Mendez Vs Westminster Case

Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity. By David G Gutiérrez. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).

Even by the 1930s, this was particularly among young people who, “born and educated in the United States, demanded to be included in the city’s future … ” (Sanchez 226). At a crucial meeting of Mexican-Americans in 1927, facing an Anglo led municipal incorporation move that would have raised taxes and driven them out, many Mexican-American leaders opposed applying for U.S. citizenship. Even though it would have given them more of a target, specifically, the right to vote on a subsequent ballot measure. The affront to Mexico and their heritage was, for them, a crime that outweighed the benefits (Sanchez 4).

The formation of segregated barrios and the development of a wealth of community-provided services showed that Mexican-Americans were not content to be marginalized by the United States. Instead, they were embracing an empowering new sense of self-determination and referring to themselves as “Mexicanos or as members of a larger, pan-Hispanic community of La Raza.” At this time La Raza referenced individuals of the Mexican “race”, whether they were in Mexico or in the United States, and was particularly important in the United States, where race was more important than citizenship. In the late 19th and early 20th century United States, race was determined by purity of blood, and there were only two races—white and black. White meant the individual had “pure blood” (European blood); black meant that the individual’s blood included indigenous or African influences. Being white meant being able to exercise one’s constitutional rights and being treated as a normal member of society’s dominant group. Being black meant that, regardless of whether he or she was a citizen, the individual would face discrimination similar to that which I described earlier. When the Spanish conquerors mixed with the people of Latin America, forming the mestizo, or mixed race, population that now composes most of the region, they removed themselves from a “white” classification in the United States. Thus, by engaging with the concept of La Raza, which connotes a mestizo race and population, Mexican-Americans rejected the binary nature of race in the United States and embraced what made them different—their indigenous-mixed blood and the cultural heritage that accompanied it. While the abuse directed towards Mexican-Americans may have

In Pearsall, Texas, the Anglo and Mexican communities were divided to contribute to Elva’s confusion and frustrations of being alone. The immigrant society was lumped together as their own “class” of people:

Haney Lopez describes the racialization of Mexicans in terms of ancestry and skin color. Although granted de facto White racial status with the United States conquest of much of Mexico in 1848 and having sometimes been deemed as White by the courts and censuses, Mexican Americans were rarely treated as White (5). Historically and legally, Mexicans have been treated as second-class citizens. Mexicans suffered the degradation accorded members of an inferior race, treatment nearly equivalent to the coinciding conquest of blacks and Native Americans (64). In 1857, for instance, Anglo mobs lynched eleven Mexicans in Los Angeles (67). The demographic and geographic custom of segregation in Los Angeles contributed to the growing cultural isolation and socioeconomic vulnerability of the Mexican community.

Now that we know a little bit more information about the trial, lets learn why all the Mexican American parents got together in order for their kids to get the same education as all the other Caucasian kids in the neighborhood. It all started in the late 1920s-1930s. As the Mexican and Mexican American population started to increase in California, more white Americans started getting scared; this led to segregation in schools. Not only were schools getting segregated but housing was also being segregated as well (Maria Blanco, The Lasting Impact of Mendez v. Westminster in the Struggle for Desegregation, pg.

Discrimination was a very harsh case to all Mexican Americans and also for the African Americans. In the 1950’s it was a very difficult time for the Hispanics, they were considered people who weren’t intelligent and invisible. There was too much racism in everywhere and every place of Texas. There were also many signs out the restaurants, parks, and in public places that said, “No Mexicans,

During the 19th Century, the United States sought to expand westwards and increase their land. Since Mexico stood in the way they did all they could to provoke it and start a war. “The Mexicans fired the first shot. But they had done what the American government wanted” (Zinn 151). What they wanted was California, soon they wanted Texas and then Arizona and New Mexico came along. For a long period of time, probably still today; Mexican-Americans are seen as “an ahistoric people” (Romano 44). An assumption that is completely wrong. Mexican American have been fighting for their rights and equality since they became part of America. In fact, they had two movements conduct by different generations. The Mexican-American Generation between 1930 and 1960; and the Chicano generation between 1945-1960. Although both generations were had the same ancestry, they had different worldview because of their history and the events that were going on in their time. Both Mexican-American generation and Chicano generation similarities and differences help understand the overall Chicano history in the 20th Century.

In her book, The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction, Linda Gordon argues that the events of October 1904 in Clifton-Morenci, and the Supreme Court’s case that followed, were to blame for the development of a more obvious racial hierarchy in the US’southwestern states. The events covered in this book include the New York Foundling Hospital’s use of orphan trains to attempt to place New York orphans with Catholic families in Arizona, the Anglo-Protestant community’s negative reaction to the NYFH’s process, and the legal battle which resulted from this. To support her argument, Gordon illustrates the three way battle of motives between the sisters sent by the NYFH, the Mexican adopters, and the Anglo kidnappers of 1904 Arizona.

It all started when a Mexican mother decided that she wanted her children and her brother's children to have a better education than she was ever given. In the fall of 1944, Soledad Vidaurri decided to take her children and her nephews to enroll in the Seventeenth Street School in Westminster, California. Although they were cousins and had the same Mexican heritage, the Méndez children and the Vidaurri children looked very different: Sylvia, Gonzalo Jr., and Geronimo Méndez had dark skin, hair, and eyes, while Alice and Virginia Vidaurri had fair complexions and features. An administrator took one look over those five children and decided that Alice and Virginia could stay but their dark-skinned cousins could not and would have to register at Hoover School, the town's Mexican school. Outraged and in complete disbelief of what just happened, Vidaurri took all the kids home and decided not to register any of them. (A Tale of Two Schools)

In 1945, a California LULAC Council victoriously sued to merge the Orange County School System, which had been isolated in light of the fact that Mexican youngsters were inadequately dressed and mentally sub-par compared to white kids (Takaki, 378). In 1954, LULAC brought another historical case, Hernandez versus the State of Texas, to challenge the fact that a Mexican American had never been called to jury duty in Texas (Class Lecture, 11/30). The Supreme Court administered this as illegal. In the twentieth century, starting with the 1952 Hernandez v. Texas suit, the case started to turn gradually and unyieldingly (“A Class Apart”). That case prompted the first case contended in the United States Supreme Court by Mexican American lawyers.

Mexican Americans were affected by the case Mendez v Westminster this case affected Mexican Americans in Orange County . The case was brought to court in 1947 the basis of the case was that the school district was segregating the Mexican Americans. When the Mendez children were sent to another school because they were Mexican American the case was filed in March 2, 1945 by the Mendez family. The case was also for the other 5,000 kids attending the district that were Mexican American. The cases argued that segregating children of Mexican ancestry violated the equal protection of the law clause in the 14th amendment .The defense argued that education was a state issue and the courts did not have any jurisdiction. They also argued that Mexican Americans were being segregated so

Throughout America’s history, the issue of immigration has been on the forefront major debates. Immigration is among one of the most stimulating topics of discussion. Often when discussing immigration the question of assimilation also arises and whether or not immigrants are truly doing so. Since the beginning of this country, immigrants and even natives of the land have been pressured to assimilate to “American” Culture and to commit to its standards. When a group of people fail to assimilate to these standards, they encounter critics. The Native Americans, who wanted to preserve their traditions and values, had their children taken from them and sent to boarding schools with the goal to assimilate Native tribes into “mainstream America’s way of life.” In the nineteenth century, the largest mass lynching, which involved Italians , occurred in New Orleans. Italians were discriminated against because they did not share the same traits as their Anglo-Saxon camarades. (Falco) Today, in the twenty-first century, Hispanic immigrants ,and others, are also criticized because they are believed to not be assimilating. In fact many like the Samuel P. Huntigton, chairman of the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, have voiced that the most serious threat to America’s traditional identity is the immigration of Hispanic immigrants. However, the issue may not stem from these people themselves. The issue and controversies surrounding assimilation primarily stems from

After the Spanish conquest of Mexico by Hernan Cortez in 1519, Mexico was set up to follow a three century long struggle against inequality. From the time that the Spaniards were in control until the dictatorship of Profirio Diaz, Mexicans, originally the Natives, struggled to attain equality in all sectors of life and resulted in a Revolution that began on the 11ht of November 1911. Historians and academics have argued as to what causes contributed to the Mexican Revolution of 1911 and the question posed asks whether or not racism was the chief cause. This essay will show that in fact racism was not the chief cause of the Mexican Revolution of 1911 but rather it was a result of numerous causes such as the inconsistency in the disparity of

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