Eulalio Frausto -- led fight for Latino rights through S.F. law firm

Amr Eman, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, April 13, 2007

Eulalio Frausto, a San Francisco attorney who came from humble beginnings to assume a leading role in Latino legal circles, died of cancer in San Diego on April 2. He was 64.

Until just before his death, he maintained a general law practice in San Francisco for nearly 30 years, focusing on civil rights and minority issues from his office in the historic Flood Building on Market Street.

In the mid-1970s, he co-founded and served as the first vice president of the California La Raza Lawyers Association, a group created to support Latino and Chicano attorneys. In 1978, he served on the city's charter revision commission, which rewrote the municipal charter, and in 1980 made an unsuccessful run for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Mr. Frausto was born in 1942 and grew up poor as one of 13 siblings in a immigrant farmworker family that lived in a one-room home with a pot-bellied stove in Eloy, Ariz. He attended segregated rural schools until the 11th grade and didn't speak English until his family moved to the Central Valley town of Madera when he was 17.

But, his wife recalled, there was always a desire to learn and succeed.

"He hated doing farm labor, and his family thought he was lazy," said Carol Frausto of San Diego. "He'd get in trouble for sneaking off and going to the library to read books."

His drive eventually led to an undergraduate degree from Fresno State in 1966, followed by an Army tour of duty in Vietnam, where he suffered the loss of hearing in one ear.

He returned to Madera and worked as a probation officer before a Superior Court judge persuaded him to attend law school at UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, from which he graduated in 1972.

He passed the state bar and worked at the San Francisco Neighborhood Legal Assistance Foundation and other Legal Aid offices.

"He tended to be a sensitive person," his wife said. "He was the kind of man who would take risks to help people. His interest in being a lawyer may just prove that. He wanted to make things better through his profession."

"Frausto was very effective as a lawyer," said Thomas Romery, a close friend, who said Mr. Frausto's impoverished upbringing was a strong influence in his legal career helping the poor.

For example, Romery said, Mr. Frausto filed a suit challenging the California State University system on its low percentage of Latino students.

Mr. Frausto's cancer was first diagnosed in 2004, according to his wife.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by two children, Sergio Mendoza Frausto of Fresno and Lydia Muchling Frausto of Descanso (San Diego County), and nine brothers and sisters.

Services will be held today in Madera.

This article appeared on page B - 7 of the San Francisco Chronicle