Column: An immigrant father’s legacy lives on by way of an previous cantina in Pilsen, the place gentrification has been a problem

The night that Samuel Ornelas died, music from the previous jukebox in his cantina stopped enjoying and the classic bar stools stood empty. On Jan. 28, for the primary time in almost 50 years, El Trebol Liquors, the oldest dive bar in Pilsen, closed its doorways to its devoted patrons to pay their respects to Sammy, as most individuals known as him.

Sammy was 86, and had spent most of his time on the household enterprise that he helped set up and that he turned sole proprietor of within the final decade.

He was resilient, stated his oldest son, Manuel Ornelas, very like the opposite immigrants who arrived within the metropolis within the ‘60s and past. They’re those who began to construct a life within the space and formed the tradition of the then Mexican immigrant neighborhood. Those self same immigrants, a lot of whom Sammy known as buddies, discovered a house in El Trebol.

They nonetheless do.

And now, a few of their kids and even grandchildren do too. They go to the bar to recollect their family members, those that settled on this nation — and plenty of who’ve additionally left this world. Others, unable to return to their native nation, go to the cantina to really feel at dwelling, surrounded by different immigrants who share comparable tales, who love norteño music and who aspire to see their households once more someday.

Nearly each Sunday, the identical faces stroll in and greet one another joyfully.

That’s the environment Sammy helped create when he turned co-investor within the household enterprise within the late ‘50s. And that’s the reason he refused to vary the bar regardless of the event occurring within the neighborhood over the many years: The addition of classy eating places, luxurious house buildings and naturally, new bars.

Many patrons needed to depart the world as a result of they might not discover reasonably priced locations to hire. Those that stayed say they go to the bar as a result of it nonetheless feels just like the “previous Pilsen,” stated Don Severo, 86, who has been frequenting the bar since its starting.

Each time he visits, he orders the identical factor: A tequila with a glass half-full of Squirt and two ice cubes.

“He was a great man,” Severo stated of Sammy. “Yo también ya voy pa’ ya,” which means that Severo is getting older too.

“Now his sons should hold this place going,” Severo stated on a Sunday afternoon when he walked into the bar to purchase lottery tickets, like he does each weekend. A number of the males already on the bar stood up from their chairs and shook his hand.

Many had visited the bar that weekend to pay their respects to Sammy’s sons, Manuel and Javier, who took over the bar in 2015, when their father retired. Sammy left the enterprise below their care however visited typically to say good day and drink a Bohemia, his favourite beer.

When Manuel stepped up on the enterprise, he knew he had huge sneakers to fill, he stated. All the lads in his household who managed El Trebol, together with his uncle Ramon Verdin, who died in 2021, had created a particular place in a neighborhood that has been altering 12 months after 12 months, he stated.

Abruptly, there was an curiosity in Pilsen and its tradition, he stated. Whereas Manuel was rising up, his father would take him to El Trebol’s retailer to assist out, so he acquired to know lots of the individuals who would frequent the bar within the again. He additionally spent a number of time in Pilsen rising up.

“It’s like a small city, ” he stated.

Whilst folks started getting priced out of the neighborhood, they’d return to El Trebol to fulfill with buddies, Manuel stated.

That made Manuel understand that, like his father, he doesn’t need to change something in regards to the bar.

He received’t change the previous jukebox that performs solely Mexican oldies that his father listened to. Sammy’s favourite songs have been from the legendary Vicente Fernandez or Los Panchos.

He additionally doesn’t plan to get a brand new fridge or change the money registers that take solely money. Inside the shop, there may be nonetheless an previous cellphone sales space that was as soon as a sanctuary for the Mexican immigrants who would pay a number of dimes to name dwelling within the ‘80s and ‘90s.

After listening to the information of Sammy’s loss of life, Ramon Velazquez, 45, returned to El Trebol for the primary time in a number of months. He lived at nineteenth and Could streets for a lot of his life, however 10 years in the past his household moved to the Halfway space as a result of hire was extra reasonably priced, he stated.

“They’d all the time make us really feel at dwelling,” Velazquez stated.

The bar is a logo of Sammy’s resilience and perseverance in creating a greater life for himself and his kids after migrating to this nation, Manuel stated. His story displays the expertise of lots of the immigrant entrepreneurs who began household companies in Pilsen. Few are nonetheless round in the present day.

Sammy understood the immigrant expertise. He knew what it meant to overlook dwelling, to need to really feel secure and understood. That’s the reason he went above and past to make his patrons really feel welcome, Manuel stated.

Typically he would give them a free beer, different instances he would order meals and share it with them. And each Thanksgiving, there was a dinner for the patrons as an indication of appreciation for his or her enterprise. When prospects would go to the shop with their kids, he would all the time have a lollipop prepared for them.

A tearful Laura Carranza, 40, remembered the instances she would stroll into the shop together with her father simply to get a lollipop from Sammy. When her kids have been youthful, she would take them in simply to say good day, she stated.

“I’ve youngsters now that look as much as him. He by no means rejected anybody and all the time listened to folks,” she stated.

Javier Ornelas stated his father was compassionate and empathetic, a person of God who all the time needed to assist others.

Sammy arrived in Chicago in 1955 from Encarnacion de Diaz, a small city in Jalisco, Mexico. He was solely 16 and labored in a cotton subject in Texas for a number of years earlier than getting everlasting residency, stated his spouse, Maria Ofelia Ornelas. Sammy liked to bounce, she recalled.

They have been married for almost 53 years and she or he took care of him till he took his final breath. Manuel, Javier and Sammy’s six different kids have been all by his facet when he died at dwelling.

Manuel promised to maintain his father’s spirit alive by way of his work and his love for his or her household, together with El Trebol.

Preserving the bar just isn’t an act of resistance in opposition to gentrification, and “it additionally doesn’t imply we don’t welcome new folks,” he stated.

“It’s respect for my father and those that established this place and for individuals who go to,” Manuel stated. “It’s one thing you’ll not discover wherever else.”

[email protected]