Mexican History

Good afternoon CHI 10 students,

Today we are picking up on desegregation case in Lemon Grove, California.

Ethnic Mexican children were often segregated in what was known as "Mexican schools." Schools designated for Mexican children. These schools were operating illegally, as ethnic Mexicans cannot be legally segregated, as were African American students and Asian American students during this time period.

And the reason for this is because the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848 considered ethnic Mexicans legally white. And so therefore, they were not a separate racial category. However, many school districts went around this legislation and argued that although Mexicans were legally white, they could be segregated on the basis of language. Although, that itself proved problematic.

It is estimated that by the early 1900s, approximately 80% of California school districts with substantial ethnic Mexican student populations segregated the children. 20% of these schools remained partially segregated. That means that they had some sort of apparatus in place in schools. Maybe children were sent, for instance, to other classrooms where they would be segregated within the school.

And others cited, other school districts cited the need to train Mexican children are Mexican American children for appropriate jobs, meaning that these children would be working in menial employment. I'm sorry manual employment. Would become manual laborers and therefore their education should be not as academically rigorous as other schools.

And also, school districts argued that Mexican or ethnic Mexican children needed to be Americanized and that Mexican schools operated as Americanization schools of which we've already learned about last week in terms of the Progressive Movement and Americanization programs.

And that, in order to Americanize ethnic Mexican children, they needed to be segregated and the so, called Mexican schools. Unfortunately, though, these Mexican schools had substandard facilities, they had a shorter school year, and they had inferior education, which included lack of books or used, very old, used books were given to the children these Mexican schools.

So, segregation, as we knew it through the education pipeline was really targeting ethnic Mexicans as one, inferior; two, that they lacked English language fluency and, therefore, needed schools that addressed their shortcomings in terms of the English language. And why educate these children anyway, if they were going to be working in the fields of agricultural or other unskilled labor?

And that we needed to spend more time making them quote "good citizens" versus academics or college bound students and so, segregated schools for ethnic Mexicans were very much based on this racial superiority complex, that relegated Mexicans or ethnic Mexican children to an inferior position.

And this was very harmful to ethnic Mexican children and very harmful to their progress in American society which continued to relegate them as low skilled laborers and so therefore, they were not given proper instruction as other children.

We are going to move on here to today's PowerPoint.

Okay. So, today's lecture focuses as I mentioned earlier on Lemon Grove, California.

Lemon Grove is located in San Diego County, it's south of downtown San Diego. The name Lemon Grove is taken from the abundance of citrus fields that's surround the town, mostly oranges and lemons grew in this area, and many of the ethnic Mexicans provided the much-needed labor to pick and prune these crops.

And so, Lemon Grove was a segregated, like many towns in the United States, where you had large numbers of ethnic Mexicans residing most of them were relegated to barrios or neighborhoods. And Lemon Grove was actually, had grown quite significantly in its ethnic Mexican population and many of the white residents of Lemon Grove resented Ethnic Mexicans and believed that they were taking much-needed jobs from white Americans, especially in the early 1930s when the Great Depression hit, which we have studied already in this class.

And so, the Lemon Grove School. Oh, I'm sorry. I should say that ethnic Mexican Barrios thrived in Lemon Grove, there was a school, I'm sorry, a church there, and the church's St. Theresa of the Child of Jesus.

This picture here shows Ethnic Mexican children mostly ethnic Mexicans children doing their First Communion at this Catholic Church. So, we know that there's a vibrant community, that people attend mass every Sunday, are closely linked to the Catholic Church in Lemon Grove.

We see that there's, you know, children and adults, which indicates a lot of young families in Lemon Grove at the time.

So, Lemon Grove was an anomaly because it had an integrated school system and it did not have a Mexican school for the ethnic Mexican children. And as I mentioned, there was increased resentment towards ethnic Mexicans who were believed to be taking jobs from deserving white citizens.

And the idea here is that by the early 1930s, there was enough ethnic Mexican children at the school to outnumber white students and the school board the Lemon Grove School Board started to deliberate about the situation and decided that it was time for ethnic Mexicans to go to their own school, their own Mexican school.

And so, on July 23, 1930, an all-Anglo Lemon Grove School board decided to build a separate school for the children of Mexican descent. Without giving proper notice to their parents. The plan was discussed and unanimously accepted by the Lemon Grove School Board and endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce at a local PTA meeting.

And so, we have the PTA, we have the Lemon Grove Chamber of Commerce, and we have the Lemon Grove School District all in cahoots to remove ethnic Mexican children from this school and relocate them to what was, or what would be a Mexican school.

The school board felt, and I quote, "that the situation had reached emergency conditions, due to the overcrowding and sanitary and moral issues stemming from Mexican and Mexican American youth." End quote.

The idea was that these ethnic Mexican children had a different moral standard, an inferior moral standard, than did Anglo children; that they were diseased; that they provided unsanitary conditions for other Mexican, I'm sorry, for other Anglo children; they were basically arguing that ethnic Mexican children were putting the health at risk of these Anglo children.

And so, the idea was then, to separate Mexican children from Anglos. The school board expected the Mexican community to be docile and to not fight the school district in its ruling to segregate the children.

Here is a picture of the Lemon Grove Grammar School in 1928 and Robert, Robert Alvarez, who will be the plaintiffs in the case here, against the Lemon Grove School District, is third row from the far left pictured here.

So, when the children came back to school on January 5, 1931 from their Christmas break, Principal Jerome T. Green of the Lemon Grove School, of the Lemon Grove Grammar School,

instructed the children, sorry, he stopped the Mexican children at the front door before entering the school and he separated that ethnic Mexican children from the white children.

And he told all the ethnic Mexican children to please stay because they were going to be moved to another school. And Principal Green announced that the Mexican children do not belong at the school and could not enter into the school and instead instructed them to attend a two-room building constructed to house the Mexican children.

The children, as you can imagine, were embarrassed, were angry, they were confused at the instructions of their principal and instead of going to this supposed new school assigned to them because of their race, and they went home and told their parents.

And when they came home and told their parents that they were instructed to go to this new school, the parents were very upset, and they began to organize against the school district and against Principal Green and the Lemon Grove Grammar School.

This new school was actually built on a barnyard or what was known as "la caballeriza", which is a horse barn, caballeriza, from the word "caballo" (horse).

It was an old building and it was structurally inferior to the Lemon Grove Grammar School. And it was almost deteriorating, and the Mexican children knew right away that this was sending a message to them, that they should attend this inferior structure designed to house horses and not children.

Principal Green and the Lemon Grove School District, along with the Chamber of Commerce were completely shocked when the Mexican parents organized against the move of their children to this barnyard and they sued. They sued the school district and in what was known as Roberto Alvarez vs. the Board of Trustees of Lemon Grove School District.

And, the Mexican parents went to the Mexican consulate in town, in San Diego, and asked for legal support in suing the school district. They organized a boycott and forbid their children to attend the school. And as you know, for grammar schools, from K through 12, all public schools receive federal and state funds for attendance of children. And so, when children do not make it to school, the school loses much needed federal and state funds.

And on March 30, 1931, the Supreme Court of San Diego County ruled that the local, local school boards attempt to segregate 75 Mexican and Mexican American elementary school children was a violation of the California State laws because ethnic Mexican children were considered white under the state's Education Code.

The judge determined or ruled that Mexicans were of the Caucasian race and not quote, "Negro, Mongolian or Indian," end quote and thus segregating them violated the state law. The terminology here, I know, today is politically incorrect and quite offensive to use these terms, but in those years, these were the terms that were used by political and government officials, as noted here by the court ruling.

The judge also contradict it also contradicted the equal protection and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment, noting that, to segregate these children was to violate their constitutional rights under the 14th amendment.

The judge also noted that "due process cause prohibits the state and local governments from depriving persons of life, liberty, or property without certain steps being taken to ensure fairness."

So, the judge is saying here that, it was not fair. There were no legal grounds to move the children to the school to a separate Mexicans school. This case is testimony that ethnic Mexicans were advocating for their rights, were agents of change. For their children and for ethnic Mexicans in the state.

It is important in San Diego and U.S. history, not solely, because it occurred, but because the community took court action and won the case. They establish the rights of their children to equal education, despite local, regional and national sentiment that favored, not only segregation, but the actual deportation of the Mexican population in the United States during this time period.

Now, if you remember, 1931 is the peak year of Repatriation and the nation. The Federal funded program that repatriated Mexicans, regardless of citizenship to Mexico. And so, this is a politically ripe time and a very controversial time. And ethnic Mexicans, we know, were targeted, were scapegoated in the Great Depression.

They were blamed for the Great Depression. And so, to have this court ruling at this very moment in time, is a very strong indicator to folks that they cannot continue to discriminate against ethnic Mexican children and to segregate them, that that indeed was against the law and against the education code.

And so, this court case is the first. It is not going to be the last, unfortunately. We're going to see quite a few more in California and in Texas to reject the segregation of ethnic Mexican children and to challenge the segregation of ethnic Mexican children.

And so, I hope that this provides you a really strong background before you begin to watch the film "The Lemon Grove Incident," which I will post on Canvas, under Pages.

And you can view this documentary, and this will serve as your second lecture for the week. You will not have another lecture for this week. And I recognize, I'm a little behind. I'm about a week behind, in terms of lectures, but that's okay. We will pick up on the 1940s next week.

And be sure to watch the Lemon Grove incident, as this will be discussed in your discussion sections this week. And I really want you to pay close attention between the racial tensions of ethnic Mexicans and Anglos and Lemon Grove. What is it that whites are arguing for? What is it that ethnic Mexicans are arguing for in their battle to (de)segregate or the Lemon Grove School?

So, I will see you next week. And so, remember this will be the only lecture for this week and then you view the documentary, which will be posted on Canvas.

Have a great day. Thank you.