Felicitas Mendez|Felicitas Gómez Martínez de Méndez|Gonzalo Mendez|Mendez v. Westminster case| скачать в хорошем качестве

Felicitas Mendez|Felicitas Gómez Martínez de Méndez|Gonzalo Mendez|Mendez v. Westminster case|

Felicitas Mendez. Felicitas Gómez Martínez de Méndez, (1916 – April 12, 1998), was a Puerto Rican activist in the American civil rights movement. In 1946, Mendez and her husband(Gonzalo Mendez), led an educational civil rights battle, that changed California, and set an important legal precedent, for ending de jure segregation in the United States. Their landmark desegregation case, known as Mendez v. Westminster, paved the way for meaningful integration and public school reform. Mendez, (birth name: Felicitas Gómez) was born in the town of Juncos in Puerto Rico. The Gomez family moved from Puerto Rico. There they faced, and were subject to, the discrimination which was then-rampant throughout the United States. Felicitas and her siblings were racialized as "black." In the 1940s, there were only two schools in Westminster: Hoover Elementary and 17th Street Elementary. Orange County schools were segregated and the Westminster school district was no exception. The district mandated separate campuses, for School segregation in California Hispanics and Whites. Mendez's three children Sylvia, Gonzalo Jr. and Jerome Mendez, attended Hoover Elementary, a two-room wooden shack in the middle of the city's Mexican neighborhood, along with the other Hispanics. 17th Street Elementary, which was a "Whites-only" segregated school, was located about a mile away. Unlike Hoover, the 17th Street Elementary school, was amongst a row of palm and pine trees, and had a lawn lining the school's brick and concrete facade. Realizing that the 17th Street Elementary school provided better books and educational benefits, Mendez and her husband Gonzalo, decided that they would like to have their children and nephews enrolled in there. Thus, in 1943, when her daughter Sylvia Mendez was only eight years old, she accompanied her aunt Sally Vidaurri, her brothers and cousins to enroll at the 17th Street Elementary School. Her aunt was told by school officials that her children, who had light skin, would be permitted to enroll - but that neither Sylvia Mendez nor her brothers would be allowed, because they were dark-skinned and had a Hispanic surname. Mrs. Vidaurri stormed out of the school with her children, niece and nephews, and recounted her experience to her brother Gonzalo and her sister-in-law. Initially, Gonzalo received little support from the local Latino organizations, but finally...... See video for more information