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,
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,