Gonzalo Mendez’s Enduring Legacy

Your article “Lesson Learned on School Discrimination” [Sept. 9] filled me with hope and pride for several reasons. First, the Mexican American father in the article who challenged the Westminster School District’s policy of segregation in 1945 was my grandfather. My father, my uncle and aunt were the three children turned away from an all-white elementary school because their skin was too dark and their names were too Mexican. I am so proud that my grandfather, Gonzalo Mendez, found the strength in his anger and humiliation to legally fight the system rather than to yield to the standard practice.

I was also very touched by the article because I believe it revealed the sad truth about how people of Mexican descent were cruelly treated in that era. To this very day when my grandmother, Felicitas Mendez, recalls the bigotry of the school authorities. I hear anger and pain in her voice even though it’s been 50 years since her late husband confronted the local school district.

Nine years after their victory, Mendez vs. Westminster served as a precedent in the landmark case of Brown vs. Board of Education. I hope my grandfather’s act of courage in the face of institutionalized racism will not be forgotten.

JOHANNA MENDEZ SANDOVAL

Corona

*

* The article calls attention to the case of Mendez vs. Westminster (1945), which challenged the practice of segregating Mexican American children in many Orange County schools.

When it notes that “many educators do not know or remember the importance of the decision,” readers should know that for a number of years around 800 freshmen annually enrolled in UC Irvine’s nationally recognized Humanities Core Course discussed the case during a week devoted also to Plessy vs. Ferguson and Brown vs. Board of Education.

BROOK THOMAS

Chair, Department of English

and Comparative Literature

UC Irvine