Susana De Anda
Currently Co-Executive Director of the Community Water Center, is our youngest interviewee to date, at 27 years old. The Community Water Center, based in Visalia, CA seeks to ensure that all communities have access to safe, clean and affordable water and was founded in part by Susana.
Susana is the daughter of two immigrants from Mexico, and grew up for the most part in Salinas, California. She was orphaned at 11, but was surrounded by family, including her brother, who has been a major influence in her life.
Although she spent most of her growing up years in Salinas, Susana spent one year in New Hampshire after her parents died where she was sent to live with an aunt.
Although not physically present in her life after age 11, Susana credits her parents with a great deal of long-lasting impact and influence in her life, including impressing upon her the importance of education, in part as a way to get out of working the fields, which they did. She believes her experiences, although difficult, have made her a very strong and independent person, and enormously appreciative of all she has in her life now.
Join me as I discuss with Susana how her early experiences shaped her life and gave her the tools she’s used to succeed.
Susana went to the University of California at Santa Barbara and earned her B.A. degree with a double major in Environmental Studies and Geography. From the beginning of her exposure to the area of study, Susana was drawn to environmental studies, including environmental justice and environmental racism, the stories about which resonated with her personally. This social movement work appealed to her, and became part of her life.
Also during her college years, Susana went to Mexico to study, including holding an internship in Mexico.
We’ll be talking about the various influences that directed Susana during college, and how her experienced differed from other Latinos around her.
During and after her undergraduate work, she interned with “Agua Pura,” the Santa Barbara County 4-H Youth Development Program, the focus of which was to engage Latino youth and families in water resource issues.
Susana also worked as the Spanish spokesperson for “Project Clean Water” with the Santa Barbara County Water Agency. As the pollution prevention coordinator, Susana managed the Community Hazardous Waste Center and battery and oil recycling projects for Community Environmental Council, a Santa Barbara non-profit organization.
How have these early experience in water issues informed what Susana does now?
After a year in Santa Barbara, Susana was looking for her next challenge, and wanted to leave the city to go to a place where her skills could be put to broader use.
Although she didn’t know what “community organizing” was at the time, Susana was drawn to a job posting for the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment (CRPE), where she served as community organizer at CRPE’s Delano office from 2005-2006. Additionally, she was drawn to Delano and its history of community organizing and community organizers.
What did Susana learn is entailed in work as a “community organizer”?
She was awarded the Rising Tortuga Award from Latino Issues Forum in 2005 for her willingness to “stick her neck out” for California’s Latino community.
After two years in her position with CRPE, she felt it was important to found an organization whose sole focus was water justice. She is currently running this non-profit and learning as she goes what it means to direct a non-profit organization.
Join me as I talk with Susana about her latest challenges and what she’s learned from this position.
She believes it is important for young Latinas to know that you can be a leader even from a young age. This will be an exciting interview – don’t miss it!!!