CASA Purchase

The mission of Casa Purchase is to weave the interdisciplinary study of Latin America and Latino/a communities in the United States together with contemporary issues and concerns of the Latino population in the communities surrounding Purchase College.

To build “Toward the Greater Purchase” (Direction #4, Strategic Plan 2010–2015), we will develop collaborations between the college and our neighbors that contribute to the social, economic, and educational advancement of local Latino communities and their transnational counterparts in Latin America.

By increasing the presence of Purchase College in local communities, we seek to make educational and artistic opportunities available to broader audiences, to increase the number of first-generation Hispanic students enrolling in colleges and universities, and to help these students graduate.

In a global world that is increasingly transnational and cross-racial, Casa Purchase aims to:

• Articulate our academic and service-learning programs to work with community-based organizations, municipal officials, and school administrators so that we can provide useful services to Westchester County’s Latino and immigrant communities.
   
• Offer students an opportunity to learn social responsibility by working with multigenerational immigrant populations to devise solutions to their self-defined problems.
   
• Provide solid academic grounding for students and other members of the college community who wish to dedicate their professional interests to Latin America and to Latinos/as in the United States.
   
• Expand our educational and artistic resources available on campus to the residents of Westchester County.
   
• Enrich the knowledge and appreciation of the complex nature, history, and culture of Latin American societies and the Latino/a experience.