REBELBETTY

To Amara— REBEL BETTY— Martin, individualism dissipates for collectivism to arise. She’s an AfroIndigenous Puerto Rican born and raised in Chicago, currently residing in the south side. A plurality in her values and work, she’s quite the multi-hyphenate. Rebel Betty is a visual artist, history enthusiast, muralist, poet, community organizer, cultural worker, DJ, singer, public speaker, arts educator, and more recently, a printmaker. Her purpose-driven artistry highlights the themes of gentrification and decolonization, with plenty of her work uplifting the Puerto Rican community in Chicago and in Humboldt Park.

Humboldt Park is “the place, as a Puerto Rican, where you have to spend time,” says Rebel Betty. She loves to ride her bike through the neighborhood, sit by the tennis courts on the intersection of California Ave. and Hirsch St., eat guava and cheese pastries from Café Colao, and listen to the elders play Bomba nearby.

Rebel Betty finds community in people throughout her home city— in Uptown, Little Village, Albany Park, and Logan Square. But Humboldt Park is where she goes when she wants to feel at home. This reverence for culture and place in Humboldt Park goes both ways, as evidenced by the Puerto Rican Cultural Center and the City of Chicago which commissioned Rebel Betty in 2022 for Chicago’s Alfresco program.

Her ground mural on Division St. and Washtenaw Ave. pays homage to Puerto Rico’s El Yunque Rainforest by illustrating its foliage and is directly inspired by the island’s renewal following a disastrous hurricane the year before. Her second mural on Rockwell St. also honors Rebel Betty’s sense of home, using pink as a vibrant background with hibiscus flowers and Boricua-influenced patterns.

Chicago is a mecca of community organizing. These efforts are led by people ranging from salaried professionals, to unpaid grassroots volunteers using Indigenous approaches.

Rebel Betty has experience at both ends of this spectrum but has notably been working alongside Indigenous comrades for the past decade. She understands that “organizing in Chicago is built on what’s happened in the past,” and believes it is important to learn from elders and use their life lessons to inform ongoing social justice work.

Rebel Betty spends most of her time organizing for ChiResists, a grassroots community activist group she founded in Pilsen with an aim to resist gentrification and displacement through BIPOC activism, art, education, and collaboration.

The BIPOC Solidarity Network known as ChiResists was born out of a call to action in 2017 from the Dakota Access Pipeline protests at Standing Rock. Indigenous friends asked Rebel Betty to organize a caravan to transport allies from Chicago to the protest. An effort that was joined by Pilsen Alliance, a social justice organization committed to developing grassroots leadership in Pilsen and neighboring working class, immigrant communities in Chicago's Lower West Side. Rebel Betty helped fundraise over $6,000 for Standing Rock’s Rosebud youth camp by hosting an event in collaboration with fellow artists at the National Museum of Mexican Art.

ChiResists was part of the Black & Indigenous Coalition, led by Chi-Nations Youth Council, that instigated the removal of the Christopher Columbus statue in Grant Park in 2020. Black and Brown solidarity is important to Rebel Betty and ChiResists, who led the first Black and Brown Unity March in the city during the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement spurring unity marches city-wide. 

The work is arduous and for Rebel Betty, being a community organizer requires immense emotional regulation, self-reflection, and inner work to heal from personal trauma, since it carries into the organizing space. This is why ChiResists also fosters accessible healing spaces for those who have been traumatized, by hosting a series of ‘Healing in the Park’ circles for Black and Brown folks to come back to themselves after a trauma like police brutality.

“Rebellion means [the] creation of a new world... being creative enough to envision a world outside of the one we are given,” says Rebel Betty.

A pillar at the heart (and stomach) of ChiResists’ efforts is the Pilsen Love Fridge they steward. Love Fridge is a public, accessible refrigerator with free food, to combat food insecurity and apartheid. Rebel Betty sits on the advisory board for this mutual aid effort that empowers community members to “take what they need and leave what they can.” Mutual aid is the most critical action for Rebel Betty, who affirms that a positive impact can be made with only four to five committed people, and that it “just takes one to be highly organized.”  

Organizations that have molded her into the community organizer she is today include Chi-Nations Youth Council, Pilsen Alliance, and GoodKids MadCity.   

In the kaleidoscope that is ChiResist’s revolutionary work, art is always present and center-stage: from posters and zines to puppetry and plays. "Art is an access point for people who may not have the capacity or time, because of capitalism, to sit and read through 600 pages of doctrine or political theory,” says Rebel Betty. Her work transfers historical content and philosophies into condensed visuals for someone to attain newfound understanding and clarity on topics such as anti-policing. 

Rebel Betty has organized at schools in Little Village and Pilsen for half a decade on issues like police accountability, environmental issues, education, and gentrification. And has assisted lead artist, Victor Montañez, on a youth-led mural art program for students in Gage Park. 

“Art is our strongest tool as propaganda. I couldn’t be an organizer without art.” 

Rebel Betty freelances for art projects in the city and was recently the featured artist for the 2023 Bank of America Chicago 13.1 Run and underwent a campaign for the half marathon. This spring, she’s designing a flyer for a short film premiering soon on Pilsen’s 2020 uprisings. 

Rebel Betty’s diverse art forms encapsulate the message by author Toni Cade Bambara that the “role of the artist is to make revolution irresistible.” By creating visual and audio works that invite the community to learn the history of Black and Brown struggles, Rebel Betty amplifies the sights and sounds of the revolution. Her music maintains a healing tone on surviving and seeing a way out of pain, reminding listeners that “where you are at is not where you have to stay.” Her most recent song No Me Pueden Tumbar, produced by Came Beats, is an expression to empower other womxn. 

As an educator Rebel Betty demonstrates how emerging artists can focus their work, advising that creating this new world starts with finding who your people are and forging your own definition of community. And to have personal interests outside of the movement so as to stay grounded and preserve the self.

You can stream Rebel’s music on Spotify, YouTube, and SoundCloud. To get involved with ChiResists, reach out to their Instagram or subscribe to their mailing list.  

About the Author: Paulina Vaca is a 23-year-old Latina writer and environmental justice advocate based in Chicago.