Sandra de Anda Saldeaña, Law Café cashier, dead at 32

By Lisa Trei

Sandra de Anda Saldeaña, a cashier at the Law Café at Stanford Law School, died April 30 at Stanford Hospital from severe head injuries sustained April 26 when a car struck her on campus as she walked to work. She was 32.

De Anda, a resident of Mountain View, was born June 10, 1973, in Carrillo Puerto, Nayarit, Mexico. She had worked at the café for about a year, said manager Robert Blatman. "Sandra was a very pleasant person, well-liked and hardworking," he said. "It makes you appreciate life every day that you can get killed walking to work. It's such a tragedy."

José Bonilla, the café's on-site manager, said de Anda was a single mother with two daughters, ages 8 and 12. "She was a nice lady, happy," he said. "What really impressed me is that she had just gone to the [April 10 immigrants' rights] march in San Jose and, a week later, she asked me if she could go to the next big march on May 1."

De Anda used to park her car on El Camino Real next to campus and take the Marguerite bus to work, Bonilla said. According to California Highway Patrol Officer Eric Parsons, a 2002 Chevrolet SUV was heading south on Arboretum Road and had stopped in the left-hand turning lane at the intersection with Galvez Street. De Anda was walking west on Galvez and crossed Arboretum at the pedestrian crossing when the car struck her at 8:35 a.m. No charges have been filed in the case, which is still under investigation, Parsons said.

After de Anda's parents in Mexico learned of the accident, they tried to enter the United States on April 28 but were delayed by immigration authorities over the weekend, Bonilla said. Eventually, only the mother was permitted to enter, but she arrived in Palo Alto after her daughter had died, he said.

On May 1, Catherine Glaze, associate dean for student affairs at the Law School, sent an e-mail to the school community explaining that de Anda's family wanted to fly her body home to Mexico for burial but was overwhelmed by the estimated $15,000 in expenses, not including funeral costs. In response, members of the Stanford Latino Law Student Association coordinated a fundraising drive that raised about $4,000 from students, staff and faculty, Bonilla said. On May 9, de Anda's body was flown home and she was buried May 10, which is Mother's Day in Mexico.

De Anda is survived by her daughters, Marilyn and Odalis de Anda of Mountain View; her parents, Antonio de Anda and Maria Victoria Saldeaña of Nayarit, Mexico; and her sister, Elba de Anda, and her brother, Marco Antonio de Anda, of Mountain View. Donations to support de Anda's children are being collected at the Law Café.

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