Frances Andrade, Community Organizer : She Works to Bring Power to Her People

Soon after being hired by Oak View Elementary School in Huntington Beach more than 20 years ago, Frances Andrade watched neighborhood kids set fires in the alleys behind a vacant lot near the school.

“I used to dream about building a recreation center out there, to give the kids some place they could go,” Andrade said.

So when federal money became available two years later, Andrade led the effort to build what is now a popular recreation facility next to the school.

The successful completion of the facility was typical of Andrade’s resolve to get things done. As community liaison at Oak View School, Andrade has been the catalyst in solving many problems that have cropped up in the largely Latino Oak View neighborhood.

When crime began plaguing the area, Andrade led the drive to locate a police substation next to the school. She has organized free meal programs and collects clothes and other goods to help poor Oak View residents. And if a Spanish-speaking neighbor can’t read her doctor’s prescription, chances are she’ll go to Andrade for a translation.

Born into a modest home in the neighborhood--a home that years later would be the focal point of an angry protest led by Andrade--she began organizing church luncheons and carnivals as a girl. Today, at 57, she is the link to the bureaucratic world for many recent immigrants.

Andrade’s role in the neighborhood is so unique that the Ocean View School District in 1969 created the community liaison job just for her. No one ever told her what the job entails. She says she just does whatever needs to be done.

“I don’t punch a clock. I’ve never had any boss,” she said. “I’ve always just been looking for ways to improve the quality of life for the people here.”

And she has worked toward that end, both inside and against the system.

She coordinates English-as-a-Second Language classes at Oak View, and serves on a variety of advisory boards. Her work has earned her commemorative plaques from various agencies, but fighting for the rights of the disenfranchised often brings conflict with the very people who honor her.

In the 1960s, for example, the city began tearing down single-family homes and replacing them with apartment complexes, despite Andrade’s protests that they would turn the neighborhood into a slum.

When the home in which Andrade grew up also was targeted to be bulldozed, she lashed back. “We burned it down in protest,” she said.

She paid the Fire Department citation, and continued the fight.

“I was raised on the side of the tracks where you had to learn to survive. And how do you survive? You fight. I was raised tough, because you had to be,” she said.

Though Andrade’s activism has taken many forms, she says all her work is aimed at a single goal--empowering the people of her community.

“I truly believe that the only way a child--any child--can be successful is with education,” she said. “The more education you get, the more choices you have.”