On Sunday, August 16, Santa Ana Unified School District Trustee Hector Bustos held a drag queen fundraiser to kick off his re-election campaign.
“Drag Hector Into Office” blared the event graphic. Get it? “Drag” Hector into another term with a “drag queen” party? Hahahaha. How witty.
Bustos, at 27, is less than a decade out of high school. The only reason he is on the governing board of one the state’s largest school districts is he lucked out in having no opponent when he first ran in 2022.
Bustos is the communications director for CHISPA, a far-left political advocacy group that focuses on advancing radical progressivism in Santa Ana and Anaheim.
The distinguishing characteristic of his term in office has been a laser-focus on gender and ethnic identity politics and brievance-nursing. During his term as Board president, Bustos placed a little Pride flag on the dais in front of him.
At each Board of Education meeting, Bustos stands in front of members of the public and district staff and refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance…to the freest, most tolerant, most prosperous nation in the history of the world.
But once the annoying Pledge of Allegiance is out of the way, Bustos proudly recites the “Land Acknowledgement:
Mr. Bustos read the following statement: “”I want to recognize that our District and school campuses are located
in the Village of Pasbenga. I want to acknowledge that this land we refer to as Orange County, is the unceded
and traditional lands of the Gabrielino Tongva Nation, and the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians Acjachemen
Nation. These lands were taken through a process of colonization, physical, and cultural genocide. I want to pay
my respect to elders, both past and present, as well as the Tongva and Acjachemen Youth who have attended
are currently attending our schools in the neighboring districts.”
Implementing this silly, destructive and anti-American incantation was one of the first things Bustos and his fellow left-wing Board members did upon assuming office. They knew a fiscal train wreck was barreling down the tracks toward the SAUSD, but thought it was more important begin each Board meeting telling students, teachers and the public that America is unjust, racist and illegitimate.
Not that Bustos has lifted a finger to return SAUSD property back to the Indian tribes from whom he believes it was stolen. That’s normally what one does with stolen goods. But that would actually take some guts rather than performative political gestures.
Which brings us back to Bustos’ outré fundraiser:
It’s another illustration of Bustos’ real priority: using his elected office to advance a fringe ideological agenda.
Drag is a subculture that has been around for decades. No one is calling for getting rid of it or censoring it or anything like that. Most people are busy with their families and their own lives and give little thought to it.
Bustos “centers” it – to use some woke-speak – and projects his re-election bid through that “lens.” And let’s be honest here: if a Republican or conservative school board candidate launched their campaign with a burlesque show, they would meet with condemnation from the Right and derision from the Left.
Candidly, this is not an event most of Bustos’ constituents would have been comfortable attending – not because their transphobes but because a drag queen show is a far cry from
And when was the last time you heard of a school board fundraiser that you had to be at least 21 years old to attend?
While Bustos pursues his esoteric gender ideology causes, SAUSD is failing it’s students. More than two-thirds of its students score fail to meet state standards in English language arts and mathematics:
These numbers haven’t budged since Bustos’s election.
SAUSD’s enrollment continues to decline as SAUSD parents seek better educational alternatives for their kids.
But this is Bustos’ focus: ‘stolen land’ fetishism, pushing an anti-Semitic, anti-patriotic Ethnic Studies curriculum that is more indoctrination than history. He’s more concerned with pushing the outer edges of the culture war envelope than on improving the district’s dismal education outcomes.
Bustos made a startling admission at a Board meeting in early 2025. The SAUSD teachers union had been running an ongoing protest against the district’s plan to meet its financial crisis by laying off more than 300 teachers. Bustos had been on the Board for two years at this point and was highly sensitive to criticism from the union. In Board comments, he droned on and on, seeking to shift blame to previous Boards and absolve himself of any responsibility for the district’s budgetary crisis.
“That’s why for these past two, three years that I’ve been on this Board, I haven’t wanted to talk about cuts because the message that you’re telling me is the same message I’ve been advocating for the past two to three years,” Bustos declared at the January 31, 2025 Board of Education meeting. He responding to union complaints about the proposed massive layoffs, including counselors.
Think about it. Bustos was admitting he knew this fiscal storm was approaching, but avoided facing it squarely because that would upset the special interests that have supported him. So instead he focused on land acknowledgement and radical ethnic Studies and LGBTQIA issues and establishing a “welcoming district” feel-good policy and “resisting ICE.” None of which moves the needle on the job he was elected to: raising the educational quality of SAUSD schools.
Ultimately, that’s why his drag queen fundraiser so perfectly illustration of Bustos’ fecklessness as a Board member: fixation with ideological sideshows (that, candidly, run counter to the values of most of his constituents) while the district fails most of the students whose education should be it’s and -Bustos’s – main concern.
