Critical Action & Social Advocacy (CASA) Pitzer advances critical analysis and community partnerships around the most pressing issues in the Inland Empire.
The CASA Pitzer space brings local residents, organizers, activists, artists, and nonprofits together with Pitzer College faculty and students to build community and enact change. The CASA Pitzer academic program facilitates student internships and community-based participatory research on issues of regional equity and justice pertaining to incarceration, immigration, education, environment, labor, art, culture, and health.
Community Engagement & Participatory Research
VISIT US!
CASA is now offering funding opportunities open to students, staff, faculty and community partners to support their community-based classes, research or other collaborative projects and events, trainings, workshops, or celebrations.
APPLY FOR FUNDING ↗
CASA’s beautiful Pitzer facility in downtown Ontario is free to use for all community and justice-oriented gatherings.
Complete our reservation form and wait for a confirmation email from our staff to host a gathering! Please be mindful of our house rules and COVID guidelines.
EXPLORE CASA
UPDATES
Learn more about the CASA Program and our accomplishments in our 2022-2023 Annual Report.
Read and share our quarterly newsletter.
SPRING 2023 NEWSLETTER ↗
Activist Scholar in Residence Program
CASA’s Activist Scholar in Residence (ASIR) Program seeks to give activists time and space to rest, reflect, and reimagine their work, while also providing them with institutional support for their growth and engagement with other organizers in the region, as well as members of the Pitzer College community.
We are currently accepting ASIR applications for Fall 2023 and beyond. Click below to learn more, view eligibility requirements, and apply.
ASIR APPLICATION ↗
Know Justice, Know Peace
This work was selected by North Atlantic Books to be published as a forthcoming anthology and workbook of practices. Our community celebration in July 2023 uplifted all those who have co-created with us!
KJKP CELEBRATION RECAP↗
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
With gratitude and humility, CASA staff honors the land on which many of us live and work. We acknowledge that our organization operates on the stolen land of the Tongva tribe, who have always called this land home.
Let us also acknowledge the diverse California Indigenous communities made up of tribal diversity that originate from here and around the country, and whose journeys have brought them here and by ways of forced displacement or seeking opportunities.
Further, we respectfully acknowledge the enslaved people, primarily of African descent who provided exploited labor on which this country was built, with little to no recognition. Today, we are indebted to their labor and the labor of many black and brown bodies that continue to work in the shadows for our collective benefit; this includes refugee- and immigrant-settlers, many of whom have been coerced to this country by militarism, imperialism, and displacement. These black and brown people may have different and complex relationships to being a settler (which should not be mutually exclusive with their participation in reparation efforts).
We understand that acknowledgement alone is insufficient to address and begin to repair the historic and ongoing harm caused to Indigenous peoples by colonialism, white supremacy, and centuries of attempted genocide.
We believe in and affirm the rights of Indigenous people to inhabit and cultivate their ancestral lands, and to be recognized, respected, and compensated by those of us who live and work here.
We would like to thank Highline College, Native Land Digital, and YES! Media for their guidance in creating this land acknowledgement. To donate to the Tongva Conservancy, please go to: https://tongva.land/
