Casa Latina is a left-of-center advocacy group located in Seattle, Washington, that operates several community service and employment assistance programs and advocates for left-of-center labor and immigration policies. The group was founded by local organizers in 1994 and operates a worker center and employment program for the Seattle-area homeless population and immigrant community. The group also operates a legal initiative that sues employers over alleged underpayment of employees. The group provides support to many left-leaning causes in the Seattle area including supporting the city’s 2015 $15 minimum wage ordinance.

The organization receives funding from many notable left-leaning funding organizations and labor unions including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Marguerite Casey Foundation, Teamsters Local 1, and SEIU 1199 NW. ^{1 2}

Background

Casa Latina was founded in 1994 to provide support for Seattle-area Latino immigrants. The group cites the lack of Spanish-speaking community resources in Seattle following an immigration wave in the early 1990s. The group incorporated as a nonprofit in 1995 and began an annual fundraising art auction. In 1999, the organization formed its Day Worker Center and began providing day laborer jobs to immigrants in the area for $8 an hour. The organization dispatched over 1,000 laborers to nearly 6,000 temporary jobs in the first year of the center and concurrently began holding English classes for many of its laborers. The organization also founded a domestic worker program to provide various other types of jobs to area immigrants. ³

In 2015 Casa Latina joined with a coalition of labor unions in Seattle to support the city’s $15 minimum wage ordinance, which went into effect that year and was among the first in the nation to adopt such a policy as part of a larger national push for a $15 minimum wage led by the Service Employees International Union. ⁴

People

The interim executive director of Casa Latina as of March 2022 is Guadalupe Torres. Torres previously worked on projects in Colorado as a consultant to an H1N1 virus response project among the Latino community in the Denver area as well as leading a worker’s center in Denver. Immediately prior to working at Casa Latina, Torres was the executive director of College Possible WA, a higher education advocacy group that originally was a local group called College Access Now that Merged into the college access national network. ⁵

Board members of the organization include board president Pilar Pacheco, a senior program officer for program response at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as employees at other left-of-center groups include Racial Equity Works, Heritage Bank, the Law School Admissions Council, and Global Partnerships. ⁶

Funding

Funders of Casa Latina include the Marguerite Casey Foundation, J.P. Morgan Chase, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Kaiser Permanente, East Bank, SEIU 775, Sea Mar Community Health Centers, UFCW, SEIU Healthcare 1199NW, Teamsters Local Union Number 1, the City of Seattle Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, the Washington Wage Claims Project, the National Domestic Worker Alliance, and OPEIU Local 8. ⁷

1. “History.” Casa Latina. Accessed March 27, 2022. https://casa-latina.org/about-us/history/
2. “2020 Annual Report.” Casa Latina. Accessed March 27, 2022. https://casa-latina.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2020_Annual-Report-1.pdf
3. “History.” Casa Latina. Accessed March 27, 2022. https://casa-latina.org/about-us/history/
4. “History.” Casa Latina. Accessed March 27, 2022. https://casa-latina.org/about-us/history/
5. “Staff.” Casa Latina. Accessed March 27, 2022. https://casa-latina.org/about-us/staff/
6. ^[1] “Board of Directors.” Casa Latina. Accessed March 27, 2022. https://casa-latina.org/about-us/board-of-directors/
7. “2020 Annual Report.” Casa Latina. Accessed March 27, 2022. https://casa-latina.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2020_Annual-Report-1.pdf