Indiana University, Bloomington. Latino Cultural Center

The Latino Cultural Center was established at Indiana University in 1973. It is more affectionately known as La Casa.

Its purpose was, and continues to be, to achieve through educational and social programs, a greater historical, political and cultural awareness regarding Latina/os. As an advocacy office, they work closely with other units on campus to assist in the recruitment and retention of Latina/o students. La Casa operated under the Office of Latino Affairs until 1999, when the OLA and other minority offices on campus were dissolved and their duties taken over by the newly formed Office of Multicultural Affairs.

From the description of Indiana University Latino Cultural Center records, 1968-2003, bulk 1980-1995. (Indiana University). WorldCat record id: 56506274

In 1971 the Indiana Daily Student published a call for assistance in forming an office that would address the needs of a growing Latino student body. In 1973, after two years of development, the Indiana University administration appointed Horatio Lewis to fill the dual role of assistant dean in the University Division and director of the newly created Office of Latino Affairs (OLA).

Lewis quickly established himself as a resource for Latino students. Students frequently gathered in the Office of Latino Affairs to socialize with one another, as well as to seek advocacy. It soon became clear to Lewis that the Latino students needed a cultural center of their own, in addition to the newly founded advocacy office.

In November of 1973, Lewis helped to establish the Latino Cultural Center, affectionately know as La Casa, in a house at 410 South Park Street. Three years later, in 1976, La Casa relocated to a larger and more conveniently situated house at 715 East 7th Street, across from the Student Union building.

Education graduate student, Jorge Wehby, was hired as the first director of La Casa. His primary goal was to create a place for new Latino students to congregate in a comfortable and supportive environment. The Office of Latino Affairs hoped this would help Latino students adjust to life at Indiana University, giving them a sense of community that would keep them enrolled in the University and reduce attrition rates. Though La Casa was originally intended primarily for new students making the transition to college life, it soon became a touchstone for the entire Latino community at Indiana University.

By 1977, La Casa had settled into its new location, and Latino students felt it was time to take another step to develop a thriving Latino community at Indiana University. Alianza Latina del Medioeste de America (ALMA), the leading Latino student organization on campus at the time, began lobbying the administration to hire a Latino recruiter and establish a full-time Latino deanship.

ALMA sought a college recruiter who would speak Spanish fluently, understand the unique cultural concerns of Latino families, and make prospective Latino students and their families feel welcomed by Indiana University. As a result of their efforts, Guadalupe Solis was hired for the 1979-1980 school year as the first Latino recruiter at Indiana University.

ALMA’s efforts, as supported by La Casa and the Office of Latino Affairs, also yielded a new full-time deanship for the Office of Latino Affairs, filled by Dr. Hector-Neri Casteñeda, on 15 August 1978. As part of Dr. Casteñeda duties he oversaw the Office of Latino Affairs and the Latino Cultural Center. During his tenure as dean, Dr. Casteñeda supported the expansion and improvement of La Casa as executed by Georgia Burgueño, a graduate student who was the La Casa counselor at the time.

In the 1980-1981 academic year, Dr. Casteñeda approved the funding for a major improvement project designed by Burgueño. She renovated La Casa to create a new lounge, T.V. room, library, and tutoring center on the premises. She was also instrumental in expanding the programming at La Casa. During the early 1980’s Burgueño established many new counseling and support programs, including a very popular Single Parents Support Group in 1983. This group was formed to address the needs of older, non-traditional Latino students who felt especially out of place at Indiana University as both parents and minorities.

Burgueño worked at La Casa to establish a Counseling and Academic Advising Program from 1980 until 1986, when she became the Coordinator for Latino Services for the Office of Latino Affairs. She continued to play an integral role at La Casa, counseling and advising many students and student organizations. She was an advisor for Latinos Unidos at Indiana University (LUIU), she helped students bring a chapter of the Latino fraternity Sigma Lambda Beta to campus, and in 1991 she helped a group of Latina students to create the alpha chapter of the sorority Gamma Phi Omega. In addition to advising student groups at La Casa and beyond, Burgueño also served on the Racial Incidents Team. In this capacity, she was instrumental in mediating a 1993 conflict between senators of the Indiana University Student Association and LUIU president Gabino Zapata, in which the senators made racial slurs against Zapata and his organization during a budget meeting. Burgueño worked as the Coordinator of Latino Services for the Office of Latino Affairs until 1999 when it was incorporated into an Office of Multicultural Affairs. She then became the Latino Advocate to represent the needs of the Latino community within this larger organization, serving in this capacity until leaving the University in 2003.

Although the consolidation of minority affairs offices did not occur until 1999, efforts to bring these offices together began in 1980, the same year that Burgueño arrived at Indiana University. In 1980, the new vice president of Afro-American Affairs, Herman Hudson, recommended consolidation of the Afro-American, Latino, and Women’s Affairs Offices into a single organization – The Office of Afro-American and Minority Affairs. This proposal left the Latino community feeling marginalized, especially after they had put a great deal of effort into strengthening and developing the Office of Latino Affairs and the Latino Cultural Center, as well as securing a Latino dean and minority college recruiter specializing in the needs of Latino students. Other minority students, including representatives of the Black Student Union, opposed the notion of consolidation because the proposal did not address the needs of individual minority groups as the previous offices had.

Latino Students at Indiana University worked out of La Casa with other student groups to form Students United Against Consolidation (SUAC) and lobbied vehemently against the proposal. They wrote letters to the administration and the Indiana Daily Student, as well as circulating petitions among students and parents. Their efforts were successful. In January of 1981 the consolidation proposal was retracted; yet the concept remained open for discussion. On 1 January 1999 the Office of Latino Affairs was eventually incorporated into a larger Office of Multicultural Affairs.

For the time being, the Office of Latino Affairs was preserved and La Casa continued to operate in direct cooperation with the staff of the OLA, which was in a period of internal flux at this time. In 1981, Dean Hector-Neri Castañeda received an unfavorable administrative review and many complaints from students for failing to be a strong advocate for the Latino community. One student, Fernando Chacón – who was studying law at the time and is now a practicing attorney – led a boycott against the Office of Latino Affairs as managed by Dean Castañeda. Chacón commented that the Dean “did not respond to any of the students’ messages and pleas to improve services for Latinos.” (Office of Latino Affairs, January 1973-June 1999. p. 22)

Castañeda took a leave of absence after receiving the negative review and later resigned from his position. Alberto Torchinsky, professor of mathematics, stepped in as acting dean and was later hired for the permanent position. Torchinsky was well liked by students, staff and the administration and he remained in the Deanship until the Office of Latino Affairs was closed in 1999. Students felt that Torchinsky was more in touch with their needs. He also conducted the Office of Latino Affairs openly, with the hope that the entire Latino community would have a voice in its governance.

Under Torchinsky’s leadership, La Casa was expanded into an umbrella organization for a growing number of Latino student groups. La Casa provided faculty advisors, a meeting place, funding, and full use of the office equipment for clerical activities such as typing meeting minutes and newsletters or copying event flyers.

Throughout this period, La Casa continued to grow and expand its programming and outreach to Latino students, as well as planning cultural events for the Indiana University community at large. Together with the Office of Latino Affairs, La Casa brought many notable speakers and performers to campus, including Tito Puente in 1984, Henry Cisneros in 1986, Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Oscar Arias Sánchez in 1990, and César Chavez in 1993.

Through campus-wide events such as National Hispanic Heritage Month, La Casa and the Latino student community were gaining visibility and acceptance at Indiana University; yet, there were also growing concerns over racial incidents and tension at this time. At a student senate meeting in 1993, the President of Latinos Unidos set forth a resolution to secure funding for a parents weekend banquet. He was met with racial slurs that spawned a major conflict in the senate and throughout the campus. During this period, La Casa was instrumental in serving as a meeting place for Latino students to discuss their reactions to the event and formulate a unified response.

A year earlier, in 1992, Lillian Casillas assumed responsibility for overseeing La Casa as the Program Assistant to the Office of Latino Affairs, while a graduate student at Indiana University. Prior to Casillas’ tenure the position had a high turnover rate, and La Casa found itself with a new leader every 1-2 years. Casillas, however, held the position from 1992-1998 and returned to La Casa in 2000 to accept the newly created position of director.

Under the direction of Casillas, La Casa continued to flourish. In 1995, La Casa sponsored MEZCLA, the first Latino team to compete in the Little 500 bicycle race. In 1997, La Casa was instrumental in bringing another Latina sorority, Sigma Lambda Gamma, to Indiana University. Additionally, another first for Latino students was organized by Casillas and La Casa in 1998, when a team of Latino students participated in the I.U. Sing.

As La Casa’s presence grew on campus, the general student body became more aware of diversity issues. Throughout 1997 and 1998, 32 student organizations had come together to advocate that Indiana University officially recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day, create a Latino Studies department, and address many other diversity issues. Yet at the same time a climate of racial tension was also burgeoning on campus. One high profile case of such tension occurred in 1997, when nine pledges of the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity were arrested for racial harassment during a scavenger hunt that required them to take a photo of “any funny looking Mexican”. The aftermath of this and other events furthered conflict among students.

Growing concern led Kenneth R.R. Gros-Louis, Chancellor of Indiana University, Bloomington, to reevaluate minority advocacy programs in March of 1998. He consulted Dr. Charlie Nelms, Chancellor of the University of Michigan-Flint and a multi-racial team of educators and administrators. Together, they studied and evaluated the climate at Indiana University and formulated the 20/20 Plan to address minority and diversity concerns.

The plan was released on 1 October 1998 and it called for the strengthening of minority advocacy through the consolidation of individual advocacy offices into a unified Office of Multicultural Affairs. Chancellor Gros-Louis commented that “a series of stand-alone advocacy deanships cannot by themselves dramatically improve the campus climate, or increase the numbers or improve graduation rates from under-represented students.” (Faculty Council Speech, 6 October 1998)

There was some student opposition to the plan, and the Latino community in particular lobbied for better representation in the new office. This led to the hiring of former OLA Coordinator for Latino Services, Georgia Burguéno, as Latino Advocate in the new Office of Multicultural Affairs, which opened 1 January 1999. La Casa, which was previously managed by the Office of Latino Affairs and received funding out of the OLA budget, became an independent organization under the umbrella of the Office of Multi-Cultural Affairs.

This led to the replacement of the graduate student ‘Program Assistant’ position with the permanent staff position of director, which was filled by Casillas two years after she graduated and left the previous Program Assistant position. Though it was feared that consolidation would marginalize services for Latino students, Casillas commented that “under OMA [Office of Mulitcultural Affairs], La Casa has its own budget, larger staff and has better connections to other minority related services.” (personal communication, 14 June 2004) Presently, La Casa remains an active campus organization.

From the guide to the Indiana University Latino Cultural Center records, 1968-2003, bulk 1980-1995, (Indiana University Office of University Archives and Records Management http://www.libraries.iub.edu/archives)