A Mexican mom’s dream to allow the monarch butterflies to dream
Meet Claudia Galeno-Sanchez, Illinois’ leading voice for the protection of monarch butterflies
By Gabriel Castilho
Decorated with butterflies and painted in orange, a house in Pilsen stands out.
Among the butterfly species painted on its walls, one is frequently depicted.
The black and orange monarch butterfly.
In 2023, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listed the butterfly as vulnerable.
In December 2024, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to list the monarch butterfly as threatened.
The owner of this orange
house, a Mexican mother,
works to save them.
Claudia Galeno-Sanchez is the founder and executive director of the non-profit Mujeres por Espacios Verdes (Women for Green Spaces). Her organization’s mission includes encouraging schools to have more native plant gardens and workshops on the importance of taking care of pollinators and creating habitats.
“I’m not a biologist, I’m not a scholar, I’m just a mom, right?” she said. “If you really love the butterflies, instead of collecting the specimens, it’s better to create their habitat, so we’re going to have more butterflies.”
In one of the walls in her house is a photo of Galeno-Sanchez with Leone Bicchieri, her husband, behind a collection of open butterfly chrysalides. Gabriel Castilho, Nov. 14.
Galeno-Sanchez crossed the U.S.-Mexican border hidden in the trunk of a car in her 20s. She moved from California to Chicago to be next to her siblings, living near the Midway airport. She once got a job at a bakery as an undocumented migrant worker, but wasn’t satisfied with her working conditions.
“I was wondering, what is going on? Why don’t you guys, instead of hurting people, slow down the machines?” she said. “Because we’re not slaves, we’re humans, but I used to be treated like the person that’s problematic.”
Because she spoke up for her rights, Galeno-Sanchez was sent to work at 1 a.m., she said. She had joined the labor rights alliance Working Family Solidarity (WFS) and met her now-husband Leone Bicchieri. He said she caught his attention because she raised her voice against injustice, getting fired from multiple jobs.
On Nov. 14, Claudia Galeno-Sanchez (center) was joined by Chicago Botanic Garden volunteers to revitalize the front gardens of the Cooper Dual Language Academy and the Orozco Community Academy. Gabriel Castilho, Nov. 14. 
Galeno-Sanchez had a surgery on Oct. 31 to remove a cyst on her breast, recently limiting her individual contributions. Either way, she helped the Chicago Botanic Garden as much as she could on planting the seeds for the future generation of flowers. Gabriel Castilho, Nov. 14. 
At the Orozco academy, among the leaves are monarch butterflies held by a stick – marking Galeno-Sanchez’s presence in the garden. Gabriel Castilho, Nov. 14. 
Chicago Botanic Garden project manager Liz Vogel plants some seeds in what Galeno-Sanchez calls an “experimental greenhouse.” Galeno-Sanchez said this will keep the ground moist during the winter and then in the Spring the plants should start growing. Gabriel Castilho, Nov. 14. 
Vogel said she thinks Galeno-Sanchez sees the world as a place of beauty and wonder and that everybody is welcomed. Gabriel Castilho, Nov. 14. 
Leone Bicchieri, Galeno-Sanchez’s husband, said he thinks she saw the world as a struggle of poor against rich, but over time she began to appreciate the beauty that is in there. Galeno-Sanchez holds an Anise hyssop, one of the species she planted in the Orozco academy front garden. Gabriel Castilho, Nov. 14. 
Julian Trejo Bax, documentary filmmaker and Associated Press freelance reporter, said Galeno-Sanchez finds “glimmer of lights in the darkness,” and her outlook on life is very inspiring. Photo shows the Rudbeckia fulgida, one of the species Galeno-Sanchez planted in the Orozco academy. Gabriel Castilho, Nov. 14.
Galeno-Sanchez now is a leader in the city’s gardening efforts. Her favorite plant to work with is the milkweed, which has a close connection to monarch butterflies. They only lay eggs in them, and monarch caterpillars only eat the milkweed leaves, according to the U.S. National Park Service.
On one of her most recent projects, she partnered with the Chicago Botanic Garden to revitalize the front gardens of the Cooper Dual Language Academy and the Orozco Community Academy. For the Botanic Garden’s project manager Liz Vogel, it was the first time she met Claudia.
“You need a community leader like Claudia to get people really excited,” Vogel said. “She stewards this land as well, so I think it’s really amazing to have such an advocate and such an enthusiastic person to get people to want to participate.”
Additionally, Galeno-Sanchez said she received a $25,000 grant from the grassroots organization Justice Outside to create native plant gardens in the Hamline Elementary School, San Miguel School and John A. Walsh Elementary School.
Her fight becomes a documentary
Galeno-Sanchez’s fight garnered the attention
of a Mexican documentary filmmaker who wanted to
do a story about Mexican immigration.
Julian Trejo Bax, video producer and freelance journalist for the Associated Press, said he fell in love with the monarch butterfly and stumbled upon an article about Claudia. Bax called her and spent a month visiting her family before he started to film.
“The monarch butterfly migrates from Mexico and Michoacán through the United States, up to Canada,” Bax said. “It’s a really beautiful symbol of connecting families throughout North America.”
Galeno-Sanchez described her house as a sanctuary for butterflies in the documentary. Gabriel Castilho, Nov. 13.
At the WFS headquarters in Pilsen, Bax, Galeno-Sanchez and her family were joined by a group of DePaul University students for their documentary’s premiere on Thursday night. Among tears and applause, “Sueños de una Monarca” (Dreams of a Monarch) left Galeno-Sanchez’s husband in tears.
“I think she’s also tried to find a way so that it’s not just fighting against those evils, but fighting for something that can bring you a different kind of joy,” Leone Bicchieri said. “What kind of world are my kids going to live in?”
As a mother worried for the future of her two children, Galeno-Sanchez said thinking about future generations is the fuel behind her proactivity.
“We need to preserve and take care of the planet,” she said. “The planet is our mother, right?”
Gabriel Castilho 