Since its founding in 1974, La Casa has demonstrated a commitment to Latina and Latino students at the University of Illinois. La Casa reflects the diversity of Latina and Latino culture and exemplifies the contemporary culture that shapes American’s in this world. La Casa faced its first struggle in December of 2011 as the University had a plan to move all the cultural and resources centers and ethnic and women gender studies departments into a shared multi- unit space(s). Students and alumni opted out of this plan and La Casa remained as an independent house. Although La Casa now remained as an independent home, it still faced the problem of preserving the murals that draped the home.
Within the house of La Casa, there are murals painted on every inch of the room, expressing the rich culture, history, and struggles that underlies Latin culture at the University of Illinois. The original mural was painted by Martinez with the assistance of other students in 1974 to prevent the new Latino Cultural Center from being closed. Drawing upon organizational strategies developed in home communities, students defined their claim to the space by painting a mural to cover the house’s front room. Efforts and petitions to save the murals date back three decades on campus. A feasibility study was performed in November 2013 by Johnson Lasky Architects which outlined recommendations for extraction, transport, and storage. Sixteen years later when La Casa Cultural Latina moved into a new facility students organized demonstrations and signed petitions to save the murals. As you heard in the video, the murals were way too delicate and the University finally responded to the claims. In the year of 2016, the murals were finally removed from the La Casa in an effort to save the precious work.
I invite you to explore my page and familiarize yourself with the rich history that La Casa presents. With that, you will witness the struggles of the student activism on behalf of the La Casa Mural's, that happened just recently in the year of 2016.
