Our Story

Latinos Progresando first opened its doors in 1998 in a single office on Chicago’s 18th Street — it’s only employee, the founder and current CEO Luis Gutierrez, the son of Mexican immigrants and a Little Village native.

For 20 years, Latinos Progresando’s story has been one of heart, vision and grit. It’s one of many hands and many hours.

We’ve shared offices, we’ve shared desks, at one point we made copies at the rate of 30 seconds per page. At every point, we’ve brought new meaning to the phrase “other duties as assigned”…all in the name of building something bigger than ourselves.

In our first office on 18th Street, we had clients sitting and waiting on the hallway stairs because we didn’t have space for a waiting area — now Latinos Progresando is the standard bearer for quality and professional service in the immigration legal field.

Today, entire families, from more than 40 countries around the world trust Latinos Progresando and choose us to guide them through some of the most critical points in their lives. We’re now serving the children and grandchildren of some of our very first clients.

We’ve grown from one to 16 employees (and we’re still going!). We’ve done that hiring from the community, training and promoting from within. Right now, seven of our full-time, professional staff were once agency clients and five are Marshall Square/Little Village residents.

With the network of partners we’ve cultivated, we put the Marshall Square neighborhood back on the map, revolutionizing authentic neighborhood collaboration.

Our theater group, Teatro Americano started with a reading of La Victima in a living room — today, Latinos Progresando is central to shaping and celebrating the Mexican identity in Chicago, highlighting history and culture with our signature speaker series, MEX talks.

We opened our doors with little more than a dream — just $200; now, we’re well on our way to opening the doors to a new, state-of-the-art multi-service community center.

LP’s success belongs to so many people — those who have been here since 1998, those we’ve just met, and everyone in between.

Two decades have taken so much sacrifice, hard work, and hope. Reaching this incredible milestone is amazing, humbling and so motivating.

Each day we find new reasons to dig in and challenge ourselves with what’s next, so stick with us for the next 20 years — we still have work to do.