Congressman Luis Gutierrez with Mayor Rahm Emanuel held a citizenship workshop at Benito Juárez High School Saturday morning. At the workshop, residents who qualified to apply for citizenship received help with the application process. Among the residents who applied was 90-year old great-great-grandmother Teresa Lopez of McKinley Park neighborhood. As the matriarch of a family that consists of nine children, 50 grandchildren, 74 great grandchildren, and eight great-great grandchildren, Lopez was born in Mexico City in 1922. She has resided in Chicago since 1996.

Congressman Gutierrez developed the model for citizenship workshops in his district in the early 1990s when those legalized by President Reagan’s immigration reform of 1986 where beginning to be eligible to move on towards citizenship. Gutierrez, newly elected to Congress, received a special designation as a Community Based Organization from President Clinton’s Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS, which later became part of the Department of Homeland Security) to aid residents who qualify in applying for and attaining citizenship.