She Found Her Wings on Cello Strings

It’s not easy to find a cello in a pawn shop.

Assael Alvarado went shopping for one of the oversized instruments when she started high school in Fullerton in 1995. That year, she realized most of her fellow freshmen in the student orchestra had instruments of their own and had taken private lessons.

It sure was a different world from the one she’d known all her life. Assael was born in Jalisco’s capital, Guadalajara, and grew up in Huntington Park, where almost all of her classmates were from low-income immigrant families like hers. She had taken up the cello on a whim in junior high because she liked its sound.

Few, if any, of her classmates back then could afford private lessons, much less their own instruments. Family budgets in the barrio don’t leave room for $800 luxuries, no matter how sweet they sound.

Assael suffered a slight culture shock when she enrolled at Sunny Hills High School. Her family had moved to Buena Park, but she was smart enough to pick the Fullerton campus, known for its performing arts program.

At Sunny Hills, Assael found herself in a school with mostly Asian kids. She remembers feeling a little awkward at first.

Not that Assael complained about the financial disparities between herself and her new peers. But there was that vague feeling that people looked down on students who didn’t have their own instruments, said her mother, Rosalba Andrade.

It was Assael’s idea to hunt for a recycled cello.

“Mom,” the girl said, “let’s go look in the pawn shops. Maybe we can find a cheap one.”

Mother and daughter trekked to Los Angeles, scouring the money-lending shops that trade on hard times. They found clarinets, flutes and violins. But not a single cello.

“It’s like, cellos are not very common,” said Mrs. Andrade.

Neither are girls like Assael, a carpenter’s daughter in the upper-crust circles of classical music.

She’s a senior now, a slender young woman with good manners and a natural, delightful self-confidence. Though she never bought one of her own, she stuck with her instrument, practicing faithfully on a school loaner.

Today, she sees her lack of private lessons as both a hindrance and a hidden blessing.

“I don’t get as rigorous of a workout and I’m not as devoted for that reason,” she said. “But it’s also been a strength because I’ve had to learn a lot of things by myself.”

I met Assael on Wednesday morning at a special concert for high school students presented by the Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Mexico, on its historic first visit to Orange County this week. In a show of support for her interests, the whole family was there, from her 4-year-old brother Carlos to her grandparents, who helped raise her.

About 2,600 students were bused to Fullerton’s Plummer Auditorium for free mini-concerts by the Mexico City orchestra conducted by Enrique Arturo Diemecke. Founded in 1928, the orchestra performed Friday night in a concert benefiting the Hispanic Education Endowment Fund, a Latino scholarship program. A final Southern California appearance is scheduled tonight at UCLA’s Royce Hall.

The local shows were presented by the Philharmonic Society of Orange County, a nonprofit group that sponsors educational activities for some 275,000 children each year. Its Concerts on Campus program exposes youngsters to live music and teaches them symphony manners: No whistling and no clapping until the conductor turns around or puts down the baton.

“We know there are students in every audience who will never see another concert of this quality again,” said Barbara Kilponen, a leading volunteer with the society and a school board member in the Fullerton Joint Union High School District. “The best we can do is to provide quality programming so they want to hear more, and then become the audience of tomorrow and fill the concert halls.”

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Growing up in Huntington Park, Assael’s earliest training in music appreciation came from that ubiquitous cultural institution--the tube. As a girl, she loved watching “The Simpsons” and always admired Lisa, the daughter in the irreverent cartoon family. She liked Lisa because she was a “super-intelligent,” outspoken second-grader who played the saxophone.

In her real-life fifth grade, Assael was given the chance to sign up for the orchestra at Gage Middle School, the junior high she would be attending the following year. Gage was big on music and Assael was impressed when she heard the older students play during a visit.

On the enrollment form, she checked off the type of instrument she’d like to study: strings.

Hey, what happened to Lisa Simpson?

“Everyone was taking the saxophone and I didn’t want to go with the crowd,” she said.

Assael, 17, is as strong-willed as Lisa.

When she announced at home that she intended to go away to college, her grandmother objected.

“No, you’re not,” said her abuelita. “You’re not leaving this house until you get married.”

“I’m leaving whenever I feel like leaving,” Assael shot back. “I’m not waiting to get married. That’s not going to be my excuse to leave the house.”

Assael has been accepted to three universities: UC Irvine, Pepperdine and USC. She plans to study psychology--and live on campus with her parents’ support and prayers. She’ll be the first in her family to go to college.

“That’s basically my job: breaking ground,” she said.

Even as a child, Assael rebelled against the rules that said girls, especially in Latino homes, had to live with all sorts of restrictions for their own good.

So she was especially impressed by one of the pieces performed by the Mexican orchestra, a lovely 19th century work called “Galopa Mexico.” It was composed by a woman, Angela Peralta, who lived from 1845 to 1907.

Over lunch at an Italian restaurant after the show, Assael said she found the woman’s contribution to classical music surprising “for the era.”

“It gives me a sense of pride, that women can do something too,” she said. “Even if you guys don’t let ‘em.”

She has this advice for the next girl in the family, 5-year-old Karen: “Not to hold back just because she’s a girl. She can do whatever she wants to. I really do believe that.”

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Assael, one of two Latinas in the Sunny Hills string orchestra, isn’t sure if she’ll continue her musical studies. But her commitment to the cello for these last seven years has been unflinching.

The teenager couldn’t even be distracted by a modeling agency that tried to recruit her recently on campus, drawn no doubt by her dramatic cheek bones and her ojos tapatios, the light-colored eyes typical of the women from the highlands of Jalisco.

The agency even tried to reach her at home. Tell them to call back, she’d say to her mother. Assael was already too busy with rehearsals for the recent school production of “Sweet Charity.”

“I had a commitment, so I had to follow through,” Assael explains. “Besides, I have other things to look forward to--like college. I’m not caught up in the dream of, ‘Oh, yes, be a model.’ ”

“Good for you!” exclaimed school board member Kilponen, who joined us for lunch.

“Well, at least not now,” said Assael, always leaving her options open.

Agustin Gurza’s column appears Tuesday and Saturday. Readers can reach Gurza at (714) 966-7712 or agustin.gurza@latimes.com.