other temporary housing. As many of them celebrate their first Christmas in the United States, various volunteers, nonprofits and churches across the Chicago area are planning seasonal events and gift giveaways to make their holidays a little brighter amid so much turmoil.

Ss. Genevieve and Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr Parish in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood is scheduled to host a Christmas event in the parish hall Saturday that will include lunch and distribution of gifts, as well as piñatas and carnival games for children. Volunteers from St. Giles Catholic Parish in Oak Park planned to bring presents to migrants housed at the Carleton of Oak Park Hotel on Christmas Eve.

Saint Pauls United Church of Christ in Lincoln Park had housed four Venezuelan families for several months over the summer; last weekend, the church held two Christmas parties for them as well as other families housed in Chicago shelters.

Holy Name Cathedral held a Spanish-language Advent Mass for newly arrived migrants on Dec. 17, followed by a reception where attendees received winter coats, toys and religious items.

Sister Kathleen Mitchell, director of spiritual formation and accompaniment at Holy Name Cathedral, estimates that roughly 700 people attended the event.

“The joy was palpable in the cathedral,” she said.

Such local holiday gatherings are in contrast to the backlash that has also been mounting against the wave of new arrivals, as communities have increasingly protested proposed migrant shelters and encampments.

At Pierce’s household, seven new arrivals from Venezuela, who had been staying in an emergency shelter at a Chicago police station a few miles away, arrived at her home in early August. Since then, 27-year-old Jose, 29-year-old Claudia and her 4-year-old son Matias — who asked to be identified only by first names — have been living on the home’s second floor.

A married couple, their child and a male adult friend of the family stayed in Pierce’s basement but are now temporarily in Florida helping relatives; they plan to return to the Oak Park home next month. In the meantime, another married couple — friends of Claudia’s who help babysit her son — have been living in the basement.

Although Pierce had never met any of them before they moved in, she said she wasn’t worried about her safety or the security of her home.

“I was just oblivious to that possibility,” she said. “And I know there are people out there who think I am insane. But it just never entered my mind.”

She attributes this perspective in part to her roots in rural Iowa, a culture “where you helped everybody” whether it was a person in need of shelter or “someone on the side of the road hitchhiking.”

“If you had something somebody else needed, it was your responsibility to help that person,” she said.

To decorate the home for the holidays, Pierce and her guests recently strung white lights outside and put up a small Christmas tree in the living room. On a recent evening, Jose helped Pierce erect the little wooden Nativity scene in the dining room, placing small figures of sheep and oxen inside the stable beneath a star, with statues of the Virgin Mary, Joseph and the Magi nearby.

Jose took the manger holding baby Jesus and hid it in another spot inside the house, to be brought out again at midnight on Christmas Eve, symbolizing the birth of Christ. He said he wanted to preserve this custom from his homeland.

Jose said through an interpreter that even though he and Pierce were strangers a few months ago, they have become “family.”

Pierce said she feels the same way about all of the newcomers who have stayed in her home.

“It’s complete family, no question,” she said. “They’re wonderful.”

For Christmas Day, Claudia said she plans to prepare traditional Venezuelan dishes for Pierce and the rest of the household.

Her eyes light up as she describes the iconic holiday menu of her country: There’s hallaca, a meat-stuffed tamale wrapped inside banana leaves. There’s pan de jamon, a soft bread filled with ham, cream cheese, olives and raisins. There’s also ensalada de gallina, similar to chicken salad but made with meat from a hen.

“We want her to know our traditions,” Claudia said, through an interpreter.

She originally hails from Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, where she faced rampant poverty and corruption.

“There was no food,” she said. “To buy food you had to wait in line, sometimes for a couple of days, before something became available.”

She fled Venezuela about five years ago to Colombia, where she gave birth to Matias. But it was hard to find a job there. Claudia said she’d studied accounting in Venezuela but couldn’t work in that field. Part of everything she did earn, she would send back to family in Venezuela, she added.

Despite impoverishment, Claudia recounted festive Christmases in Venezuela, where neighbors would compete with one another over lavish Christmas trees and holiday decor; loved ones would trade holiday dishes with one another, and the feast would last days after Christmas.

But for the past few years in Colombia, she hadn’t celebrated Christmas much because “financially, it was so, so difficult.”

Over the summer, she made the arduous journey from Colombia to the southern border of the United States, which included crossing on foot the treacherous jungle of the Darién Gap at the Colombia-Panama border. More than 506,000 migrants — almost two-thirds from Venezuela — had traveled through the Darien jungle by mid-December, roughly twice the 248,000 migrants who set a record doing so last year, according to The Associated Press.

While traveling through Central American countries, Claudia was so hungry at times that she begged for food off the plates of patrons at restaurants, she said.

To cross Mexico, she rode along with other migrants atop the roof of a Mexican freight train, which are known collectively as “the beast” or “the train of death,” because they can be so perilous for migrants trying to get on and off.

Then she risked her life to wade through the Rio Grande while carrying her son.

“I don’t know how to swim,” she said. “There was a moment when I was crossing the river and I couldn’t touch the bottom and I had the baby on my shoulder.”

Claudia said she turned herself in to immigration police at the southern border in June. From Texas, she said, she was flown to Chicago.

Earlier this week, a chartered plane with 120 migrants onboard was sent to Chicago from Texas without prior warning, according to Chicago officials. Migrants have also traveled to Chicago, a self-proclaimed sanctuary city for nearly four decades, with plane tickets purchased by Catholic Charities in San Antonio.

Prior to moving into Pierce’s home, Claudia and her son lived for several weeks at the Chicago police station in the Austin neighborhood, adjacent to Oak Park.

Jose, who had been living at the police station as well, recalled that they slept on inflatable mattresses on the floor that they’d deflate each day.

“But we felt more welcome here than we felt in some of the surrounding countries we lived in, in Central America,” he said.

Across Chicago, many migrants had been sleeping outside in tents at police stations or encampments, even as temperatures dipped below freezing and snow fell in late October.

Mayor Brandon Johnson recently announced that no asylum-seekers were living at police stations for the first time in months, though more than 200 are still housed in a makeshift shelter at O’Hare International Airport near Terminal 1. On a recent weekday, a thin black curtain cordoned off the living area, but through the drapes passersby could see rows of beds just a few inches apart and a small Christmas tree with twinkling lights near the entrance.

Claudia said he was surprised — and grateful — when Pierce “opened the door” for her and her son in August. Living at the home in Oak Park is “no comparison” to staying at the police station, she said.

She said that Pierce is “everything” and “a mother” to her.

“We have now become friends,” she said. “She tells me many things that I think she doesn’t tell everybody else. And I am able to also tell her about me and ask for help and advice.”

“This is a home,” Jose added.

Pierce said she sees parallels between the first Christmas story — Joseph and the pregnant Virgin Mary traveling to a foreign land in search of a place to stay during their time of need — and the struggle of so many migrants seeking refuge in the United States today.

“I just read something today about making room. It was talking about making room at the inn for the baby Jesus and drawing the analogy of making room for the (asylum-seekers) who come to the U.S.,” she said. “It’s something I live by, that old saying that when someone knocks on your door, you don’t build a higher wall. You build a longer table.”

Yet anti-migration fervor has hit a fever pitch across the nation as well as around the globe.

Earlier this week, France passed controversial legislation to tighten its immigration laws. The United Kingdom earlier this month announced tougher immigration rules that will decrease the number of people who can move there annually by hundreds of thousands, according to The Associated Press.

The European Union earlier this week reached a landmark agreement to redesign its rules on asylum and migration, amid complaints that some members take in more migrants than others.

As for the United States, a Texas law approved earlier this week would allow police to arrest migrants who cross the U.S. border illegally and permit local judges to order them to leave the country, a measure the Biden administration has criticized as dehumanizing to immigrants.

Locally, Oak Park officials had authorized a million dollars to pay for migrants to be housed at the Carleton and a local YMCA, but the suburb recently announced they will have to move out by Jan. 31.

Plans for a temporary migrant shelter recently drew backlash in Chicago’s Portage Park neighborhood. Joliet Township in October rejected a multimillion-dollar grant for migrant services when angry residents opposed the proposal.

Claudia said she believes the anti-migration sentiment represents “a minority” of the local population, adding that she’s received a lot of help from folks in the Chicago area.

“It’s not easy to accept but it’s also something we understand because there’s a lot of immigration,” Claudia said. “And they feel almost like there’s an invasion. But the majority of the people coming are good people. So we want the opportunity for people to get to know us.”

Like many Chicago-area migrants, most of the new arrivals in Pierce’s home are waiting for work permits. Pierce, who suffers from breast cancer, said she doesn’t charge them any rent.

“From the very first day, they were loving and kind and supportive. And the best guests you could ever want,” Pierce added. “It just takes all of us doing one right thing. That could make all the difference.”

The Associated Press contributed.

eleventis@chicagotribune.com