Chapter Seventeen

Search for Equality

The American educational system was established as a free, public, and compulsory system. Its basic premise was that all children should have an equal opportunity for education. The school system not only provided the academic education but further served the national interest. It provided a means of "Americanizing" the children of hundreds of thousands of immigrants who came to these shores.

Among the basic premises of American education as it has developed over the years, at least two are highly significant. The first is that the child should be accepted as he is. Education should be based on the talents, the heritage, and socio-cultural attributes which the student possesses. We interpret this to mean that if a child does not know English, his native language presumably should be used in order to teach him English or special efforts should be made in his behalf. A recent Supreme Court decision (Lau V. Nichols, 414 U.S. 563, 1974) confirmed this interpretation. Another, later, decision, however, determined that only English would be allowed.

The second premise of American education is that it should serve the total community. Public education was established so that it would be in the hands of the local community through small school districts and school boards, the members being elected by their peers. This provided a means of administering the schools in the best interests of the community.
The two premises are basic to American education. Had they been adhered to, the public educational system would be a strong one and the needs of children in any community would have been served.

What actually happened, however, was that the American public schools developed a system of Americanization. In so doing, they neglected the particular needs of many children and focused on teaching American middle-class values and mores. The American Southwest offers a graphic example of the consequences of this trend. American Indians as well as Spanish-speaking children were stripped by the school systems of their language, their culture, their traditions and customs. The burden of conforming to an American middle-class mold was placed on the minorities. The results of these actions and policies on the part of the schools have been that, at least among these two populations, many individuals who have attended school have not been adequately educated and they have either dropped out or been pushed out of the educational system.

As to the second premise of serving the total community, a curious but predictable situation has developed in most school districts, where the control of the school through a school board tends to be in the hands of the dominant society- indeed, in the hands of the more affluent members of that society. Certain segments of the community, in particular the poor and the ethnic groups, are not well represented either in the governing of the school through the school board, in the administration of the school (that is, superintendents and principals), or among the teaching staff. Studies by the United States Commission on Civil Rights support the above statement.

Mexican Americans and the Schools

The educational history of Mexican Americans in this country has been, unfortunately, one of neglect and misunderstanding. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo guaranteed the rights of this population after Mexico was conquered and the people of the Southwest became American citizens. Among the rights guaranteed by citizenship is the right to equal opportunity in education. But schools were not immediately established after the conquest, and when they were established they quite often did not take into account the special needs of the students. Among those needs would be a recognition of their language and their culture and the use of both the language and the culture in the educational process.

Spanish Language

In an effort to insure that Mexican Americans learn the English language, some states passed laws prohibiting the use of Spanish in instruction. Furthermore, many children who could not speak English were punished, sometimes physically, for speaking Spanish in the classroom or on the school grounds. This reprehensible practice persisted up to the 1970s.

Some schools of the Southwest placed children with a distinguishable Spanish surname in classrooms separate from children with non-Spanish names. These were often called "Mexican" rooms. The schools justified this action by claiming that if one placed children who did not speak English together in the same classroom, they would somehow learn the new language more quickly than if they were placed in a room with English-speaking children. One thing the educators overlooked was the fact that many children with Spanish surnames did not speak Spanish at all.

By and large, the instruction for children in the "Mexican" room was inferior to the instruction given the other children. Even language training was inadequate and many children with Spanish surnames remained in separate "Mexican" rooms up through the sixth, seventh, or eighth grade. Obviously, this kind of separatism created attitudes of inferiority within the Mexican-American child and of superiority within the Anglo children.

Gerrymandering

The failure of the school system can be illustrated in other ways. In large school districts in cities such as San Antonio and Los Angeles, much gerrymandering took place in order to separate the Mexican-American population from the dominant society through changes in the political boundaries defining the school district. This manipulation of school district boundaries assured the poor and the ethnics who remained in one district that their schools would be inferior to those of the more well-to-do population. The difference in quality is quite simply a matter of the difference in funds available for the operation of the respective schools. The funds to run a school depend on the value of the property in which the school district is located and the property taxes collected. Thus, the Anglo schools generally had more money for materials, equipment, school buildings, and teachers' salaries than schools in poorer neighborhoods.

Intelligence Tests

The use of intelligence tests in placing students also has had a discriminatory effect upon children with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Since the tests are usually standardized and validated among the dominant English-speaking middle-class population, people who do not fall into this group often score poorly. Since the poor and the ethnics tend to receive lower test scores, they are often considered either retarded or not quite up to the level of high-scoring, middle-class students. Consequently, Mexican-American students have frequently been relegated to a non-academic education curriculum-that is to vocational, business, or industrial studies rather than to an educational curriculum geared to academic achievement and preparation for college. In many schools this type of discrimination carried over into extra-curricular activities. Few Mexican Americans found opportunity to play basketball or football, be cheerleaders, play in the band, or join the social clubs.

The Parent Teacher Association (PTA) is intended to be the link between the community and the school. But its policies and procedures have generally made it difficult for Mexican Americans to participate. If they were poor and could not speak English well, they were excluded from this one organization in which they might learn something about the school and the education of their children.

All in all, we think it is reasonable to state that the school systems in the five southwestern states served to create an attitude of superiority among students of the dominant society and an attitude of inferiority among minority groups and poor people. It is also fair to state that the children of the dominant society received an education which was superior to that of the children of minority groups and the poor.

In California, the community college system does not prepare minority students well enough for them to go on to enter a four-year school. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (M.A.L.D.E.F.) revealed that about 10 percent of Mexican Americans and about 70 percent of white students go on to attend a four-year college or university. For this reason, M.A.L.D.E.F. has sued the state and the appropriate boards of education in order to determine what lies behind this dramatic difference in statistics. The suit is still pending.

Moves for Equal Opportunity

Many Mexican-American educators, such as the late Dr. George I. Sanchez, devoted their lives to the elimination of discrimination in the school system. They did so through teaching, research, and publication. They also spent much of their energy trying to establish programs which would foster equal opportunity for the Mexican-American minority. Organizations such as the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) fostered school attendance, scholarships, and programs to teach Spanish-speaking children a basic 400-word vocabulary in English before they entered grade school. One of the most important organizations to be heard on the question of discrimination in education, particularly in Texas, was the American G.I. Forum, founded by Dr. Hector Garcia of Corpus Christi. The American G.I. Forum successfully led court battles which brought an end to official and legal discrimination against Mexican Americans in the schools.

Although the goal of equality of educational opportunity has not yet been achieved throughout the nation, a number of important events have occurred which suggest that it might yet be realized. Significant changes are being made in the curricula of the school systems, not only at the elementary level but also at the secondary level and in the universities. New courses are being directed toward the history and culture of Mexican Americans. And many existing courses are being modified to include this content. Sometimes a series of courses comprises a program in Chicano or Mexican-American Studies. In support of this trend, a number of persons throughout the United States, including some individuals in public and private agencies, have begun to develop educational materials which can be used in teaching Mexican Americans. Furthermore, the federal government in recent years has funded bilingual education programs aimed primarily at elementary schools with high concentrations of Mexican Americans. Some of these programs have also become bicultural. They have not yet, however, been evaluated. Many colleges and universities have developed Chicano studies. The programs range from providing meeting places (La Casa Latina, where minority students can gather for mutual support) to academic classes, programs, departments, and graduate studies.

A person can take a course, or pursue a minor or a major in the subject, or receive a degree in the field. Some professors and others criticize such degree-granting programs as being "soft" or as not being "real" academic disciplines. Chicano studies are, however, just as legitimate as programs in Russian studies, women studies, Latin American studies, American studies, or any other such course of study. How are undergraduate or graduate degree programs in, for example, business, agriculture, nursing, or engineering any less proper academic disciplines than Chicano studies?

Teacher-training institutions have become aware of the fact that teachers are not generally educated in the history and culture of ethnic groups. Many teachers are ignorant of the culture and traditions and language of the children in their classrooms who come from various minority groups. Efforts are being made to correct this situation either by changing the curriculum of the university classes or by offering summer workshops or in-service training programs for teachers of minority children.

The federal government has also taken some steps to train teachers, sponsoring a variety of programs in the field of migrant education. Since the majority of migrant workers are Mexican American, the government programs quite often have been oriented toward this particular ethnic group. Migrant educational programs vary from state to state and county to county. Some are innovative and quite good. Others, such as those in the state of Indiana, have yet to accept bicultural, bilingual education or even to use bilingual teachers.
The deficiencies in the education available to Mexican-American children can be graphically demonstrated, as can the trend toward improvement, by comparing the educational level of Mexican Americans with that of other groups in 1950,1960, and 1970. We will limit the comparison of educational achievement to the southwestern states, because this is the only region for which we have comparable statistics. A look at these statistics in Table 4 will make readily apparent the failure of the system with regard to the education of the Mexican-American population.

Starring actor Olmos, the movie Stand and Deliver shows the true documentary of a teacher from Bolivia. Mr. E. Calante teaches a class of Mexican American students calculus. The students, in turn, take the national standard test in mathematics, and fourteen pass the test with high marks. The school-Garfield High in Los Angeles-had never qualified before for its students to take the test, and, of course, the students are accused of cheating because they did so well. The students are made to retake the test; they pass it; and today Garfield is well known for its excellent instruction in mathematics and for the great number of its students who pass the national tests.

Struggle against Discrimination

Discrimination against Mexican Americans in the United States has not been as overt as it has in the case of blacks, with the exception of the state of Texas. Discrimination against blacks in this country up until the civil rights acts in the 1950s and the 1960s was institutionalized because it was built into the fabric of the society and the laws of the nation. If one can believe that in a democracy it was lawful to discriminate officially and overtly against a certain segment of the society in the areas of housing, public accommodations, education, voting, and employment, one can understand the presence of separate drinking fountains, separate toilet facilities, separate parks, separate schools, separate housing, and separate churches. Under this system, a large group of Americans were being denied their basic constitutional rights.

Discrimination against Mexican Americans was not institutionalized to this extent. It was not supported by the vast body of legislation that made discrimination against blacks official. On the one hand, Mexican Americans were considered to be Caucasians (white) and, therefore, laws which were aimed at blacks did not necessarily apply. On the other hand, middle-class Anglos have generally considered themselves superior to everyone else. And this fact opened the door to discrimination against Mexican Americans and other Caucasian ethnic groups. The discrimination was often subtle, because it usually had no legal basis. But legal or not, subtle or overt, discrimination leaves its mark on the entire society. It specifically affects the persons who are subjected to discriminatory action. But the people who discriminate are also changed by their behavior.

Housing

Discrimination in housing has provided one of the most painful experiences for Mexican Americans. In most areas of the Southwest and the Midwest, the community, town, or city is invariably divided into clearly defined sections. It is rarely difficult to locate the "Mexican section" in most communities. It may be found on the other side of a main highway, across the tracks, or across the river. If there is no natural geographical division, the Mexican-American population may congregate in one particular area.

Discrimination against Mexican Americans with regard to housing was never official, as we have indicated, yet it is curious that in most communities this population lives in a particular section of town. One underlying factor may be that they are frequently poor and cannot afford housing in other parts of the community. But we cannot ignore the fact that in many communities real estate agencies do not show houses in certain sections of town, let alone sell them, to Mexican Americans. This does not happen because the prospective buyer does not appear to be "white" but because of an accent or a Spanish surname. Many incidents have been recorded in which Mexican Americans attempted to buy homes in certain neighborhoods and, although they were not overtly refused, the property was suddenly no longer for sale. Thus, discrimination in housing has been as effective as if laws existed which would prohibit Mexican Americans from buying or renting housing in certain neighborhoods.

Jury Selection

Jury service offers another example of discrimination against Mexican Americans. A basic tenet of American law is that people should be judged by their peers. In other words, in all trials requiring a jury or all investigations conducted by a grand jury, every segment of the population should have an equal chance of being represented.

But most studies reveal that minorities and poor people are not well represented on juries. When a jury without minority representation convicts a person with a minority background, then that person has been denied the right of being judged by his peers. The history of convictions through court cases is replete with such examples-as when an all-white jury convicts a black defendant. Similarly, if an all-male jury tries a female defendant or a jury composed entirely of older people tries a young man or woman, the defendant is not given the opportunity of a trial by his peers.

The implication seems to be that the jury selection process is selective in itself In some cases, this has been a matter of overt discrimination. The individuals charged with jury selection passed over or eliminated the names of potential minority jurors-a matter which was simplified in the case of Mexican Americans by the fact that a Spanish surname is easily recognized. If minority individuals were called for jury duty, it was still possible to make sure by failing to select them from the larger body of jurors.

Frequently, such overt tactics have proven unnecessary, because jury selection in many areas is tied to voter registration. The names of potential jurors are taken from among the county's registered voters. Traditionally, minority populations were disenfranchised. In some cases, they were legally prevented from registering to vote, as with some blacks in the South prior to the civil rights movement. Even when minorities could register, a variety of tactics, including physical violence, discouraged them from doing so. Commonly, they were kept ignorant of the political system because no effort was made to solicit minority registration and this effectively kept minorities off the juries. Although the situation is changing, due partly to active minority voter registration drives in recent years, large numbers of minority citizens do not register to vote. Consequently, their names are not available for jury selection.

With the establishment of the Southwest Voter Registration Office in San Antonio, Texas, Willie Velasquez was able to bring about many much-needed changes to the voting process. A newsletter published by the Southwest Voter Registration Office is available.

Law Enforcement

Still another area in which an element of discrimination appears may be found in the relationship of police departments to minority groups. Numerous studies have shown that, historically, the police have been more apt to stop, search, and arrest members of minority groups than they have members of the dominant society. The records of arrest in most cities with large minority populations will indicate that minorities are arrested in greater proportion to their numbers in the community than are members of the dominant group. Again, the studies will show that of those who are arrested, a greater proportion of minority members of the community will be brought to trial than non-minorities. Furthermore, of those who are brought to trial, a greater proportion of minorities are convicted than non-minorities, and of those who are convicted, minorities are likely to get harsher sentences than non-minorities for the same offenses. If the studies are objective, it becomes clear that a general pattern of discrimination by the police and the courts against the minorities has existed for a very long time.

When considering police brutality, similar statements can be made about the behavior of the police toward members of minority groups. In the racial riots of the late 1960s and early 1970s, such behavior was well documented in the mass media.

Two cases involving Mexican Americans illustrate our point. With regard to the courts, a rather famous case came to light September 2, 1969. The case, concerning a minor who had had sexual relations with his sister, was brought before Judge Gerald S. Chargin in the Superior Court of California, San Jose, California. The case is presented verbatim in Appendix I. The judge made a number of derogatory, inflammatory and pejorative statements. These remarks were interpreted by many Mexican Americans across the country as prejudicial statements directed at all Mexican Americans. Thousands of statements of protest were sent to government officials from the president of the United States on down. Most statements asked for an investigation of the judge and his immediate removal from office. But Judge Chargin was not removed from office.

Another case began on August 29, 1970, during the National Chicano Moratorium March in East Los Angeles. Ruben Salazar, Los Angeles Times columnist and news director for the Spanish language television station KMEX, was shot and killed at the Silver Dollar Cafe on Whittier Boulevard. He was shot by a member of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Two other people were killed-Angel Gilberto Diaz and Lynn Ward. Hundreds of people were beaten and injured by the police and over four hundred were arrested. Five hundred police and sheriff's deputies were active in what Chicanos believe was an unprovoked police riot. The sheriff's department claimed that forty officers were injured and twenty-five radio cars damaged (Morales, 1972: p: 101).

We will not go into the details concerning the circumstances of the riot. These have been reported by Dr. Armando Morales in Ando Sangrando: A Study of Mexican American-Police Conflict and in the journal La Ittiza, Vol. no.3, Special Issue (no date, pagination, or volume number).

The testimony at the inquest was most conflicting and it pitted the sheriff's department against the witnesses from the Chicano Moratorium. Suffice it to say that despite the logical flaws in the officers' testimony and the evidence to the contrary no charges were brought against the officers and the case was closed.

The article from La Raza is reprinted in Appendix II. We feel that this article best expressed the Chicanos' attitude toward the judicial system. Mexican Americans have been discriminated against in all areas of life, systematically, though perhaps not officially. One such area of discrimination is in the use of public facilities and public accommodations.

Public Accommodations

While the actions on the part of the majority group toward Mexican Americans has not been as overt as toward blacks in the South, there have been few cities or towns in the Southwest or in other parts of the country that have not denied Mexican Americans access to public accommodations. For example, in many communities, Roman Catholic churches have traditionally seated Mexican Americans on one side of the church and members of the Anglo community on the other side. The same practice has been followed in theaters. Access to swimming pools has been difficult for Mexican Americans in many communities. Many restaurants and hotels have traditionally discriminated against Mexican Americans. The use of toilet facilities in filling stations has been denied Mexican Americans in the migratory labor stream as they move from Texas to points north. And some communities have even denied Chicanos burial plots in cemeteries.

Employment Opportunity

Even more serious discrimination has occurred in employment. Mexican Americans like blacks and Indians have usually been employed in low-status positions, and in many instances have been denied access to white-collar jobs. Labor unions have discriminated against minority groups, including Mexican Americans. This has been particularly true of the craft unions which organize trades such as plumbing, carpentry, masonry, and the like. Major unions have admitted Mexican Americans to membership, but again if we look at the statistics as to the type of employment of Mexican-American union members, we find that they generally occupy low-status jobs. The same pattern has been true, too, of major educational systems. That is, in large educational systems one commonly finds many Mexican Americans at the janitorial and custodial level, fewer at the clerical, fewer still at the teacher level, and very few indeed at the administrative level. Major industries would have similar records. Even state governments and employment in federal agencies reveal the same trend.

Jack Otero, a Cubano, is president of the Labor Counsel for Latin American Advancement (LACLAA). Mr. Montoya has been the executive director for many years. LACLAA attempts to organize Hispanics in the labor movement have been very successful. Recently at the University of Notre Dame, many young Hispanics were brought in for a workshop on labor, which was sponsored by the LACLAA with the help of Otero and Patrick Sullivan (a professor in the sociology department at Notre Dame) and other professors at the university.

Pursuing Civil Rights

A great deal of energy has been expended in efforts to end discrimination. Although discrimination still exists and its opponents are frequently discouraged, attempts to eliminate it have not been totally without success.

Some of the most effective tools for fighting discrimination have been provided by the federal government through the promulgation of anti-discriminatory legislation. Although the laws came into being as a result of the demands of pressure groups and do not necessarily reflect the values and beliefs of the senators and congressmen who passed them, they serve a useful purpose. Civil rights acts have made discrimination illegal throughout the country. Many efforts to end discriminatory practices were initiated following passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the publication of evidence of discrimination collected by the United States Commission on Civil Rights. The establishment of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was a milestone in attempts by the federal government to end discrimination in employment.

State and local governments have followed the example of the federal government. Most states have established civil rights commissions which are empowered to investigate discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations, and education. The commissions generally work very effectively in their attempts to investigate discrimination or to bring redress for discriminatory practices. Many communities attempt the same thing at the local level. They have established committees or commissions on human rights or human relations, charged with investigation and correction of acts of discrimination.

The minority groups themselves have provided impetus for the movement to end discrimination. This is the real grass roots movement and it is essential to the ultimate success of all efforts to end discrimination. It is the source of much of the pressure which has resulted in action at the federal, state, and local levels.

Much of the early action by minorities was spontaneous and disorganized. It began to gain cohesion during the civil rights protest of the 1950s and 1960s. Eventually, members of minority groups began to organize into constructive working units, with considerable success. The establishment of legal aid societies for the poor and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund have brought acts of discrimination against Mexican Americans into the courts and to the attention of the nation. Of course, a great deal remains to be done. The efforts we have described treat the symptoms. The cure is possible only if Americans change their attitudes toward race.

REFERENCES

Morales, Armando. Ando Sangrando: A Study of Mexican Anesican-Police Conflict La Puente,
California: Perspectiva Publication, 1972.

Samora, Julian, ed. La Raza: Forgotten Americans. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1966.