Castro’s daughter, Beth Castro, filed a complaint in Santa Cruz County Superior Court on March 30 challenging the university’s decision to sell the home rather than use it as planned as the headquarters for the Border Studies Initiative. It is something to chant.

“The Castro family is worth more than money to the Castro family. Specifically, the Castro family has enjoyed the Home for 20 years, and after Raul’s death, the Castro Home will bring the people of Arizona and the community of Santa Cruz County together. We wanted to focus on helping,” the lawsuit said. If UA sells the house, “the Castro family will suffer irreparable harm that cannot be recovered through compensatory damages.”

The 7,840-square-foot two-story home at 429 W. Crawford St. listed on Zillow for $300,000 was built in the early 1900s.

Raul Castro served as Arizona’s first and only Mexican-American governor from 1975 to 1977 and then Ambassador to Argentina from 1977 to 1980. A few years later, in 2003, Raul Castro and his wife Patricia Castro purchased and moved into a Nogales home on the US-Mexico border.

Locals have come to colloquially refer to the property as the Castro Mansion, according to the lawsuit, which has “significant emotional and personal value to the Castro family.”

according to public real estate report, the home was put up for sale in 2014 for $259,000. The asking price dropped to $215,000, but the house was taken off the market after not being sold for six months.

UA did not get involved until a year after Raul Castro passed away in 2015 (Patricia Castro passed away in 2018). After his death, the UA approached the Castro family about having a new border research initiative headquartered there, according to the complaint.

In 2016, the parties agreed that if the UA “agreed to develop, launch and maintain a Border Studies program in the names of Raul and Patricia and agreed to house the Border Studies, the Castro family would make the house available to the UA. I signed an agreement to donate to the foundation. program at the Castro family, according to the lawsuit.

UA planned the Raul H. and Patricia M. Castro Center for Border Studies and Outreach to serve as a hub for various UA border research initiatives.

“The main reason the Castro family came to the agreement was because they wanted to dedicate the Castro family to important causes such as the Border Studies program to improve the border community in Santa Cruz County,” the lawsuit said. “

Soon after, the university began developing, funding, and identifying community partners for border research initiatives. Under the agreement, the company also used the Castro family name and image in some promotional materials.

While the lawsuit repeatedly refers to a “border study program,” UA spokeswoman Pam Scott clarified in an email to the Arizona Daily Star that “there was never a border study program.” “Instead, (UA) should do border-related work.”

Among them are the Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry’s Fronteridades program, the Santa Cruz County Cooperative Extension, the nonprofit Southwest Folklife Alliance, and many who research and teach about the intersection of borders with topics such as journalism, health, and sustainability. of academic units. According to Scott, “These units have never operated outside the Castro residence and will continue to do so.”

Despite the university’s original plans to use Castro House as a physical clearing house for these efforts, UA put the property up for sale in February 2023.

UA announced the sale in a February 16 news release, citing its inability to raise sufficient funds to restore the historic home and transform it into a publicly accessible university-run border center. bottom.

Scott too He detailed to Star that when UA first took ownership of the property in 2016, the project was estimated to cost $600,000.

But when the COVID pandemic disrupted supply chains, that estimate climbed to $1.2 million on the low end and up to $2.6 million if both floors of the home were converted.

Regarding the funds already raised (approximately $275,000), UA said in a news release that they will “be returned to donors or added to scholarship funds, depending on the wishes of each funder.”

An unexpected attempt to sell the house forced Beth Castro, on behalf of herself and the estate of her deceased parents, to violate the 2016 agreement and seek an “unfair advantage” by UA and Arizona. I have come to file a lawsuit against both of the state board of trustees. UA sells the property to recover the funds.

The lawsuit seeks an injunction barring UA from selling the home and ultimately rescinding the 2016 contract. This means that if the court side with Beth Castro, the house will revert to Castro family ownership.

The Board of Regents and UA received the complaint within days of Castro’s filing of the complaint and should have approximately one month to reply with either an answer to the complaint or a motion to dismiss it.

Briana Ortega, the attorney representing Beth Castro, told the Arizona Daily Star, “Essentially, the ball is in their court and they are responding in a timely manner.” will proceed with the lawsuit.”

Both defendants declined to comment to Starr about the ongoing lawsuit.

“The overall message from the Castro family who filed this lawsuit is that they are not suing for their own cause, they are suing for the community,” Ortega said. Told. “They want to give Castro’s home back and find a good use for it.”

Javier Durán, director of the Confluencecenter for Creative Inquiry and professor of Latin American and border studies, said he could not comment specifically on the lawsuit, but the loss of Castro’s home is what UA is creating. Scholarships for border studies should not be reduced, he said. .

Over the past few years, Durand and his colleagues at UA have received more than $2 million in grants to pursue academic research on borders.

“With the strong community interest in the university having a presence in the community, I can understand why some people in the community would be disappointed not to have the Castro home as an active location,” Durand said. Said. “We should still be able to achieve that. It just takes time.”

UA’s border studies initiative is growing, but the interdisciplinary nature of the field means that disciplines are naturally scattered across campus, he said. And just because Castro’s house doesn’t act as a clearinghouse for work, Durand said he still has a vision of what the central space might look like.

“It may be physically present, but we are also very careful about the progress we have made in terms of remote, distance and virtual education,” he said. “We see it as a hybrid entity. increase.”