Sunday, February 19, 2006

Historic lawsuit regains public notice
Hundreds turn out to discuss the O.C. court case that helped to end school segregation.
By THERESA WALKER
The Orange County Register

The first time Sandra Robbie held a public discussion on the landmark Mendez v. Westminster school desegregation case, few people came.

Not enough people knew about the largely ignored 1946 lawsuit that ended the segregation of children of Mexican heritage not just in Orange County but statewide.

That was in 2003, before Robbie's documentary on Mendez v. Westminster won acclaim and attention.

On Saturday, it was an entirely different story: More than 400 people packed the George Bush Conference Center at Chapman University on the very day that marked the 60th anniversary of the Mendez v. Westminster decision.

The audience included 93-year-old Josefina Ramirez, one of the original plaintiffs in Mendez, which involved five families from different school districts.

More than just look back, Robbie urged members of the audience to lobby for the official inclusion of Mendez v. Westminster in California's public school curriculum.

"People are telling me that it needs to be in the curriculum across the United States," Robbie said of the lawsuit that influenced the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kan., which struck down racial segregation in the nation's public schools.

The large turnout put a big smile on the face of Sylvia Mendez, the eldest daughter of Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez. She testified in the case when she was 9, and today at 69 travels around the country to educate people about Mendez v. Westminster.

"Once we get it into the curriculum," Mendez said, "everybody will know."

The audience also heard from Minnijean Brown Trickey, one of the Little Rock Nine, the black students who in 1957 desegregated Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., against fierce opposition, capturing the nation's attention.

Trickey spoke so passionately about the connection among Mendez, Brown v. Board of Education and the Little Rock Nine that she knocked her glasses off her face at one point. Trickey, 64, learned about Mendez v. Westminster just last year.

"Why doesn't every child in the United States know about Mendez v. Westminster?" she asked. "Why doesn't every child know about the Little Rock Nine, or any number of small actions made by ordinary individuals?"

Mark Bueno, 13, of Moreno Valley penned pages of notes, spoke with Sylvia Mendez and Trickey, and then took a "Civil Rights Tour" of four locations in Old Towne Orange where segregation was once unquestioned. Bueno, who is of Filipino-Chinese
descent, hopes to win national honors for an exhibit he created on Brown v. Board of Education as part of a project called History Day.

In his research, Bueno heard of the Mendez case and recently was at the UC Riverside library to learn more when an Orange County man, Marty Grajeda, overheard him talking with his parents. Grajeda, a maintenance worker at Goldenwest College in Huntington Beach, told them about the 60th anniversary.

"I learned a lot from this," Bueno said. "It was part of our history, and without this we wouldn't be going to the same schools as African-Americans and Mexicans. This teaches us not to be prejudiced and to treat people how you would like to be treated."

Online

Here are some ways to learn more about Mendez v. Westminster and other civil-rights issues in Orange County:
• Buy Sandra Robbie's documentary "Mendez v. Westminster: For All the Children/Para Todos Los Niños" and view links to other information at www.koce.org/mendezLive.htm

• See what life was like in the Cypress Street Barrio, site of one of the segregated "Mexican schools," through the photo collection "Shades of Orange" on display in the Leatherby Libraries at Chapman University or view online at cityoforange.org/localhistory/CypressStreetBarrio/

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CONTACT US: (714) 796-7793 or twalker@ocregister.com.