Video Shows Children Threatened With ICE Outside Chicago Dance Studio — OnStage Blog, Theater News

Students and parents said the children were leaving Ballet Folklorico de Chicago, a studio focused on celebrating Mexican heritage, when the confrontation escalated. FOX 32 reported that some children were crying as parents rushed them to their cars, and that families are now calling for action, including possible legal protection from the neighbors involved.

So, let’s get straight to the point. This is disgusting.

Kids were leaving dance class, perhaps were making some noise outside, and adults responded by yelling racist, anti-immigrant threats and throwing liquid at them. There is no polished little phrase that makes that sound normal, and there should not be. It was intimidation. It was hateful.

What makes it even worse is how easy this should be. These were children leaving a dance studio. That should be the end of the story. Instead, they were crying and being hurried to safety because grown adults decided to make themselves the center of the night in the most vile way possible.

And honestly, what kind of person does that? What kind of adult sees children coming out of a cultural arts space and decides that is the moment to start screaming about ICE and tossing liquid from above?

Because Ballet Folklorico de Chicago is not just some random studio on a block. It was founded in 2018 to create affordable cultural and artistic programming for Mexican families on Chicago’s North Side, and in just a few years, it has grown into what it says is the largest nonprofit Mexican ballet folklorico school in the Midwest.

It works with Chicago Public Schools, serves hundreds of students, and was built to keep heritage visible and joyful for the next generation. Which is exactly why what happened outside of it feels so ugly. This was not just kids leaving class. This was children walking out of a space created to celebrate who they are and where they come from, only to be met with cruelty for doing exactly that.

The studio and these families have every right to be furious. They have every right to demand accountability. Because when adults behave like this, it cannot be waved away as one bad moment. It is a choice. And it tells you a lot about the people making it.

Those kids should have left feeling proud. Instead, they left feeling afraid. And that should make every decent person angry.