“Her USC education formed the foundation of everything she did professionally in her many activities,” Frank said. “Of course, she was one of the few women in her program and she found that a bit of a challenge.”

Joe’s granddaughter, Lucy, was raised in her grandfather’s home. “Being the third generation in the Zazueta household meant that you were intuitively a USC Trojan and lifelong fan,” she said.“As a family, we would often watch the football games together, all of us in the den, shouting and cheering!”

“My grandfather loved the school and cherished his time spent on campus,” Lucy said. “Eleanor was like a sister to me growing up, and I often accompanied her and her sorority friends for outings. She could light up a room and had many friends in the sorority.”

“My grandfather and Eleanor were very proud of their accomplishments and time spent at theUniversity,” Lucy said. “It is with great pride that I carried on the family tradition of attending and graduating from USC.”

Eleanor’s daughter, Vanessa Frank, added, “My grandfather was always so immensely proud of being a naturalized U.S. Citizen and being a USC alumnus (not sure which he would list first!), so he would be quite proud to be honored [with this story] by USC.

“When he graduated, nearly 100 years ago, he found it impossible to secure a position in any accounting firm in Los Angeles due to discrimination, and so opened his own practice. He built that practice out of his own hard work and on the basis of networking with other excluded and marginalized immigrant communities in Los Angeles at the time, all small business owners and professionals who were barred from participation in the large firms and corporations in those days. He always spoke so highly of USC as his key to unlocking a professional career and the stability and opportunity for his own family in this country.”

José (Joe) Ramón Zazueta (1911-1999) came to the United States from Sonora, Mexico, on July 12, 1920, with his mother and became a naturalized citizen on January 10, 1941. While taking classes at USC, Joe worked in a bank at night. After graduating from the USC School of Accounting in 1933, he became the first Mexican American California CPA. He started his own CPA firm in 1936 in Los Angeles. He worked as a sole practitioner until 1954 and then took on a partner, Roy H. Osterhout, and established Zazueta, Osterhout & Company in 1955. In 1972, Joe became president and cofounder of Pan American National Bank in East Los Angeles. He was an active member of the California CPA L.A. chapter, serving as one of the original members of the Accountants Committee for Urban Action. He was also involved in the Shriners Club and Rotary Club and was a third degree Mason.

Eleanor Zazueta Frank (1943-2015) was the first Mexican American woman to get a CPA certificate in California. She was one of the first women in the USC School of Accounting and possibly the first Mexican American woman to graduate. While taking classes at USC and after graduating in 1965, she worked for her father, Joe. She met and married Peter Frank (also a CPA, who later retired as a partner at PwC) in January 1970. While together on assignment in Japan (1970-1973), she joined Price Waterhouse and worked as a Tax Senior doing planning and compliance in Tokyo at a time when it was unusual for a female consultant to work with large corporate clients. She continued at Price Waterhouse in Los Angeles between 1974 and 1975, until her daughter Vanessa (now an attorney who broke the lineage by attending Stanford) was born. Thereafter, Eleanor worked for several firms on a part-time basis, for a magazine publisher, and for a real estate accounting firm before retiring in 1990. She devoted her time to cultural organizations, especially those committed to bringing arts to children in Los Angeles and later in Santa Fe, New Mexico.