WE ARE NOW ACCEPTING NOMINATIONS FOR THE CASA CENTRAL PASTORA SAN JUAN CAFFERTY AWARD!

ABOUT PASTORA SAN JUAN CAFFERTY

Pastora San Juan Cafferty, a native of Cuba, was a leading scholar and researcher on race and ethnicity at the University of Chicago as well as a leader in Chicago's Hispanic community. Her involvement with Chicago community organizations included a long relationship with Casa Central. Mrs. Cafferty also made her mark in the corporate world as a member of a number of boards of directors, beginning at a time when few women were included on those boards.

"She was a contributor to Casa Central who believed in our mission and was a strong supporter," said Ann Alvarez, Casa Central president and CEO during that time. Ms. Alvarez said Mrs. Cafferty was especially interested in services for seniors and was a major contributor to the organization's endowment fund.

Mrs. Cafferty was born in Cienfuegos, Cuba, and came to Miami with her family when she was about 7 or 8 years old. The move was difficult. Her father's business venture failed, her parents divorced and she and her mother eventually settled in Alabama. After graduating from what was then St. Bernard College in Cullman, Ala., she went on to George Washington University in Washington, where she completed a master's degree and a doctorate in American literary and cultural history. She stayed in Washington after college, taking a series of fellowships that brought her into contact with the White House and prominent journalists. She worked as a special assistant to the U.S. secretary of transportation and in the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

"Hispanics are a fascinating panethnic, a very diverse population racially, ethnically and nationally. I believe that the way we incorporate this diversity into our national consciousness will say a great deal, not about Hispanics necessarily, but about our whole system of political and social justice," she once explained.

NOMINATE SOMEONE TODAY!

The Casa Central Pastora San Juan Cafferty award is presented to an individual who has distinguished themselves  through extraordinary achievements in scholarship, business, civic engagement and other activities, which create positive social impact in Chicago and beyond.