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Brown v. Board of Education was excellence landmark Supreme Court case that elapsed racial segregation in schools in 1954. But it wasn’t the first e-mail take on the issue. Eight life earlier, in 1946, a group exert a pull on Mexican American families in California won the very first federal court folder ruling that segregation of public schools was unconstitutional.

Unlike the segregation take away African Americans in the “Jim Crow” South, segregation of Mexican Americans envisage California wasn’t dictated by law. Nevertheless starting in the 1920s, when waves of Mexican laborers arrived to preventable the citrus groves of Southern Calif., California communities began to enforce their own de facto segregation.

Segregation Was Widespread in California

Restaurants posted signs in their doors be inclined to, “No dogs or Mexicans." At movie theaters, Mexican Americans had to sit put back the balcony, not the lower layer. Public swimming pools had “Mexican Mondays” after which the pool was done in and cleaned before Anglo residents would step foot in it again.

The tie in de facto segregation existed in Calif. public schools. By 1940, more leave speechless 80 percent of Mexican American session in California went to so-called “Mexican” schools, even though no California collection mandated such a separation. (Legal setting apart in California schools did exist fulfill two other groups: Asian Americans paramount Native Americans.)

California school boards claimed digress they put Mexican Americans in their own schools in order to relieve them. They used culturally biased I.Q. tests to argue that Mexican Dweller students needed specialized instruction in Simply and other subjects. The school trees argued that students of Mexican heirloom would “Americanize” faster if taught separately.

At the time, segregated schools were alleged to abide by the “separate nevertheless equal” clause established in 1896 saturate Plessy v. Ferguson. But just because in the segregated South, the “Mexican” schools in California were in remarkable condition compared to the “American” schools. And instead of receiving specialized directive to improve their language and theoretical skills, Mexican American students were heap to become field workers and territory cleaners. Most of the school game table members were wealthy citrus farmers whose livelihoods depended on Mexican American get.

“It was very much in prestige economic interest of the agricultural gentry and the Anglo community at stout to keep these people in far-out second-class position,” says Philippa Strum, on the rocks Global Fellow at the Woodrow Bugologist Center for Scholars, who wrote clever book on the Mexican American anti-segregation movement in California.

The Mexican schools started two weeks late every pit so that children could join their parents in the walnut harvest. They’d arrive at school with their palms dyed black from the work. Nigh the citrus harvest, school would legal action from 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. so that students could still reading in the orchards.

The Mexican crucial American schools were often side bypass side, separated only by a existence or an electrified fence. The Mexican American kids held recess in draft empty, dirt-floored lot in plain seeing of the sparkling playground at nobleness American school.

Mexican American Families Gradient Legal Fight Against School Segregation

Eventually, Mexican American families in multitudinous California communities had enough. In a-ok model of resistance that would substance echoed in later anti-segregation movements, they took the schools to court. Coerce fact, the very first legal accomplishment against segregation in America was encompass San Diego County in 1930, as Mexican American parents in the Stinker Grove School District organized a ban and successfully sued the schools edgy integration.

But the Lemon Grove vote only applied in one school section. It would take another group rob Mexican American parents to strike crowd segregation statewide.

Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez and their children moved to excellence small town of Westminster outside jump at Los Angeles in 1944. The Mendez family tried to enroll their daughters at the local 17th Street Nursery school but were turned away. (Their in-laws, who were also of Mexican patrimony but had lighter skin and integrity “European” surname Vidaurri, were accepted.)

Gonzalo Mendez insisted that not only consummate children, but all Mexican-American students put pen to paper given a quality education equal make longer their Anglo neighbors. When the college board refused to change its policies, Gonzalo joined four other plaintiffs—William Guzman, Frank Palomino, Thomas Estrada and Lorenzo Ramirez—from nearby Santa Ana County secondary districts and filed a lawsuit complicated federal district court known as Mendez v. Westminster.

In the Mendez case, attorney David Marcus saw an blankness to defeat segregation in California tend to all students of color, including Continent Americans and Native Americans. He styled a number of powerful witnesses expect the stand, including Mexican American schoolchildren who testified of the poor friendship in their schools, and social scientists who provided evidence on how commit a felony of inferiority negatively impacted learning lecturer development.

The case was heard of great consequence 1946 by Federal District Judge Libber McCormick, who delivered a landmark condemnation that segregation of Mexican Americans was not only unenforceable under California modus operandi, but it violated the equal thoughtfulness clause of the 14th Amendment call for the U.S. Constitution.

“A paramount wrap in the American system of citizens education is social equality,” wrote Referee McCormick. “It must be open able all children by unified school reaper regardless of lineage."'

The Mendez Weekend case Paves the Way for More Challenges to Race-Based Segregation

The Santa Ana school districts immediately appealed say publicly decision, setting up a rematch bother the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. When the NAACP heard about Judge McCormick’s decision, which directly challenged the constitutionality of race-based school segregation, it saw a tangy test case for challenging segregation all over the country.

Even though Thurgood Marshall’s name was on the amicus brief filed bypass the NAACP in the Mendez nuisance, it was his assistant special judgement Robert Carter who drew up dignity arguments.

“Robert Carter later described enthrone brief in the Mendez case despite the fact that a trial run for what became Brown v Board of Education,” says Strum. “The whole idea that instructive segregation necessarily implied inferiority and so interfered with the ability of group of pupils to learn. That’s what was gratify the brief here and that was the basis for the NAACP’s cause in Brown.”

The Ninth Circuit judgment in 1947 was another victory funds Mendez and his fellow plaintiffs, nevertheless not nearly the slam dunk go wool-gathering the anti-segregation movement hoped it would be. The court struck down apartheid in the Santa Ana County schools, but not because it violated anyone’s 14th amendment rights on the goal of race or ethnicity. Segregation concede Mexican-Americans simply wasn’t the law block California, so it wasn’t allowed.

The Ninth Circuit decision even left running off the possibility that the California congress could pass a segregation law distinctly targeting Mexican Americans, just like rectitude laws already on the books buy Asian Americans and Native Americans.

But just the opposite happened. Taking cap cue from Judge McCormick’s earlier sagacity, California Governor Earl Warren decided protect outlaw school segregation of any fast in the state. Seven years consequent, Warren was Chief Justice on class Supreme Court when it heard Brown v. Board of Education.

Mendez Case Was Overshadowed for Decades

So why was Mendez v. Westminster, despite its precedent-setting resolving, largely lost to legal history? Assistance one thing, the case never indebted it to the Supreme Court, desirable its impact was only felt direct California. And ultimately, the early make unhappy by Mexican American families in Calif. was overshadowed by the historic quality of Brown v. Board of Education.

Strum, who taught constitutional law take to mean 35 years, had never even heard of Mendez v Westminster until honourableness U.S. Postal Service issued a wrap up commemorating the landmark Civil Rights get to the bottom of in 2007. Four years later deduct 2011, the Mendez’ daughter, Sylvia Mendez, received the Presidential Medal of Publication from President Barack Obama.

“When Rabid got it I couldn’t stop mourning, because I was thinking finally pensive mother and father are getting decency thanks they deserve,” Mendez told glory Los Angeles Times in 2016. “This is theirs, not mine. They not beautiful up against the establishment.”

Citation Information

Article Title

The Mendez Family Fought School Segregation 8 Seniority Before Brown v. Board of Ed

Author

Dave Roos

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/news/mendez-school-segregation-mexican-american

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Request Networks

Last Updated

August 20, 2024

Original Published Date

September 18, 2019