Exposing the American Dream: Imagemaking for When Our Realities Demand an Image

Helen Cho is an educator, researcher, and advocate who is working to understand how narratives of difference reinforce inequity and shape the way people navigate their ascribed and avowed racial and ethnic identities in the U.S. and internationally. 

Cho's current projects include exploring how Asian American politicians self-present their racial and ethnic identities in mainstream U.S. politics, how DEI is defined and practiced in media industries, and how im/migrant narratives about space, place, and housing develop. 

Cho is committed to community engaged approaches to teaching and co-creating knowledge. Helen is an instructor with the Odyssey Project and a visiting assistant professor in Northwestern University’s Asian American Studies Program. 

As a visual artist and educator, Elvia Mendoza’s work engages with and explores the connections between memory, loss, place, and nature within histories of migration, displacement, and dispossession. 

Through her work with photography, filmmaking, multimedia installations, and in her teaching, Mendoza seeks to understand how our re-membering of loss and understanding of what constitutes loss is experienced and manifested across time and place. 

Mendoza is a professor in Latina and Latino Studies at Northwestern University. 

The Library is wheelchair accessible. There are no stairs to enter the Library. Wheelchair accessible restrooms and drinking fountains are located on both levels. Each level is accessible via an elevator. 

If you require accommodations to participate in this event fully, please contact Zerline Thompson at events@ilhumanities.org at least 48 hours before the event.

The Rogers Park Branch of the Chicago Public Library was established in 1894 on Clark Street by the Rogers Park Women’s Club. The club’s members donated books and served as volunteer librarians. The branch opened in its current location on June 8, 1999.

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