Abstract: Seventy years ago, a key case in the battle for equality for Mexican Americans1 was fought, forging a path for other court cases that challenged the legality of discriminatory practices in our public institutions such as Hernandez v. Texas and Brown v. Board of Education. In 1947, Mendez et al v. Westminster School District of Orange County (Mendez) desegregated California schools and was adjudicated in the federal courts. In the 1954 case, Hernandez v. Texas, the Supreme Court—in a unanimous ruling—held that Mexican Americans and all other nationalities in the United States were covered under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. Followed in 1954 by Brown v. Board of Education and in 1956 by Hernandez et al. v. ... Read More Keywords: Mexican American women; School integration; Tarango, Hector,; Mexican Americans; Discrimination in education; Street art; Quiara Alegría Hudes; Latin Americans; Gentrification; United States; Alarcón, Alicia, PubDate: 2018-01-09T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: The main plaintiffs named in Mendez et al. v. Westminster School District et al. were Gonzalo Mendez, William Guzman, Lorenzo Ramirez, Frank Palomino, Tomas Estrada, and their children. As the children's fathers and "next of friend,"1 these men were identified as the children's legal guardians and therefore named lead plaintiffs in the Mendez case by the court, legal counsel, and the plaintiffs themselves. Not readily identified in the Mendez case, or sub-sequential writings about it, however, were the children's mothers: Felicitas Mendez, Virginia Guzman, Josefina Ramirez, Irene Palomino, and Maria Luisa Estrada.The absence of these women and others from official accounts surrounding the case comes as no surprise. ... Read More Keywords: Mexican American women; School integration; Tarango, Hector,; Mexican Americans; Discrimination in education; Street art; Quiara Alegría Hudes; Latin Americans; Gentrification; United States; Alarcón, Alicia, PubDate: 2018-01-09T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: This article focuses on unheralded actors and events. I have chosen to center its narrative on the emergence of a civil rights movement among the Mexican colonias and barrios of Orange County, California. This is an important area of investigation within civil rights scholarship, as the desegregation battles that culminated in the 1954 ruling of Brown v. Board of Education had precedence in the southern California municipalities of Westminster, Santa Ana, Orange, El Modena, and Garden Grove. Employing the experiences and activism of Hector Tarango and the unheralded grassroots efforts leading up to the Mendez et al. decision as a case study for examining the emergence of a Mexican American civil rights movement in ... Read More Keywords: Mexican American women; School integration; Tarango, Hector,; Mexican Americans; Discrimination in education; Street art; Quiara Alegría Hudes; Latin Americans; Gentrification; United States; Alarcón, Alicia, PubDate: 2018-01-09T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: This article is the testimonio of Beverly Guzman Gallegos, whose family was one of the named plaintiffs in the Mendez v. Westminster case that led to the desegregation of Mexican children in the California schools. Although the Mendez story has been well documented, the contributions of the other named plaintiffs—the Guzman, Ramírez, Palomino, and Estrada families—have yet to be heard. The following testimonio provides a fuller picture of the discrimination pervasive at the time and the heroism of the Guzmans and other Mexican American families of the day. While Gallegos gives a brief testimonio, much can be drawn from it. She reveals the importance of women in the fight against educational segregation, parental ... Read More Keywords: Mexican American women; School integration; Tarango, Hector,; Mexican Americans; Discrimination in education; Street art; Quiara Alegría Hudes; Latin Americans; Gentrification; United States; Alarcón, Alicia, PubDate: 2018-01-09T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: *** Please download the PDF view of this article to see the intended display of the text ***WESTMINSTER SCHOOL DIST. OF ORANGE COUNTY et al. v. MENDEZ et al.No. 11310UNITED STATES CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS, NINTH CIRCUIT 161 F.2d 774; 1947 U.S. App. LEXIS 2835 April 14, 1947COUNSEL: [**1]Joel E. Ogle, County Counsel, George F. Holden and Royal E. Hubbard, Deputies County Counsel, all of Santa Ana, Cal., for appellant.David C. Marcus, Los Angeles, Cal. (William Strong, of Los Angeles, Cal., of counsel), for appellees.Thurgood Marshall, and Robert L. Carter, both of New York City, and Loren Miller, of Los Angeles, Cal., for Nat. Ass'n Advancement of Colored People, amicus curiae.Will Maslow and Pauli Murray ... Read More Keywords: Mexican American women; School integration; Tarango, Hector,; Mexican Americans; Discrimination in education; Street art; Quiara Alegría Hudes; Latin Americans; Gentrification; United States; Alarcón, Alicia, PubDate: 2018-01-09T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: To survive the Borderlands/ you must live sin ... Read More Keywords: Mexican American women; School integration; Tarango, Hector,; Mexican Americans; Discrimination in education; Street art; Quiara Alegría Hudes; Latin Americans; Gentrification; United States; Alarcón, Alicia, PubDate: 2018-01-09T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: As housing and changes in land use regulations have increased, long-term working-class residents in Latinx1 neighborhoods, or barrios, have been displaced to make way for affluent middle-class residents—a process known as gentrification. Through an examination of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes's play In the Heights as well as Ernesto Quiñonez's novel Bodega Dreams, this article sheds light on the importance of community networks necessary in combating high levels of poverty and general lack of resources due to private, state, and federal disinvestment. It is my argument that multi-generational Latinx communities (re)assert their lived space—specific to the manner in which actual residents define and ... Read More Keywords: Mexican American women; School integration; Tarango, Hector,; Mexican Americans; Discrimination in education; Street art; Quiara Alegría Hudes; Latin Americans; Gentrification; United States; Alarcón, Alicia, PubDate: 2018-01-09T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: In 2002, in the midst of a surge in nativist anti-immigrant politics, Los Angeles journalist Alicia Alarcón published La Migra me hizo los mandados, a collection of testimonios recounting the border-crossing experiences of twenty-nine California residents who immigrated to the United States from Mexico, Central America, and South America in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.2 Alarcón's text, as well as its 2004 English translation, emerged in the wake of 9/11, as national security concerns heightened anti-immigrant sentiments and became rhetorical fodder for nativist activists concerned by the influx of Spanish-speaking immigrants.3 The book is one of several works published in the first decade of the new millennium ... Read More Keywords: Mexican American women; School integration; Tarango, Hector,; Mexican Americans; Discrimination in education; Street art; Quiara Alegría Hudes; Latin Americans; Gentrification; United States; Alarcón, Alicia, PubDate: 2018-01-09T00:00:00-05:00