From the outside, it looks like a normal office building. But on the inside, the space looks like the wooden framing of a small house, a ‘casita.’ La Casita Cultural Center only takes up the first floor of the building in which it is located. Though it is small, it feels like a home, with newly furnished bookshelves, artwork on the walls and brightly colored plants. 

The celebratory grand opening of La Casita took place Wednesday and was open to members of the Syracuse community to enjoy the new facility and learn all about its benefits.    

Two Syracuse University professors within the College of Arts and Sciences, Inmaculada Lara-Bonilla and Silvio Torres-Saillant, founded La Casita as a way to bridge together the community through art, culture and education.

‘We want the community to feel this is a base and part of their home,’ saidSylvia Martinez-Daloia, a member of the La Casita advisory board and site director for Say Yes to Education at LeMoyne Elementary School.

After two years of planning and preparation, the center was finally ready to open its doors to the public. Syracuse residents, SU faculty and staff and distinguished guests attended the opening.

The main highlights of the evening included poetry readings and remarks from several keynote speakers.  The speakers shared thoughts about the importance of Latino influence in the Syracuse community.  

Willam Aguado, co-curator of the center’s opening photography exhibition, ‘Las Casitas Revised: An Urban Alternative,’ spoke about La Casita’s significance.  He said he believes it captures the soul and the vitality of the public.

‘What is important about La Casita is that it captures the spirituality of the people,’ Aguado said.

Maria Hinojosa, host and managing editor of NPR’s ‘Latino USA,’ said she thought this opening was a milestone for the community.   

She then spoke about the importance of having a La Casita in Syracuse due to the difficulties the Syracuse community has been having. She mentioned that the suicide rate for Latina teenagers is one of the highest in the country, and there is a 65 percent dropout rate in Syracuse schools. She encouraged the community to work on these issues.

‘The arts save my soul and save your soul,’ she said. ‘And that’s why we need La Casitas.’

The name of the center, La Casita, originated from the Casita movement in the South Bronx led by the Puerto Rican community in the 1970s, Torress-Saillant said.  The driving force behind the movement was to reclaim abandoned property and unattractive buildings in the area and make them suitable for living conditions. This enabled the members of that community to take control of their environment and, most importantly, reconnect with their cultural heritage through the process.

‘The actual idea of creating a cultural center was simply based on a need that many people in the Latino neighborhood on the Westside recognized,’ Torres-Saillant said.

SU Chancellor Nancy Cantor’s Leadership Program funded the center, granting Lara-Bonilla and Torres-Saillant $150,000 to go forward and establish the center. 

One Syracuse resident, Aimee Brill, who attended the event with her children, said she wants her children to be a part of the large community.  Her husband, Kevin Bott, the associate director of Imagining America, believes the cultural center will do well once the community adapts to the new space.    

‘The first thing you have to realize is you are inviting them into a space they are not really used to,’ Bott said. ‘We have to make it their space.’

The celebration ended with Caroline Tihanyi singing a Spanish song, ‘La Malaguena.’ The audience clapped and faces lit up with emotion.  Co-founder Lara-Bonilla described this as a ‘cultural intervention’ that, like La Casita, has brought the community closer to their cultural heritage.    

The city of Syracuse will reap the benefits of La Casita’s presence, Torres-Saillant said.  Not only will the center cater to the ever-growing Latino population in Syracuse, but it will also stand as a cultural symbol to the rest of the city.

‘It will be like having Little Italy or Chinatown in certain cities,’ he said.  ‘In this way, the locals will recognize that they have a local heritage there that they should take advantage of.’

falara@syr.edu

cjsunde@syr.edu

Published on September 28, 2011 at 12:00 pm