Courtney


 * 1) What is your topic?

Civil Rights. Specifically, I am researching The Lemon Grove Incident that occurred in Southern CA in the 1930's. This case, //Roberto Alvarez vs. the Board of Trustees of the Lemon Grove School District,// was the first successful school desegregation court decision in the history of the United States.

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 * 2) What rights were denied to your group? Provide examples of how the rights were denied.

Mexican immigrants in the small rural town of Lemon Grove, CA were the targets of school segregation. On Jan. 5, 1931, Lemon Grove Grammar School's white and Mexican-American students were returning to classes after the winter break when Principal Jerome Green barred the school's 75 Mexican-American children from entering the five-room building. Green ordered them to go instead to a two-room building that had been hastily put together for them across some railroad tracks in a largely Mexican section of town. The two room building was called " the stable" because it looked like a barn.

In the words of students of the time "It wasn't a school. It was an old building. Everyone called it 'La Caballeriza" ' (the barnyard).

On January 5, 1931, Jerome T. Green, principal of the Lemon Grove Grammar School, acting under instructions from the school trustees, stood at the door and admitted all pupils except the Mexican students. Principal Green announced that the Mexican children did not belong at the school, could not enter, and instructed them to attend a two room building constructed to house Mexican children.

Only three students went to the new school. The rest went home, and their parents refused to send them to a school they said looked like a barn and feared would offer an inferior education. Instead, with help from the Mexican consulate, they sued the Lemon Grove school board Feb. 13, claiming it was trying to racially segregate their children, most of whom were U.S.-born citizens. ||
 * 3) What arguments were made to justify the denial of rights?

Lemon Grove's all-white school board earlier had decided that because of "overcrowding, sanitary and moral" conditions, children of Mexican descent should be separated and sent to their own school. The board decided not to notify the parents of the Mexican-American children about the change.They said that the student of Mexican descent were behind the white students academically.

In their answer to the Petition for Writ of Mandate the Board of Trustees denied all allegations concerning segregation or isolation of the pupils of Mexican parentage. The school board's action was rationalized under the pretentions for the betterment of the Mexican children's education. The new school was to be an "Americanization school" in which the deficiencies of the children of Mexican descent could be corrected, avoiding the deterioration of American students as a result of contact with the Mexicans in the main school. English and American customs would be provided to bring the Mexican students up to standards of the American children. The primary arguments submitted to the court were:

> (1) That the new school house was large enough to accommodate 85 or more pupils and that a playground was set aside and fully equipped. > (2) That the school was built in the northerly section of town (in the main Mexican area) for the safety of the children as they could attend the school without traveling over the main boulevard to the main school. > (3) That with one or two exceptions the children assigned to this new school are deficient in their knowledge of the English language, and are older than the other children in corresponding grades and require special attention from the instructors. > (4) That the new school was built for the purpose of establishing an Americanization school wherein backward and deficient children could be given better instruction than they could be given in the larger school. > (5) That the Americanization school was not intended to be a segregation of Mexican children.44

Chambers worked around the question of whether the Mexican-American children were being racially isolated by citing what state laws permitted at the time. California allowed the segregation of Asians and American Indians, but not Mexicans, who were considered white. In 1931, California Assemblyman George Bliss of Carpinteria tried to legalize the segregation of Mexican and Mexican-American children by classifying them as Indians. His bill failed. ||
 * 4) What arguments were made in favor of extending rights to your group?

Judge Chambers did touch on the question of equity, which was raised by the plaintiffs in the Lemon Grove case and would become one of the cornerstones in future desegregation cases. Segregation, he said, "denies the Mexican children the presence of the American children, which is so necessary to learn the English language."

In addition to seeking help from Consul Ferreira, the Lemon Grove parents appealed to the Mexican Community at large. The parents sought help in the Spanish language media and reports in both Los Angeles and Tijuana newspapers appeared. On January 25, 1931 //La Opinion// the leading Spanish language newspaper in the state featured a page one article on the Lemon Grove incident entitled: "No admiten a los Ninos Mexicanos" (Mexican children refused admission). Within the article an open letter from the Lemon Grove Neighbors Committee appealed for the rights of all Mexicans in the United States. "We are not in agreement, which is very natural, nor do we consider just, the separation of our children, without any reason, to send them to another establishment that distinguishes Mexican Children from children of other nationalities..." The community made a plea for both moral and material support in order to do "the work necessary to convince the school authorities that they should not continue the segregation..."34 As a result of this request and support from //La Opinion,// the Lemon Grove Committee was able to cover the costs incurred by the court case.35

The Mexican community, however, was not deterred and on the 13th day of February issued a writ of mandate to the school board through the Superior Court of California in San Diego, to reinstate the Mexican American students. The petition stated that "the exclusion was clearly an at-tempt at racial segregation...by separating and segregating all the children of Mexican parentage...from the children of American, European and Japanese parentage."41 The community stated that the board had "...no legal right or power to exclude...(the Mexican children) from receiving instruction upon an equal basis..." The Mexican parents clarified that 95 percent of the students were American born citizens "entitled to all the rights and privileges common to all citizens of the United States".42

On March 30, 1931 a judgement was passed in favor of the Mexican community.48 The conclusion of law refuted each claim made by the school board and the court demanded an immediate reinstatement of the children. The separation was indeed deemed a segregation and the court ruled that the school board had no legal basis on which to segregate the children. California law did not authorize or permit the maintenance of separate schools for the instruction of pupils of Mexican parentage, nationality and or descent. The children were legally entitled to enter the regular school building and receive instruction on the basis of equality with all other children. || (You must have at least one example of each.)
 * 5) Who/what were the major figures, actions, successes, and setbacks in the fight for equality for your group?

//Figures//
 * The Lemon Grove School Board
 * Jerome T. Green, principal of the Lemon Grove Grammar School
 * Roberto Alvarez, who was chosen as representative of the segregated children because he was an exemplary student and spoke English well.
 * Comite de Vecinos de Lemon Grove (The Lemon Grove Neighbors Committee)
 * Enrique Ferreira who had been the Mexican consul in San Diego for ten years. Ferreira responded with strong support and arranged for San Diego attorneys, Fred C. Noon and A.C. Brinkely, to act as legal counsel for the Lemon Grove Community. Fred C. Noon spoke Spanish fluently and worked in San Diego since 1928. In 1930, he had been named California attorney for the Northern District of Baja California and was considered an expert in legal affairs concerning border relations.
 * Judge Claude Chambers, the San Diego judge that heard the case.
 * Robert Alvarez Jr., the son of Roberto Alvarez who researched the Lemon Grove case, realized its historic value and helped resurrect the story so more people would know about it.

//Actions//
 * The Mexican community, however, was not deterred and on the 13th day of February 1931, issued a writ of mandate to the school board through the Superior Court of California in San Diego, to reinstate the Mexican American students.

//Setbacks//
 * On January 5, 1931, Jerome T. Green, principal of the Lemon Grove Grammar School, acting under instructions from the school trustees, stood at the door and admitted all pupils except the Mexican students.
 * On January 19, 1931, California Assemblyman George R. Bliss of Carpinteria introduced a bill to the California legislature that would have legalized the segregation of Mexican and Mexican American students. Bliss, as a school board member, had been successful in establishing a segregated school for Mexicans in Carpinteria under the rubric of an "Indian School". California School Code of the period provided: "The power to establish separate school for Indian children and children of Chinese, Japanese and Mongolian ancestry."38 Bliss wanted to extend the clause on Indian children to read "Indian children whether born in the United States or not" thus allowing schools to separate Mexican and Mexican American children on the basis that they were Indians."39 The Bliss Bill was defeated,

//Successes//
 * On March 30, 1931 a judgement was passed in favor of the Mexican community. ||
 * 6) What are you still wondering about? What questions do you still have? What would you want to research further?


 * Why is the Brown vs. The Board of Education case always talked about in school and not the case in Lemon Grove and others that I have now read about?
 * What was it like to be a Mexican American student in Lemon Grove in 1931?
 * One of the articles I read quoted a woman who had been a white student at the time. She said that she didn't like the documentary film about the case and that she "felt bad that it would imply that we were a bunch of rednecks around here" and that "My father used to ride with a Mexican man to work every day. We never had resentment toward Mexican people."I would like to talk with her and see what it was like to be a student at the school at that time.
 * I also thought that it was very interesting that Robert Alvarez was researching a project for college and was stunned when his parents and family friends who had grown up in Lemon Grove told him during interviews for his dissertation that they had been plaintiffs in a successful 1931 desegregation case. Their parents, who had migrated primarily from Baja California, had refused to send them to an Americanization school. How could this not have been discussed when he was growing up?
 * How does this case relate to what was going on at the time (ie, The Depression). Would white people have thought differently if it wasn't such bad economic times? ||
 * 7) List all of your sources including those for images using MLA format. Use bibme.org or a similar website to create your citations.

The Lemon grove incident [] http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040518/news_1n18grove.html

photos [] []

map []

video The Lemon Grove Incident (1985) by Espinosa Productions []

Works Cited

Alvarez, Robert R.. "The Lemon Grove Incident | San Diego History Center." //San Diego History Center | Our City, Our Story//. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 June 2011. .

"Google Maps." //Google Maps//. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 June 2011. .

"Postcards from Lemon Grove, California | San Diego History Center." //San Diego History Center | Our City, Our Story//. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 June 2011. .

Sanchez, Leonel. "Before Brown | The San Diego Union-Tribune." //San Diego News, Local, California and National News - SignOnSanDiego.com//. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 June 2011. .  //The Lemon Grove incident//. San Diego, California: KPBS Television, 1985. Print.

//MLA formatting by BibMe.org. // ||