Comedian Gwen La Roka headlined Chicago’s Latina Comedy Festival in October, while the city was in the middle of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement surge.
Photographer: Lee Klawans
Chicago’s Comedy Scene Steps Up as ICE Clamps Down
ICE raids in Chicago have triggered a “NATO situation,” with the city’s comedians delicately fashioning comedy into a tool of resistance.
At a club on Chicago’s North Side on a Sunday night in October, stand-up comedian Joe Fernandez took center stage in a room of about 20 other local comics. Nobody laughed.
Instead, they listened as Fernandez invoked Chicago’s revolutionary past, talking about 19th century labor-movement actions, the queer-friendly Dill Pickle Club of the 1920s and the 1969 assassination of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton. “We are standing on the shoulders of these folks,” Fernandez continued. “And we can’t let this s--- slide.”