'Lemon Grove Incident'
Monday, February 17, 1986
by Terrence Poppa
The major battle for racial desegregation of public Schools was won in
Little Rock. Ark., in 1957.
Though less known, an equally important battle took place 27 years
earlier in Lemon Grove, Calif., a tiny Suburb of San Diego.
Mexican-American children were suddenly barred from attending the Lemon
Grove Grammar School by a school board that attempted to shunt the non-Anglo Students to a
separate School.
The Latino parents fought back through the courts, winning the first successful
desegregation case ever in the United States.
"The Lemon Grove Incident," a documentary and dramatization
of the historic event, will be screened at 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Chamizal Theater.
First aired in San Diego, the film will get its El Paso debut following
a Symposium called "Education Along the Border: The Legacy and the Challenge" at
the Rivera Conference Center in the Student Union Building at UT El Paso from 2 to 4:30
p.m. Tuesday.
The film and the symposium are sponsored by the Inter-American and
Border Studies Department of UTEP and El Concillo de El Paso.
Both are intended "to help commemorate the fact that education for
Mexican Americans in our state continues to be a critical issue," said Oscar
Martinez, director of UTEP's Center for Inter-American and Border Studies.
The film is a blend of dramatization of the court battle mixed with
documentary footage and interviews with students who lived through the incident, which
eventually involved the Mexican government.
The story began July 23, 1930, when the Lemon Grove school board voted
to build a separate school for more than 100 grammar school children of Mexican descent --
half the student body.
The decision took place against a background of growing discrimination
against Mexican Americans.
A bill before the California Legislature that year would have allowed
school boards to segregate Latinos, as was already done with black, Indian and Asian
students.
The school was built on Olive Street in the Mexican-American
neighborhood, and was to open Jan. 5. 1931 - the day the children returned from Christmas
vacation.
But parents boycotted the school. Instead, they filed a suit -- and won
with the help of the Mexican Consulate in San Diego.
Said UTE P's Martinez of the importance of the film:
"(It) helps to clarify the mistaken view that this group only
recently started to fight for fair and equal treatment in education."