PEOPLE AND EVENTS

* “Mexicans are stupid and naturally lazy,” Ruben Sierra remembers Anglo teachers saying when he was growing up in San Antonio. “You’ll be lucky if you ever amount to much.”

Recently named dean at Valencia’s California Institute of Arts School of Theatre after a national search, Sierra--a playwright, actor and director--helped found the Seattle Group Theatre in 1978 while earning a master’s degree at the University of Washington.

“The most exciting learning is where you’re sharing,” said Sierra, adding that he’ll encourage students to take risks. “Say. . . ‘Let’s experiment. If it doesn’t work, we’ll find what does--together.’ ”

* Samuel Mark, who heads the USC office of civic and community relations, has been promoted to an assistant vice president at the campus. A native of Havana, Mark created the office of Hispanic programs in USC’s College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. He is the editor of the Directory of the Hispanic Community of the County of Los Angeles.

* Pediatrician Linda Velasquez’s journey toward becoming a peace activist was an odyssey that taught her “to stop being a victim and to work for those victims of the arms race.”

This year Velasquez earned Immaculate Heart College Center’s second annual Corita Kent Peace Award, honoring those “who, through their lives, words and actions, express the dream of life without war.”

Velasquez also expresses that dream through her work at the Edward Roybal Comprehensive Health Center in East Los Angeles, where she encourages parents to become involved in their children’s education. “Parents appreciate someone taking the time to talk to them,” she said. “Well-child care is more than making sure the baby is not dead.”