Involvement Key to Activist’s Education

Laura Avella made a deal with her husband when they moved in 1988 from Mexico to Orange County. He would provide for the family with his job as a diesel mechanic. And she would give up her career making false teeth to take care of the children.

Kids should be raised by parents, they agreed, not by baby sitters.

Their first-born son, Aron, was an infant when they migrated. He’s now 12 and has two younger sisters, Carol, 10, and Jessica, 8.

Laura doesn’t regret spending the 1990s as full-time caretaker and housekeeper. But, boy, you can hardly call her a stay-at-home mom.

Her daily planner is packed. The thick, bound organizer sat on the kitchen counter when I visited the family’s impeccable Costa Mesa apartment Wednesday afternoon. I asked for a glimpse at her schedule, so she opened it to display the month of March. She had already penciled in appointments on 16 days:

* Meetings at three different schools, including TeWinkle Middle School, where she was recently nominated for PTA president.

* A performance of “America the Beautiful” by her daughter, Carol, with her school choir.

* An evening ceremony at the school board for graduates of a parent training program.

* And the day before my visit, she prepared her presentation next week to other parents on fun ways to incorporate math lessons into their everyday lives, part of UCI’s effort to reach out to promising young students in low-performing middle and secondary schools.

That doesn’t include making her husband’s lunch, volunteering at her church (“my second home”) and shuttling her children back and forth from school.

Doesn’t she ever get tired?

“No, I’m happy with what I do,” Laura told me in Spanish. “I feel useful . . . And this way, I’m growing as a woman. I’m improving myself (Me estoy superando). I think a woman can always grow within her home.”

Now, Laura has another date she needs to mark in her planner. On March 26, she will be honored as one of “Orange County’s Finest Community Leaders.”

Laura, 34, is among 18 individuals and organizations to be recognized by the Orange County Human Relations Commission for outstanding contributions in the arena of human rights. She is credited with helping to organize her neighbors in an effort to improve local schools, leading to a new dialogue with district officials and a more “parent friendly” environment on campuses.

Everybody deserves credit for getting involved to improve their communities. But there’s extra merit due to immigrants like Laura, who must learn a new language and a new system as prerequisites to activism in a new land.

First, they must learn to believe in themselves as leaders. Many don’t think they have what it takes. Those parent training courses--like the one that earned Laura her certificate Tuesday night--teach participants how to appreciate and harness their own power.

Tina Fernandez, one of the trainers, said she wants parents to realize they already are leaders--in their own homes. They know how to organize their time, do many things at once, show empathy for others, have a vision for the future and celebrate successes along the way.

“As a mother, as one of the leaders in your household, you already have all these skills,” said Fernandez, program director with the Human Relations Commission, which sponsored the training for the Newport-Mesa Unified School District. “You might not think these skills are transferable to your community, but by God, they really are.”

In the beginning, Laura found her way to civic involvement through her church. That’s also how she found her husband.

The former Laura Valencia met Gerardo Avella at a prayer group in their hometown, the graceful, provincial city of San Luis Potosi in central Mexico. Instead of going out dancing, the young couple would go together to spiritual retreats and discussion groups.

I didn’t get a chance to meet Gerardo, who works swing shift. But a vase next to the refrigerator still held red roses, now wilting, he had given his wife for no special reason. Laura couldn’t get herself to throw them out.

Nice to see romance alive in a mature marriage.

Several years ago, Laura started putting love notes in her husband’s lunches. Not just in his lunch box, mind you. In his sandwiches! The first time she slipped a romantic message between the ham and cheese, he was surprised to find it when he took a bite. Of course, she had wrapped the note in a Baggie to keep the sentiment from getting soggy.

“I think a woman needs to be inventive so that her marriage doesn’t fall into monotony,” said Laura with a smile.

A harmonious home yields stable kids who do well in school. Says Laura of her children: “I see reflected in them the tranquillity that we try to transmit.”

Laura acknowledges that not all parents can afford to be as involved as she and her husband, who was president of the PTA at Pomona School in Costa Mesa for two years in the mid-1990s. But there’s no excuse for schools to create barriers to their involvement.

A couple years ago, Laura fumed at what she considered the disparaging and disrespectful treatment of Latino parents by the staff at Pomona School, where she was also on the PTA. She mentioned the problems to her friend, Paty Madueno, a neighbor and fellow parishioner at St. Joachim’s Catholic Church.

Paty urged Laura to work through the parish chapter of the Orange County Congregation Community Organization, an advocacy group experienced in confronting issues of crime and education in heavily Latino areas.

Through OCCCO, Laura and other leaders conducted 1,000 personal interviews with residents, staying after Mass on Sundays to document their concerns about the local schools. They took their research to district officials, who responded quickly. School employees were required to brush up on customer service skills. And parents were offered training to understand the school system and how they can make it work for their families, too.

Last year, Laura participated in a similar grass-roots effort to gather community comment on Costa Mesa’s Westside redevelopment plans. The face-to-face interviews helped city officials reach the immigrant community, which had previously not participated in the improvement project, approved in January.

Laura didn’t do it all for the recognition she’ll receive on Sunday. But it helps.

“I feel gratified that someone has taken my efforts into account,” she said in her very proper Spanish. “Me da estimulos. . . . It charges my batteries to keep going forward.”

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