Nicole’s Reviews > Mendez v. Westminster: School Desegregation and Mexican-American Rights > Status Update

Mendez was an important moment in Mexican-American history, (Sylvia Mendez) would tell audiences, but it was equally significant as a moment when Mexican-Americans, African-Americans, Japanese-Americans, and Jewish-Americans cooperated to undo what they saw as a great injustice. "Mendez is about everyone coming together," she commented in 2009.

"Mendez stimulated the Mexican-American community and gave it reason to believe that perhaps justice could be achieved in the United States...And the case got the Mendez children and other Mexican American children in California, the education that enabled so many of them to become lawyers, judges, doctors, nurses, teachers and legislators. For them, Mendez made the American dream a reality."

"The war did more than create a large number of Mexican-American veterans who understood what it was to fight for democracy and equality."

"Citizenship had not protected the many Mexican-Americans who were deported in the 1930s. Immigrants, particularly those who had not become American citizens, were more likely to rely on the consuls than the American political or legal process."

Judge Denman: "There is argument in two of the amicus curiae briefs that we should strike out independently on the whole question of segregation, on the ground that certain world-stirring events have set men to the reexamination of concepts considered fixed."

“We in California like to think of our people as enlightened and free from prejudice...we are convinced that the great majority of Californians want no part of race discrimination or segregation.” Robert W Kenny, the AG of California

“Such legally sanctioned inferiority ran counter to the mandates of the Constitution, and when it occurred, the courts had an obligation to intervene ‘for the basic values of our society.’ñ

ACLU in appellate case: “if appellants can justify discrimination on the basis of ancestry only, then who can tell what minority group will be next on the road to persecution. If we learned one lesson from the horrors of Nazism, it is that no minority group, and in fact no person is safe, once the state can arbitrarily discriminate against any person or group.”

In nearby Ontario, Mexican American protests led the town to desegregate its Grove School, in spite of a petition against integration signed by 1,400 Anglo parents. By September 1946, the Grove School had 177 Mexican American and 155 non-Mexican American students.

“You cannot compare with 25 years ago when our parents who came from Mexico were here. You are dealing with 2nd and 3rd generations of Mexican Americans now. So you cannot use 25 year old records to compare our children with.” Hector Tarango to the El Modena School Board in 1946