Chapman Partners with Museum of Tolerance "Mendez" Event



sylvia mendez and sandra robbie
Sylvia Mendez, one of the plaintiffs in Mendez et al. v Westminster, with Sandra Robbie at MOT event.

Are you aware that Orange County played a pivotal role in the civil rights movement of the 1940s?  Many people know about desegregation as it happened in the American South, but a groundbreaking exhibition at the Museum of Tolerance (MOT) in Los Angeles shares the story of the landmark struggles of Latino families in Southern California almost ten years before Brown vs. Board of Education.

Para Todos Los Ninos – For All the Children – Fighting Segregation in California
, which opened at the MOT with a special reception on Monday, February 8, tells the dramatic story of the landmark
Mendez et al. vs. Westminster
case and the attendant broad multi-racial grassroots efforts, including work by lawyers and activists, to end school segregation in rural Orange County.

Para Todos  Los Ninos
is based on the similarly titled documentary by Sandra Robbie of Chapman’s College of Educational Studies.  Robbie won an Emmy for the documentary, which she produced as an intern at KOCE in 2002. 

“I grew up in Westminster, and hearing the Mendez story changed my entire worldview,” she said. “This is a story everyone should hear.  Civil rights are not just about black and white.  They are about all of us, every day, and how we are all connected.”

When third-grader Sylvia Mendez, accompanied by her siblings, was not allowed to attend the all-white Westminster school because she was Mexican, her parents, Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez, sued the school district—and the rest is history.

The 1947
Mendez v. Westminster
case, a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of more than 5,000 Mexican American students in Orange County, made California the first state in the nation to end school segregation, paving the way for the
Brown v. Board of Education
Supreme Court ruling that desegregated all U.S. schools in 1954. 

Robbie has a longstanding relationship with the MOT and has made presentations and screenings there since she finished her film in 2002.  This is her first opportunity to participate in a full-length exhibition, which will run through August 2010.

“The commitment to this story by Chapman University and the Museum of Tolerance represents an amazing opportunity to re-brand Orange County as a locus of the civil rights movement,” Robbie said, “especially as a relatively peaceful integration that involved people of all colors.”

California State Attorney General and returning gubernatorial hopeful Edmund G. Brown, Jr. attended last Monday’s reception and made remarks, as did Alice Huffman, president of the California NAACP, and the adult Mendez children Sylvia, Gonzolo Jr. and Sandra Mendez Duran.  

Para Todos Los Ninos
is the result of a collaboration between Chapman’s College of Educational Studies and the Leatherby Libraries, and is part of a larger show on segregation entitled
Courage – The Vision to End Segregation. The Guts to Fight for it.
The exhibition will show through Augst 2010 at the MOT, after which
Para Todos Los Ninos
will become part of the Mendez vs. Westminster archive here at the Leatherby Libraries. 

 “Creating opportunities for collaboration between the disciplines at Chapman and with external institutions that have similar missions and ideas is a large part of who we are,” said Charlene Baldwin, dean of the Leatherby Libraries. “Digital technology will enable us to share this quintessential archive with teachers and students all over the world.”

The new Mendez vs. Westminster study room and archive at the Leatherby Libraries was dedicated in October 2009, thanks to a generous gift from Orange County attorney, Federico Castelan Sayre, and his family.

Due in large part to the tireless advocacy of Sylvia Mendez and to the awareness sparked by Robbie’s documentary, the breakthrough Mendez decision was commemorated on a U.S. postage stamp that was officially unveiled at Chapman in 2007 and was voted into the California educational frameworks for 4th and 11th grades in 2009.

Dawn Bonker

1 comment

  • This was truly an amazing experience in Los Angeles. The joining of people representing so many different groups, all celebrating Mendez, made it worth the trip. I met very interesting lawyers from the LA area, as well as representatives who had flown in from as far as Washington, DC.

    Jerry Brown made an appearance as well, and we had several members of the Mendez family too. I was happy to be there celebrating this event. I hope our students and faculty are able to visit soon.

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