Podcast: The case that ended ‘Mexican-only’ schools

Sylvia Mendez visits an eighth-grade historical past class at Mendez Basic Intermediate Faculty in Santa Ana. The constructing is called after her mother and father Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez, who received the landmark college desegregation case Mendez, et al. vs. Westminster 75 years in the past.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Instances)

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In 1945, 5 households sued college districts in Orange County to problem the follow of so-called Mexican colleges, which saved Latino college students from attending white colleges with higher assets. The daughter of one of many plaintiffs, Sylvia Mendez, has spent her retirement telling the story of the landmark desegregation case, which was determined 75 years in the past on April 14, 1947.

However she goes from college to high school speaking concerning the significance of this case at a time when Latino college students are, in some ways, extra segregated than ever.

Host: Gustavo Arellano

Visitors: L.A. Instances schooling reporter Paloma Esquivel

Extra studying:

Mendez vs. segregation: 70 years later, famed case ‘isn’t nearly Mexicans. It’s about all people coming collectively’

Op-Ed: How Mexican immigrants ended ‘separate however equal’ in California

Westminster council takes steps to acknowledge historic civil rights case