Neighborhood Voices: 20 Years of Growth and Community Vision

Benjamin (Benny) Estrada is the Senior Director of Street Outreach at New Life Centers of Chicagoland. For the past 27 years, he has dedicated his life to serving the Little Village community through a combination of street outreach, mentorship, and sports-based youth development. 

Rooted deeply in the neighborhood he serves, Benjamin has built trusted relationships with families, young people, community partners, and local leaders. His work blends safety, healing, and opportunity, using basketball and other athletic programs as tools to create safe spaces, strengthen community pride, and open doors for youth. 

Known for his commitment to peace, collaboration, and consistent presence on the ground, Benjamin continues to help shape Little Village as a place where young people can grow, belong, and thrive.

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Katya Nuques is the Director of the McCormick Foundation’s Little Village Portfolio. In this role, she designs and leads grantmaking on behalf of the Foundation, manages relationships with grantees in the community, and supports multi-sector and philanthropic strategies to effectively respond to challenges faced by the City and its neighborhoods.  

Katya previously served as Enlace Chicago’s Executive Director and led the organization through a period of unprecedented growth. She also helped steer Enlace to face the incredible challenges of the pandemic, in which Katya and the organization played a critical role advising Chicago’s Mayor and supporting the city’s response to mitigate COVID-19’s public health and economic impacts.

Katya’s career at Enlace began in 2005 as the Director of Community Schools and, over nearly two decades, she demonstrated her commitment to Little Village and the City of Chicago, her strategic abilities, and her thoughtful approach to partnership. Prior to joining Enlace, Katya worked in the international development field at the Adventist Development and Relief Agency in Peru, after interning with the United Nation’s Office for Sustainable Development, in New York. 

She is the Board Chair of the City Colleges of Chicago, and a member of the Board of Directors of Sinai Health System. She is also a member of Chicago Latinos in Philanthropy, the Economic Club of Chicago, and a Leadership Greater Chicago fellow, class of 2016. 

Katya graduated with honors from the Universidad de Guayaquil with a degree in Economic Science and holds an MSA in International and Community Development from Andrews University.

U.S. Representative Jesús G. "Chuy" García proudly represents the Fourth Congressional District of Illinois. He was sworn into office on January 3, 2019, during the 116th Congress.

Throughout his career, Congressman García has been a progressive voice fighting to improve the lives of his working-class neighbors, many of whom are immigrants like him. He is a coalition builder committed to empowering youth and expanding access to quality education, affordable housing, and economic opportunity.

He currently serves as a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the House Judiciary Committee. He is a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), the Congressional Equality Caucus, Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, and New Americans Caucus. He is also the founder the Future of Transportation Caucus. 

Congressman García was born in Los Pinos, a small village in the Mexican state of Durango. He is the youngest of four children raised by his mother while his father worked in the United States, first under the WWII-era bracero program and later at a cold-storage plant in Chicago. In 1965, Congressman García and his family immigrated to the United States with permanent resident status. He still remembers his first American meal: a bologna sandwich from a roadside diner in Texas.

His work experience includes work as the founding executive director of the community development organization Enlace Chicago and service as the founding chair of the board for Latino Policy Forum and as a member of the boards of Woods Fund Chicago and The Center on Leadership Innovation.

Prior to his election to Congress in November of 2018, Congressman García was a member of the Cook County Board of Commissioners. As Commissioner, he opposed housing discrimination against disadvantaged communities, raised the minimum wage, and mandated that County employees have access to paid sick leave. He also passed an ordinance ending Cook County's cooperation with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE). The measure was the first of its kind in the nation and set an example followed by more than 250 localities.

Congressman García began organizing for workers' rights and more inclusive city services during his college years at University of Illinois in Chicago (UIC). He first entered political life in 1984, when he was elected Committeeman of the Cook County Democratic Party. He quickly earned recognition as a coalition builder between Chicago's Latino and African American communities.

Soon afterward, Congressman García was elected to represent Chicago's 22nd Ward on the City Council. During his time as Alderman, Congressman García prevented non-attorney immigration practitioners from levying unreasonable fees. In 1986, he became the Chairman for the Council's Committee on Aviation, where he helped implement the Automated Guideway Transit (ATG) at O'Hare International Airport.

Mr. García also served as State Senator of Illinois' 1st District. In 1993, he passed the Language Assistance Services Act, which requires hospitals and long-term care facilities to provide resources for effective communication with limited-English-speaking and deaf patients.

In 2015, Congressman García became the first Chicago mayoral candidate to push a sitting mayor into a run-off.

Congressman García still lives in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago with his beloved wife Evelyn and has three adult children.