Preview

Mendez vs Westminster

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
465 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Mendez vs Westminster
Austin Lee
Gilbert High School
English 1
29 April 2012

Mendez vs Westminster

Since I was born in a time where things were very peaceful within the States, I don’t really know much about segregation and other civil issues. But from this article, it seems that most people did not really know that Mexican segregation was the norm back in the 1900’s. The segregation of Mexicans was almost as bad as the segregation of African Americans back in the 1900’s, they had given them 1 day to use the public swimming pool and had separate restaurants, separate housing and public facilities to use, but worst of all, they had segregated them in classrooms so that they could no be with the Americans in the same classrooms. The whole Mexican problem came up from the boom of the citrus industry in California and because of the civil unrest in Mexico. Southern California eventually segregated agrarian society based on the citrus industry. Mexican American labor eventually became the same as African American labor with cotton. This segregation stayed until World War II when a group of common workers with an uncommon American spirit decided to fight against this unjust system. They fought not for their rights but for their children’s non-segregated and equal lives since many of these workers were parents. In Orange County, one of the many segregated counties, a tenant farmer in Westminster, Gonzalo Mendez, along with a group of Mexican American World War II veterans asked a fundamental question about their communities, if we’re good enough to fight and die alongside Anglos, why are our children not good enough to attend the same schools as their children? I believe that if the adult Mexican Americans are good enough to fight alongside Americans in their World War, they deserve at the least, fair treatment for them and their children. In 1945, the farmer and his wife filed a lawsuit in federal court in Los Angeles against four Orange county school districts,

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    -Mexican-Americans worked in low-skill laborers jobs (factories and warehouses). A large majority worked in railroads pulling up old and laying new track.-Political involvement was non-existent for most Mexicans except for a few college students. Their efforts were spent on national issues surrounding Cesar Chavez.-Other cultures had neighborhoods as today but there were fewer stores and even fewer restaurants. Southeastern Asians started migrating here near the end of the Vietnam War. Most lived in Uptown and created their own neighborhoods:…

    • 331 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lemon Grove Case Study

    • 829 Words
    • 4 Pages

    San Diego Judge Claude Chamber was appointed to hear the case. Ten principal witnesses took the stand among those were students, the school board, and the school staff. The school board argued that the new school was built in the interest of the Mexican students in mind. In order to better accommodate sufficient space and special attention to the Mexican students a separate school was built just for them. The school had also been built on the northerly section of the town which mainly Mexican families occupied. The students had to cross the main boulevard and the railroad to get to school; it was supposedly built in this region to ensure the safety of their students. The purpose of instituting this Americanized school was to help remedial students learn English and American customs by depriving them of Anglo interaction. A teacher claimed that, “most of these children come from homes where ignorance and poverty prevailed….since health and sanitation is problems in their home it’s only natural that they have difficulty concentrating on school.” Noon argued that most of the students were United States citizens who spoke English. There was even a student who still had to attend the new school for remedial education who did not speak Spanish. American students who lived on the other side of the main boulevard and railroad were not expected to attend the new school for safety reasons either. The final argument that convinced the judge to oppose the segregation was the belief that Mexicans pupils needed the socialization of American students in order to learn the English language and customs. White children are not segregated because they are behind they are only held back a year, ironically because most of those children were born in the U.S. they were technically Caucasian, under law Caucasian could not legally be segregated from other Caucasians. On March 10, 1931 the students were legally entitled to the same…

    • 829 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The history of Mexican Americans is comparable to that of African Americans: filled with stories of conquest, racism, and discriminatory acts posed by society. The past has triggered Chicanos to fight back against injustices, in hopes of reforming immoral treatment, and emerging as an equal part of America’s society. The Chicano movement yielded some successes in this aspect. However, mass media and stereotypes confirm the notion that Mexican Americans are still viewed as a “lesser” people. This stems from the long-established concept of racial stratification. In this case, it indicates that Anglo-Americans have hierarchy over Mexican Americans. Consequently, discrimination towards Chicanos is still prevalent, despite ongoing efforts by activists for change. This nation was socially molded based on the idea that there is a hierarchy of races, and as long as that idea exists, Mexican Americans will continue to suffer inequality.…

    • 939 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mexican- Americans experience on the home front during WWII.....In Los Angeles, California a series of riots broke out that involved whites and latino youths running around wearing zoot suits. Army men stationed in Southern California did not like Latinos roaming around in suits that weren't seen as suitable during wartime. Los Angeles, with the highest concentration of mexicans outside of Mexico, were separated into the worst and oldest parts of the city. In addition to that they were segregated with jobs as well, they had the lowest paying jobs. They were talked about and made look bad in propaganda by the whites. That's why there was so much tension between the whites and the Mexicans, latinos. The Sleepy Lagoon Murder, created a different view of Mexican youths, worst than the previous one. This created problems with police and the media who had a negative view of Mexicans although the Sleepy Lagoon Murder was overturned and showed that it wasn't the young Mexicans who were guilty. The Zoot Suit riots brought together Mexicans and Black, to go against the White Servicemen. When the riots began, many sailors and white servicemen would get into altercations with young Mexicans in the street and would assault the young Mexican teenagers they would see walking, as they would be marching down the streets of Los Angeles.…

    • 676 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Lemon Grove Incident (Christopher, 1985), is a movie that depicts the first successful legal challenge to school segregation in the United States. The incident took place in the early 1930’s in California. The town’s population was largely made up of Mexican immigrants who worked in the citrus groves. The school officials in the town felt that the Mexican children were hindering the learning of the Anglo students. Eventually, the school board tried to force the Mexican students to attend a separate school that was for Mexican students only. I cannot believe that I had no prior knowledge of this incident in American history.…

    • 319 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Immigration Act of 1921 restricts the immigration of Southern and Eastern Europeans. Agriculture lobbyists rally to block the movement to include Mexicans in the proposition.…

    • 501 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    WW2AND MEXICAN AMERICANS

    • 341 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Mexicans were and are racials characterisctly stated as Caucasian since there was only 3 races which were, Caucasians, Negroid, and Mongoloid. For that LULAC said that "this condition is not a case of difference; it is a case of ignorance". They said that ignorance was " a Disease that was contagious to those who wish to suffer from it". Ignorance tied hate, jealousy, misunderstandings, confusion, etc. The hate was not just beacause of the race or because they weren't smart enough nor because of the language. The hate was because the ignorance affected many for them to think the "Mexicans" did not deserve the equal rights.…

    • 341 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Indigenous People and Wwii

    • 1865 Words
    • 8 Pages

    After WWI money was being spent three times the rate of tax collection and soon the government began to cut spending in the 1920’s. This then resulted in the Great Depression. The Great Depression was a massive economic crisis that was held over a period of ten years, 1923-1939. With the Great Depression hardships began to rise, unemployment sky rocketed, and for Mexican-Americans, things got unbearable. During the Great Depression Mexican-Americans, unlike white Americans, were faced with hysteria and deportation (illegal and lawful), false accusations, segregation, and extreme loss of jobs. While all Americans suffered during the Great Depression, Mexican-Americans suffered tremendously more.…

    • 1865 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The trail

    • 642 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Before World War II began the living conditions of the vast majority of Mexican Americans were awful, they migrated from field to field following the crops in search of work as farm laborers. Their children often…

    • 642 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Mexican Subcultural Group

    • 1321 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Mexicans had a hard time to live in the country because of how judgemental people were towards them.…

    • 1321 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    The First major Latino immigration wave in the United States happened during the Mexican revolution. The Mexican revolution created violence and caused the economy of Mexico to dwindle. “In total two thousand Mexicans fled to the United States between 1910-1920” (Hing, 2010, p. 31). This was due to the American southwest expanding industries with high demand including agriculture, mining, and railroad construction. Due to racist policies such as the Chinese exclusion…

    • 1032 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    One area in American society in which racial groups were separated was in school. Segregation of races and schools were common through the late 1940’s, until a Puerto-Rican Mexican family took action. Through this area the common race that known during this time where you were both classified as white or black and therefore left Hispanics unclassified. Depending where you lived according to McCormick, J. and Ayala, C. (2007) describes Felicita Mendez a Puerto Rican woman’s experience, “she belonged to a group that was racialized in Arizona as black, in California as Mexican, and now in court, her children figured as white.” In this situation her children not allowed to enter a white school called Westminster Elementary. Felicita did not want to enroll her children into a Mexican school because they lack resources and only did vocational training as she wanted a better future for her children, because she knew that education will give her children opportunities. She and her husband decided to take action so they followed lawsuit, along with four other Mexican families against Westminster County. During their struggle the law was against them saying that their reasons for segregation of Mexicans school were due to language.…

    • 469 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The governor, sheriff and the rich have come to the conclusion that all Mexicans are criminals and should be deported just like the U.S. government did in the 1920’s with the mandatory deportation of all Mexican people whether they were legal or not. Nativist scholars and politicians feared "mongrelization" as a by-product of contact with Mexicans, and in 1925 a Princeton economics professor even spoke of the future elimination of Anglo Americans by interbreeding with Mexicans.They were considered at that time by Congressman John Box called for restrictions on Mexican immigration because the Mexican was a product of mixing by the Spaniard and "low-grade" Indians. And as late as 1969, a California judge ruling in an incest case reiterated similar racist beliefs. He stated in court: "Mexican people ... think it is perfectly all right to act like an animal. We ought to send you out of this country.... You are lower than animals ... maybe Hitler was right. The animals in our society probably ought to be…

    • 1223 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mexican Americans

    • 736 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Mexicans suffered from the dual labor market, because even though employment was offered to Mexicans during the shortage of labor that the United States was going through no safety provided to the workers. No insurance was available for the workers. The United States was prejudice towards Mexicans because as soon as there was no need for their labor services they were sent back to their country. Everyone who was brought to the United States to work including the Mexican Americans who were citizens of the United States, were sent back to Mexico. Why were the first colonists not sent back too? Mexicans used to live in what is now the Southwest before it became part of the United States. Not only were they robbed from their land but no benefits were given to them while…

    • 736 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Segregation has always been a problem. Attitudes regarding racial separation probably arrived in Texas during the 1820s and obviously accompanied views toward the "peculiar institution,” slavery. Anglo-Americans begin extending segregation to Mexican Americans after the Texas Revaluation as a social custom. Tejanos formed a suspect class during and after the revolution, and that fact led to a general aversion of them. After the Civil War, segregation went hand-in-hand with the violence often employed as a method of group control. For both minority groups, segregation existed in schools, churches, and most public places, including residential districts. By the latter years of the nineteenth century, institutionalized segregation flourished legally in places with a visible black population, and was extended informally to Tejanos. Most Texas towns and cities had a "Negro quarter" and a "Mexican quarter."…

    • 499 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays