Family views docu-drama of 1930 crusader against bias
Sunday, December 15, 1985
by Steve Padilla
About 35 of Juan Gonzalez descendants gathered yesterday to watch him
make a little history.
Gonzalez died of tuberculosis in 1962, but the legal battle he helped
lead against a segregated school in Lemon Grove in 1930 has been chronicled In "The
Lemon Incident," a new docudrama by KPBS.
At the San Ysidro home of his widow, Cruz Gonzalez, the Gonzalez family
watched an afternoon rebroadcast of the show that has won critical acclaim and fostered
pride and a renewed sense of activism in the Gonzalez clan.
In 1930, the Lemon Grove school board created a separate school for 74
children of Mexican descent. The school was to feature classes in
"Americanization" for the children, even those who didn't speak Spanish.
Parents boycotted the school and went to court. Paul Espinosa, the
show's producer, said the case was the first successful challenge to segregated schooling.
"This is what started it all," said Mini Gonzalez-Ybarra, of
the case's impact on her family. Gonzalez-Ybarra, one of Gonzalez's 15 children, has
worked with the United Farm Workers and directs the UFW-affiliated Martin Luther King Jr.
Farm Worker Service Center in San Ysidro.
Other family members said the incident helps account for all the union
organizers, professionals, attorneys and aspiring politicians in the large lamily. At last
count the 88-year old Cruz Gonzalez had 82 grandchildren, 90 great-grandchildren and eight
great-great-grandchildren.
Sammy Ybarra, one of the many grandchildren, recalled how his
grandfather would tell the story of the Olive Street School whenever they drove through
Lemon Grove. "I can't remember when I didn't know about it," he said.
Cruz Gonzalez agreed that her husband was "always talking about
politics." She liked the docudrama, and said actor Guillermo Gomez-Pena captured her
husband's energy well.
Like everyone else squeezed into the small living room. Cruz Gonzalez
watched intently, occasionally laughing or shaking her head in disgust as the acton
playing school board members made remarks such as "Heaven only knows what diseases
they are bringing to school" or "What's gotten into these Mexcans anyway?"
Sometimes, however, they didn't say anything after hearing a racist
remark from the screen. They sat silently, lips tight and eyes forward. Fifty years later,
it still hurts.