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Ep. 01 Transcript Page 1 of 11 TRANSCRIPT Copyright © 2017 Orange County Department of Education. All Rights Reserved. Title: Mendez v. Westminster Sylvia: We would stop at that school everyday and see those kids go in but this playground was right next to the street and in that playground they had monkey bars, they had teeter- totter, they had swings and my thing was that I always wanted to go to that school because of the playground, 'cause we didn't have all that at the other school. Jeff: In 1944, eight year old [Sylvia Mendez 00:00:32] didn't understand why she and her brothers couldn't go to the school with the nice playground. Neither could their parents, [Gonzalo 00:00:39] and [Felicitas Mendez 00:00:39]. What resulted was Mendez versus [Westminster 00:00:42], a landmark court case that shattered many of the legal justification for segregating public schools. Maybe you haven't heard of the Mendez, maybe you're more familiar with the Brown versus the Board of Education decision of 1954, but not only did the Mendez case precede that decision by seven years, it lay the foundation for the United States Supreme Court declaration once and for all that segregated schools were in violation of the constitution. We sat down with Sylvia Mendez and Gonzalo Mendez Junior on the 70th anniversary of the resolution to the Mendez case. Speaker 3: What- [Gregor 00:01:17] are we good on sound? [crosstalk 00:01:19] Gonzalo jr: You can hear us? Speaker 5: Yes, I can hear you. We're good to go. Sylvia: Okay. Speaker 3: So basically- Jeff: Sylvia and Gonzalo Junior are warm, welcoming down to earth people. But they're also icons of the school integration movement. Sylvia won a presidential medal of freedom in 2011. Seventy years ago, the Mendez family changed the world. They make America a better place for all of us. Sylvia: My mother says, "Sylvia, don't you realize what we're fighting for?", "Yes, so we can get to that beautiful school in Westminster", she said, "No Sylvia, that's not we're fighting, we're fighting because under God we're all equal, you belong at that school just like everybody else belongs to that school, that's what we're fighting for". Jeff: In this episode of the Deeper Learning podcast, you'll learn what they did, how they did it, and how we might be able to follow in their footsteps. Why are we here? What does it mean to live a good life? How can we make a difference in the world for our children in the generations that will follow? How can we make education a force for good? Page 2 of 11 This is [Jeff Hittenberger 00:02:27], in this podcast you'll hear amazing stories about people who have pursued these questions often against great odds, who have made a difference in the world. People who can point us in the direction of doing the same. Let's get started. It all started on a sunny morning in September 1944. Sylvia was eight, Gonzalo was seven, their brother [Jerome 00:02:51] was six, that morning they rode with their aunt [Sally 00:02:54] and two cousins to Westminster school. Sylvia was excited about the first day at this new school. Sylvia: All dress up, all new shoes, new dress, new everything. Jeff: But when Aunt Sally talked to the school clerk, it didn't go well. Gonzalo jr: When we were gonna get enrolled, she took her two kids who are like blue eyed, blonde haired, the administrator of the school the one that was admitting us actually told my aunt that she would keep her two kids at school, even though they were Mexicans because they didn't have a Mexican sounding name and they [inaudible 00:03:28]. But she actually told him, "Well, we'll keep your two kids but those three have to go to the Mexican school". That's when she got up and said, "No, if you don't take my brother's kids- Sylvia: I always say when I go and speak to the students, and that's when she did her [Rosa Parks 00:03:44] stands and said, "I'm not leaving my children here if you won't take my brothers kids". Jeff: Aunt Sally hustled them in to the Buick and hurry back to Mendez's farm. Sylvia: That's when my aunt told my dad what had happened and she was all upset and my dad told her to calm down, "You know, it's gonna be okay Sally, it's gonna be okay, I'm just gonna go talk, there's been a mistake, you know in [Santa Ana 00:04:06] we went to a Mexican school because they told us we were in that, on the side of that Mexican school right now we're on the side of the white school". So he just told her, "I'll go talk to him tomorrow". Jeff: Gonzalo Mendez was a confident person. He had come to the United States from Mexico as a child and now he's an American citizen. His wife Felicitas was also an American citizen, born in Puerto Rico. Their children were born in the United States and they all spoke English fluently, there had to have been a mistake. But when Gonzalo talked to the principal, he got the same story, "Your children have to go to [Hoover 00:04:42] school, the Mexican school. Remember, it was 1944, 350.000 Americans of Mexican heritage were serving in the United States military in World War II, 9000 Latino American troops would die fighting for their country in World War II. But here in Orange County, a school was refusing to enroll American kids because of their skin colors and their Mexican heritage. Gonzalo appealed to the superintendent and then to the school board, but the answer was always the same, "Your children have to go to a Mexican school". Gonzalo decided to keep the children home and teach them himself, while he decided how to fight this. Sylvia: My father refused to take us to the other school and then the superintendent, he came to the house and told, "Mr. Mendez, it's against the law if you don't send your children to school, you have to send them by law to the Mexican school", my dad said, "I'm not sending", he says, "Well, you'll be against the law if you don't send-" Page 3 of 11 Gonzalo jr: Throw him in jail probably. Sylvia: Yeah, if you don't send them to school. Jeff: So, the children went to the Hoover school. Sylvia: We would walk from the farm with all the Anglo [inaudible 00:05:52] look children to the bus stop, get on the bus, bus would take us to the white school, all our friends would go into that white school and we had to walk from 17th and ... that was 17th and Hoover where the white school was ... we had to walk into the [barrio 00:06:10]. Gonzalo jr: Yeah. Sylvia: Into the Mexican school. Jeff: While Westminster school was clean and new, filled with new books and materials and outfitted with a grass playground, equipped with swings, teeter-totter and monkey bars, Hoover school had no grass, no playground, nothing but dirt. Sylvia: But now ... but next to it was a dairy with cows and it had a fence that had a little bit of electricity on it. And I was there, the day that this girl throws a ball and she throws the ball and it runs over towards the fence and she's running to grab it and she grabs a hold of the fence. And the fence was not enough to kill you, but to shock you but once you grab a hold of it like that it wouldn't let go, she couldn't let go but ... it just kept like that ... she was like ... like that shaking, like that and the teacher had to go all the way around all the way to the dairy and tell the dairyman to turn off the electricity on the farm 'cause one of the student was caught, she couldn't let go of that fence and so, that was a bad part, it was all dirt and then ... you know the flies came from the place. Jeff: Everyday the kids would come home and tell their parents about what happened at school that day. One of the rules was that if you spoke Spanish you got punished. Gonzalo and Felicitas were not gonna let this happen to their kids, Gonzalo was a leader in the community, everybody liked him and Felicitas ... Sylvia: My mother was a feisty Puerto Rican lady- Gonzalo jr: She was the kinda person that laughed and had a good time and was always happy and ... so when she worked at the [Cantina 00:07:49] with my dad, she's always like that. Sylvia: And then in the farm she was a boss for other women, she was the leader. Gonzalo jr: Of course she was also the boss at the Cantina more or less. Sylvia: Yeah, yeah that's right. Jeff: Of all the people whose children were affected by segregation, why did these two decided to challenge the injustice. Gonzalo jr: I think they were at the right place at the right time.
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