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44 votes
1. Why are Mexican children in Orange country suffering from segregation?

2. Do you think the Mexican school is safe for the children? Why o why not?
3. What is Mr. Mendez trying to do by collecting the signatures of other Mexican parents?
4. Why Sylvia and their brothers cannot be enrolled in the 17th street school? What is the reason?

User Zama Ques
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1 Answer

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13 votes

Answer:

Read and see if you find an answer, HOPE IT HELPS!

Step-by-step explanation:

1) Mendez et al v. Westminster School District of Orange County et al (1946) is an historic court case on racial segregation in the California public school system. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that it was unconstitutional and unlawful to forcibly segregate Mexican-American students by focusing on Mexican ancestry, skin color, and the Spanish language. This case forged a foundation upholding the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, thereby strengthening the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, which found racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional.

In 1945, the all-white Westminster Elementary School District rejected nine-year-old Sylvia Mendez and her brothers because of their Mexican appearance and ancestry. Legally, the census classified Mexican-Americans as racially “white,” based on a designation in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848). However, schools in California had begun to create separate Mexican schools at the behest of White parents in the 1930s. At the time, Mexican-American migrants had established themselves as a large minority population following the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920). James Kent, the superintendent of one of the defending districts, stated that “people of Mexican descent were intellectually, culturally, and morally inferior to European Americans.” Judge Paul McCormick found these arguments did not justify the segregation of schools. His ruling established that “the clear purpose of the segregation by the school districts was to discriminate against pupils of Mexican descent”, affecting roughly 5000 Mexican-American students across four school districts.

Civil court cases contextually preceded the Mendez case. One important example is the People v. Zamora (1944). In this largest mass trial in Californian history, the prosecutor used the appearance of the youth as a part of his evidence for their conviction. Seventeen Latino defendants were deemed guilty of assault, second-degree murder, and/or first degree murder, after the Los Angeles Police Department detained over six-hundred Mexican American youth.

2) Despite Mexico’s recent progress in ensuring that young people finish school — graduation rates have increased from 33% in 2000 to 49% in 2011 — there is considerably further to go in improving the Mexican education system. According to a Gallup poll, only 56% of Mexicans believe all Mexicans have access to an education, regardless of economic status. Furthermore, those Mexicans who receive an education do not necessarily receive a quality education: the average student in Mexico had the lowest reading literacy and math and science scores among the nations in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Mexicans face many barriers to receiving a quality education. For activists looking to improve Mexicans’ access to educational opportunities, poverty, indigeneity, gender inequality, and shrinking education budgets are pressing problems on which to focus.

3) Mr. Mendez created a group called the Parents' Association of Mexican-American Children. He tried to collect signatures for a petition to integrate school so that all children, regardless of their skin color or background, could have the same opportunities.

4) 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.

User Benji
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