Former students from Westminster’s segregated ‘Mexican School’ remember the past
When Socorro Perez told her grandchildren of how Orange County schools were segregated in the 1940s, preventing her and her Mexican friends and siblings from attending school with white children, they just didn’t believe her.
“They say, ‘Grandma, how can that be?’” Perez told a small crowd gathered at Mendez Monument Park on July 26.
Perez was joined by three other former students of the segregated school: Dolores Ponce, Luisa Hernandez and Frank Mendoza, on Tuesday to celebrate the decision in the historic Mendez vs. Westminster court case, an early precursor to the full desegregation of public schools in America. The four of them shared stories of their education and answered questions about what life was like back then.
Mendez Monument Park at 7371 Westminster Blvd. was spearedheaded by Sergio Contreras, executive director at United for Student Success at Orange County United Way and a former Westminster City Council member and a school board member there in 2017.
“When we started this project, there was nothing depicting the case,” said Contreras. “I didn’t learn about it until I was in my 20s.”
Contreras hoped the park, which opened in December, would serve as a space for students across Orange County to learn about how far our public schools have come.
An exhibit displays a timeline of the case that starts with Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez fighting for their children’s right to attend 17th Street School, a white school, rather than the “Mexican school,” Hoover Elementary.
“Everything over there was state of the art,” Perez said comparing the 17th Street School to Hoover.
Westminster Councilman Carlos Manzo and Mayor Chi Charlie Nguyen also attended the event. Manzo said Perez’s grandchildren are not the only ones who find it hard to believe such a case happened so recently in Orange County’s history.
“It was always sad for me growing up Latino and not learning about this case until later in life,” said Manzo. “That to me is sad that this is not more common knowledge.”
The 1947 case, which saw five Mexican American families challenge school segregation, predated the 1954 landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education, which ruled separate but equal educational facilities unconstitutional.
The park features two statues by sculptor Ignacio Gomez, one of the Mendez parents and the second of two schoolchildren holding books, meant to represent the 5,000 children in the class action case.
Contreras said while it is important to celebrate how far California schools have come, there is still much work to do to achieve equity for students in O.C.
“The fight still continues as we continue to build equity for all students in Orange County,” said Contreras. “Whether that is college readiness or career readiness. The struggle continues.”
The park also features a black-and-white photograph of the four former students and their classmates in front of the segregated school in 1946.
“That’s me,” Mendoza said. “The most handsome one.”
At the end of the program, the four former students were each presented with their own framed copy of the photo.
As she smiled for the cameras with her photo, Perez quipped:
“Now my grandchildren will have to believe me.”
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