California Educator

June / July 2018

Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/994766

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 48 of 67

"I think h earing th e president saying that on one hand they don't have enough money to pay teach- e r s d e c e n t ly a n d p r o v i d e t h e m with resources, but suddenly they have enough to give them guns and training and extra pay for learning how to shoot the guns, has actually woken up teachers to say, 'Enough is enough. We aren't going to stand for this anymore.' "My hope is that when we look back on this time, we' ll find that Trump is the sand in the oyster that creates the pearl." For more information, see thegoodfightbook.org. e Good Fight: America's Ongoing Struggle for Justice, Against All Odds Pro- ductions II, Inc., 2017. 47 J U N E / J U L Y 2 018 A People on the Verge In The Good Fight, veteran journalist Ray Suarez writes about the Hispanic immigrants who fled economic hardship and violence in their countries to make their home in the United States, yet still find acceptance elusive: Today when Americans hear the word "segregation" in discussing schools, they are likely to recall a social policy intended to separate blacks and whites. But a hundred years ago, if you said the phrase "Mexican School" to Americans in the southwest, they knew you were talking about the separate, and decid- edly unequal, school buildings and shoddy educational materials begrudgingly provided to Mexican and Mexican American kids. The landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that ended school segregation once and for all, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, had an important predecessor. Mendez v. Westmin- ster School District of Orange County focused on the unconstitutionality of the Mexican schools in California and became the impetus forcing the Southwest- ern states to desegregate. For all the exclusion, lack of opportunity, and unequal treatment of the barrio of a century ago, it played an important role. For families who had lived in the country for centuries and for the greenest of greenhorns, it offered a foothold, and a source of stability, as they began their journey up the American ladder. The neighborhoods provided employment, a spiritual and cultural home, and Latino space. Away from the daily indignities of the Anglo city, police power, and a political system that offered virtually no representation of their interests, it was something that belonged to them. If getting to safety, getting food on the table, and securing their rights was the challenge of the 20th century, then gaining recognition as full members of the American people may be the challenge for Latino Americans in the 21st century. When Aroldis Chapman fires a sizzling strike toward home plate at more than 100 miles per hour… When Catherine Cortez Masto or Marco Rubio rises to speak in pitched legis- lative battle in the U.S. Senate… When Junot Díaz accepts the Pulitzer Prize in Literature… When Ellen Ochoa and Franklin Chang-Díaz head into space aboard a NASA rocket… Or Justice Sonia Sotomayor grills a lawyer making arguments before the highest court in the country… … it is a culmination of a deep, complicated and long history of encounter, exclusion, struggle, and finally, getting ahead in a country where a vast commu- nity 's best days are hopefully still ahead, in a more perfect union. Excerpted from "A People on the Verge" by Ray Suarez in The Good Fight: Ameri- ca's Ongoing Struggle for Justice. March against Proposition 187 in Fresno in 1994. Photo by David Prasad (not part of The Good Fight).

Articles in this issue

Links on this page

Archives of this issue

view archives of California Educator - June / July 2018