The “doodle” September 15 is dedicated to a woman who helped end discrimination against Hispanics in public schools in the United States. This is her story
Birth of Felicitas Méndez
Felicitas Méndez was born on February 5, 1916 as Felicita Gómez Martínez in Juncos, Puerto Rico , would become years later a pioneer of civil rights and a businesswoman.
Along with her husband Gonzalo, Felicitas helped spearhead and win the monumental Méndez v. Westminster, which in 1946 resulted in the first U.S. federal court ruling against the segregation of public schools , nearly a decade before Brown v. Board of Education.
But her story started much earlier. From her native Juncos he moved with her parents to the southwestern United States as a preteen, and the family eventually joined the Latino community of farmworkers in Orange County, California . In 1935 she married Gonzalo Méndez , a Mexican immigrant who worked with her father in the fields. Together, the couple opened a neighborhood cafe and later ran a successful farm in the small town of Westminster.
Activist and brilliant businesswoman
In 1944, all three of the Mendez children were denied enrollment in a local public school because of their ethnicity and skin color . Not wanting to accept this injustice, the couple decided to fight the decision. With the lawsuit Méndez v. Westminster, Gonzalo Méndez and four other parents sued the Westminster School District and several others to demand an end to the segregation of Hispanic students. Felicitas Méndez organized committees to support the case and skillfully managed the Méndez farm on her own, generating record profits that helped subsidize the lawsuit .
On February 18, 1946, the federal district court found that school districts violated the right of Mexican American citizens to equal protection before the law and ruled in favor of the Méndez family and the other parents . Affirmed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals the following year, this landmark decision directly paved the way for a law calling for the integration of all California public schools that same year, as well as the Brown v. Board of Education by the Supreme Court seven years later, which declared the segregation of public schools unconstitutional.
In 2011, Méndez’s daughter Sylvia was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States , in recognition of her role and that of her parents in Westminster v. Mendez and her lifelong dedication to civil rights and education.
“I am very proud to be the daughter of Felicitas and Gonzalo Méndez and to have the opportunity to fulfill the promise I made to my mother. I remember my mother telling me: “Nobody knows about Mendez vs. Westminster, how five families fought to end segregation in California. When we all decided to fight, it was not just for you but for all the children, ”Sylvia Méndez says now.
Felicitas Mendez died in California on April 12, 1998 , at the age of 82. Her husband died before her, in 1964, at age 51.
What happens in the Hispanic Heritage Month in the United States?
This commemoration runs from September 15 to October 15, since in that period Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico and Chile celebrate their independence, and the arrival of Christopher Columbus on these shores of the river is remembered. Atlantic.
As every year, both the government and the private sector will praise in the coming weeks the role that Hispanics have played in the country in 500 years of history.
61% of Hispanics in the United States are of Mexican origin, 9.7% have their roots in Puerto Rico, 4% in Cuba , and 3.9% in El Salvador. Those of Spanish origin are 1.4%, according to figures from the Pew Research Center, which highlights that the fastest growing among Latinos are Venezuelans, Dominicans, Guatemalans and Hondurans.
The celebration of the Latin American and Spanish contribution to the United States began in 1968 as Hispanic Heritage Week by decision of then Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, and was expanded to thirty days in 1988 by decision of Republican President Ronald Reagan.
As is tradition, it is expected that the president, Donald Trump, will make a proclamation in which he will flatter Latinos and remember that the United States is a nation of immigrants, although in these three and a half years in office he has promoted a solution for some 12 million undocumented.