From the Old School : Barrio-Born Banker Invests in Latinos’ Future With Scholarship Fund

SANTA ANA — Manuel Esqueda grew up in the Delhi barrio in central Santa Ana when it was a neighborhood of dirt roads and flimsy housing, when there was no indoor plumbing and the elementary school installed showers to ensure the kids were clean.

Back then, more than 60 years ago, Esqueda and his friends--sons and daughters of Mexican immigrants--were consigned to the balcony of the downtown Santa Ana movie theater, kept separate from whites. Worst of all, he said, no one expected “the Mexican kids” to amount to anything more than day laborers and factory workers.

Esqueda vowed to make something of himself, and to return to help other young Latinos succeed.

Now, at 74, a retired bank manager and father of three who earned a master’s degree at night school, Esqueda has kept his promise a thousand times over.

Through a scholarship fund he established with four friends in 1952 under the name the Gemini Club, he has helped send 980 young Latinos to college. This month, he’ll hand out 38 more scholarships, passing a milestone he can hardly believe he’s reached.

“When you are called [by God], the only things you take with you are the things you’ve done for your fellow man,” he said. “I want people to know that here was a man, a Latino, who did his part.”

Esqueda, who still lives in the modest stucco home he bought 42 years ago, has never golfed or fished, but he has boundless energy for raising money and helping schools.

“He’s simply wonderful,” said Superior Court Judge David Velasquez, who has helped select scholarship winners for five years. “He came from truly humble beginnings, put himself through school, became a Hispanic pioneer in the banking community, and he’s constantly coming up with new ideas to encourage kids to stay in school. He’s got incredible energy and vision. He’s just a tremendous role model for me.”

The scholarships Esqueda hands out to graduating high school seniors are small--only $500--but in some cases, the money is badly needed for books and supplies. Scholarship winners from years past said the recognition and support they received meant far more than the money.

“This validated my hard work and my performance, so I was very honored by that,” said Frederick Aguirre, a Fullerton attorney who won a grant from Esqueda in 1964 to go along with his full scholarship to USC. Aguirre, the son of a bricklayer, said the scholarship helped him stay in school when he was tempted to quit. “When people recognize you and set high goals for you, it’s hard to let them down.”

Names of 80 potential recipients are submitted every year by local schools. After interviews with judges, educators and other professionals, about 40 are selected, based on scholastic achievement and participation in community and school activities. Financial need has never been a consideration, Esqueda said.

Among the scholars chosen last month is Maureen Villasenor, a senior at La Quinta High School in Santa Ana who will attend UCLA and hopes to become a pediatrician. One of 12 children born to an electrical engineer, Villasenor said that not only will the scholarship help her buy books, it has boosted her confidence as she enters a competitive university. “There were so many good people who tried out for it,” she said. “It really meant a lot to be recognized.”

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Julie Avalos, a scholarship winner from 1986, teaches first grade at James Monroe Elementary, the same school Esqueda attended more than six decades ago. He visited her last week, and for a moment as he stood outside the brick building, he seemed overwhelmed, remembering the neighborhood as it once was.

The son of a railroad worker who died young, Esqueda had to drop out of Santa Ana High School to help support his family. He later finished at a Huntington Park school, working nights in a foundry.

He learned clerical and accounting skills in the Navy and was later hired by Bank of America, where he worked his way up to branch manager.

In 1952, Esqueda and four friends--all Geminis--formed the scholarship fund. It grew dramatically in 1984, when Esqueda, the only surviving member, began an association with the California Angels (now the Anaheim Angels) and renamed the fund Serafines, Spanish for Angels.

Then-team owner Gene Autry threw in $10,000, which Esqueda matched with $10,000 of his own money. Since then, he’s raised at least $20,000 a year through private and corporate donations.

The Gemini Club hoped to counter high dropout rates and widespread gang activity among Latinos. Those problems persist today, but Esqueda said he’s seen an important change in the achievement levels and ambitions of many Latino students.

“We know that progress is being made,” he said. “Youngsters are going to medical school, law school, studying oceanography. These are kids who are well-informed. They know what they want. All we can do is give them a small amount of money to show that we believe in them.”

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Esqueda will mark his 1,000th scholarship Sunday with an afternoon program of poetry and music at the Santa Ana High School auditorium, starting at 2 p.m. The $10 admission fee goes toward the Serafines scholarship fund.

The program will include traditional mariachi music, singing by Florencia Tinoco and a performance by harpist Javier Godinez. Esqueda will recite three poems he wrote in honor of mothers.

Esqueda also will present certificates of achievement to the mothers of three large families whose children all attended college and became professionals. Among them is the mother of Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove), Maria Socorro Macias, an immigrant from Mexico who sent seven children to college and then went on to earn a degree herself.

“If it hadn’t been for the mothers of all these youngsters,” Esqueda said. “I don’t think we would have reached the point we’re at now,”