Mi Gente Café, at Harlem and Farragut on Chicago’s Northwest Side, was vandalized less than a month after opening, owner David Torres said. Anti-Mexican slurs were scrawled across the café’s front windows.
Torres told CBS News he discovered the slurs when he arrived to open the café on Sunday morning. The business had opened to the public about a month earlier.
Torres said the vandalism was difficult for his staff to process and that he notified Chicago police. He said he hopes investigators can identify who defaced the windows.
Neighbors Turn Out in Numbers to Show Support
Torres said community members came to the café on Sunday to show their support. Their visit followed the discovery of the graffiti that morning.
Torres said the community’s welcome had otherwise been positive since the café opened, and that the vandalism felt unexpected given that support. The outpouring echoed a similar scene earlier this year at Nabala Café, a Palestinian-owned coffee shop in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood, where the same news outlet reported that more than 100 customers showed up after a window was shattered in an incident the owner, Eyad Zeid, believed was tied to the café displaying a Palestinian flag. Zeid said he believed the attack stemmed from the ongoing war in Gaza, and the report noted that local artists painted a mural over the boarded-up window within hours.
What Happens Next
No details have emerged about whether investigators have identified a suspect. The café’s classification in any police investigation has not been reported.
How Hate Incidents Are Classified
The Chicago Commission on Human Relations says police determine whether a reported hate incident is a hate crime. The commission’s guidance does not establish how this café incident has been classified.
A separate case involved verbal harassment rather than property damage: CWB Chicago reported that on Nov. 15, 2023, Levell Carter shouted anti-Mexican and anti-Venezuelan slurs during a confrontation in the 3900 block of West Roosevelt. The outlet later reported that Carter received a 20-month sentence in an anti-Hispanic hate-crime case.
