Transcription
Hello. I'm Javier Hernandez with the United States Courts.
Brown V Board of Education is forever remembered as the case that ended legalized school segregation in the United States. But few people can recall an important earlier case that helped pave the way for the Brown decision. Mendez versus Westminster began in 1945, asserting the rights of a courageous 8-year-old girl, Sylvia Mendez, along with her brothers, neighboring families, and generations of children to come. And though it never reached the US Supreme Court, this case is a trailblazing moment in history.
My mother would say, "Sylvia, you need to go and start talking about this case." And I told my mother, "Mother, I can't. I'm a nurse." She says, "This is his history of the United States, and you have to go and start talking about it."
For Sylvia Mendez, a lifelong quest for equality began when she was just 8 years old. Outraged that their daughter had to attend a segregated school, Sylvia's parents linked arms with other Latino families to fight injustice in a California Federal Court, a case that would pave the way for Brown versus Board of Education. Sylvia Mendez was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011, alongside luminaries from politics, finance, athletics, and the arts. Sylvia Mendez's parents, Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez, are beacons of freedom and champions of equality in education.
My father read the Constitution and said, "Equality for everybody here in the United States, and that it's possible." Felicitas Mendez's family came from Puerto Rico. Gonzalo Mendez's family came from Mexico. They met working in the farm fields of Southern California.
Before World War II, Mexican-Americans faced discrimination in California with segregated theaters, swimming pools, and public schools. Tensions escalated in 1943 when US service members beat up young Mexican-Americans in East Los Angeles during the so-called Zoot Suit Riots. Meanwhile, in California and across the West, the United States government forced Japanese Americans from their homes, interning them in camps. The government interned Japanese Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor, which brought the country into World War II.
Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez moved to Westminster in Orange County to run a farm. The Mendez family leased it from a Japanese family, the Munemitsus, who were forced into an internment camp in Arizona. The Mendez family tried to enroll their three children in the neighborhood school. Sylvia Mendez went with her aunt, her cousins, and her brothers.
"All I know is all of a sudden my aunt said, 'We're going home.' And when we got home, she started telling my father what happened. 'Gonzalo, you can't believe what happened. They won't allow your children in there.'" And Gonzalo said, "That's impossible. We live right next to the school."
Gonzalo Mendez learned that school districts in Orange County were segregating Mexican-Americans into separate schools. On the advice of a friend, he contacted an attorney, David Marcus, who won a case that opened a segregated swimming pool to Mexican-Americans.
"And my mother says, 'Gonzalo, we have the money. Let's go get him.' And so my father and mother went and and got and hired Marcus. And Marcus came to the ranch, and he talked about it. And Marcus says, 'Gonzalo, let's make this a class action suit. Let's not just make it for your children. Let's make it for all children.'"
It took a year of planning, but Mendez found the right four families, one from each of the four different county school districts, to join the case. Joining the class action was a hardship for the families in time and money. It became a huge financial burden for Gonzalo Mendez too. Once he was able to get him, he had to, believe it or not, pay the people their day's work so they could go to court, 'cause they didn't want to go to court and miss a day's job. So he had to pay them. And so at the time, time we had, we had just moved into the Munemitsus' farm, and they had a big old truck. And at that time, it was legal to put everybody in the truck in the back without restraint, and everybody would get in the truck, and he would drive them to the courthouse.
Marcus sued in federal court, arguing that the segregation violated the plaintiffs' 14th Amendment rights to equal protection by the state. The trial began in July of 1945 before US District Court Judge Paul McCormick. Attorney Marcus took the then-unusual approach of presenting social science evidence to support his argument that the segregation resulted in feelings of inferiority among Mexican-American children that could undermine their ability to be productive Americans.
Judge McCormick agreed with the plaintiffs and ordered that the school districts cease their discriminatory practices against the pupils of Mexican descent in the public schools. The school districts appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. The court of appeals affirmed Judge McCormick's ruling. Two months later, California Governor Earl Warren signed a bill ending school segregation in California, making it the first state to officially desegregate its public schools.
In 1954, with Earl Warren now Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, NAACP Attorney Thurgood Marshall used some of the same legal reasoning from the Mendez case to win the Brown V Board case. Under those circumstances, separate could never be equal. That the both cases, and again, Brown following Mendez, brings in the societal impact that this case was, that the case was having on the children. Both cases talk about how there was a feeling of inferiority among the students who were attending the segregated schools. Both cases also emphasized that the impact that segregation, whether it was racial or ethnicity, it impacted American culture as well. It impacted the ability of the segregated children to assimilate or become an integral part of the American society, and that, in fact, was a detriment to the principles of our country as well.
Sylvia Mendez has been a tireless advocate for equality and education throughout Los Angeles, the state of California, and nationwide. In 2019, the city of Westminster, in partnership with the Orange County Department of Education, opened the Mendez Freedom Trail and Monument on the site of the original segregated school. Today, it is a living classroom for students and teachers.
"Well, we're very proud of Mendez Tribute Monument Park. First of all, it features sculptures by Ignacio Gomez, who is actually featured in a Smithsonian in Washington D.C. You can walk it, and it's kind of a sculpture garden where you can just enjoy it, walk around, and read the monument markings. You can also actually log in the website when you go home, Mendezpark.org, and all the content you see here at this park is available to you at home, which is a great opportunity for teachers to prepare for visits and then to kind of debrief with their students after they visited the park. You know, actually being here and coming to the park and getting to really experience just like how much different the world was and the United States was just not that that long ago is quite the experience. So knowing that this existed back then is surprising, but also eye-opening to know that it wasn't, it didn't come freely to everyone right away. So to know that there was a price that was paid and that family sacrificed to be able to give us this freedom, it's definitely something that I can appreciate on a personal level."
All of us are touched by the effects of what the Mendez family did in challenging segregation because it really opened California up to be the extraordinary, dynamic, diverse place that it is. Mendez versus Westminster was kind of neglected for many years until it was kind of recognized down the road, largely through the work of Sylvia Mendez. It was resurrected in kind of the public consciousness, and now we're working to make sure that people all over Orange County, in California, and across the nation understand how important this case was to diversity and integration of schools in the United States.
"I was at a college and I was talking about the American dream. And the student says, 'There's no such thing as the American dream.' I said, 'There is, but you do have to work hard for it. You have to go to school. You have to study. You have to decide what it is you want to do, and you don't let anybody stand in your way and keep you from doing it, and you will live that American dream because I'm living that American dream because I know that it's true.'"
The Mendez case is a landmark legal moment in history, but in their lifetime, Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez were not celebrated for their trailblazing civil rights victory. They didn't even talk about it in the family. Sylvia Mendez's sister, Sandra, who was 14 years younger, only learned about the case when she took a college course in Chicano studies. The Mendez family and the other four families who were plaintiffs in the case fought for the rights of their children and ultimately changed the lives of families in their community, their state, and the entire country.
Thanks for watching. I'm Javier Hernandez with the United States Courts.
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