New school mentor is old hand in Newport

It’s no surprise to Fausto Hinojosa that working-class people live in Newport Beach. The Ecuador native knows that wherever affluence exists, there is a less wealthy population to keep it running ? even in the Hamptons.

For the last four years, Hinojosa, who recently took office as Ensign Intermediate School’s new community facilitator, worked in the New York school system while serving as a pastor for a local church. His congregation lived in one of the state’s wealthiest enclaves, but he didn’t address the rich and educated. Most of the churchgoers who came to hear him were illegal immigrants who helped keep the resorts running.

Now, Hinojosa is in familiar territory again: living in one of the country’s most affluent areas and dealing with the less fortunate.

“The only thing that’s different is that there’s a lot less people there,” Hinojosa said, remembering the green stretches of upstate New York. “That place is a rural attraction. There’s nothing rural left here.”

Earlier this year, Ensign’s previous community facilitator, Fabiola Hemmerling-Fox, left the campus to work for the Newport-Mesa Unified School District’s Advocates Supporting Kids program. Around the same time, Hinojosa was looking to relocate to his former hometown, and he heard about the Ensign opening.

When Hinojosa passed his interview, the school got an unusual combination: a seasoned educator who had worked with Latino populations around the world, and a longtime Newporter. Hinojosa’s older daughter had attended Ensign before moving to New York, and he relocated to Newport Beach because his younger daughter missed her family and friends.

Hinojosa started work at Ensign on April 18. As the community facilitator, he works primarily with Latino students, serving as a translator during meetings and contacting parents about academic and disciplinary issues.

“He gets people involved,” said Principal Ed Wong. “He’s a lot more fluent in Spanish than the rest of us, so he can pick up the phone and give families a call.”

A figure like Hinojosa, the principal added, was essential as the Latino population grew consistently at Ensign.

“It’s grown, in the three years I’ve been here, from about a quarter to a third,” Wong said.

Hinojosa’s own past is as varied as the student body that he now oversees. The third of five siblings born in Ecuador to a mixed-class family ? his mother was born wealthy, while his father scraped his way up to run an electrical plant ? he emigrated to Santa Ana in 1967, 13 years old and speaking no English. Over the next few years, he picked up the language at McFadden Junior High School and went on to star in track, football and basketball.

After settling in central Orange County and landing a job at Boeing, Hinojosa joined the local Calvary Chapel and began doing missionary work in Latin America. A fellow church member invited him to address the congregation near her other residence in New York, and within a few years, Hinojosa had moved his wife and two daughters there full-time.

While in the Hamptons, Hinojosa became ordained as a minister and delivered sermons every Sunday to the immigrant population, most of whom lived in rented homes near the posh resorts.

“In that wealth, with those tremendous surroundings, they need a lot of help,” Hinojosa said. “Everyone who was in our congregation supported that infrastructure.”

At Ensign, Hinojosa does a similar job as he did in New York, albeit in a secular sense. Many low-income students come to him seeking advice on how to move up in life, and he refers them to necessary programs ? such as Advancement Via Individual Determination, or AVID, which prepares struggling youths for college.

“He could be a great asset to bridge the communication between the Latinos and the rest of the school,” said Nancy Muller, president of the Ensign foundation. “I think he could bridge the gap, definitely. It’s great that he’s there now.”dpt.26-fausto-CPhotoInfoPM1RB9VC20060526izudyxnc KENT TREPTOW / DAILY PILOT (LA)Fausto Hinojosa was recently hired by Ensign Intermediate School as a mentor and counselor.