The 14 people who gathered on the steps of the 1st Street US Federal Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles a few Saturdays ago were passionate, but their purpose seemed a little unclear.
Young and old and everyone in between, including a French bulldog, chanted “Five Families, Four School Districts,” “And Others Speak Out” and “Abandoned Plaintiffs.” They held signs with pictures of their relatives and shouted “Equality!” on a bullhorn to unsuspecting pedestrians and cars.
Another symbol — a crossed-out emoji next to “HR 5754” — was equally enigmatic to any observer.
Once upon a time, five families— Estrada, Guzman, Mendez, Palomino, and Ramirez – Schools in Orange County were united in their determination to end discrimination.
He sued four Orange County school districts in 1946, winning a far-reaching victory that not only allowed local Latino students to study in the same schools as their white peers but also led to desegregation of schools across California and the start of the Brown v. Board of Education case.
The case was heard in the old federal courthouse on Spring Street. In September, Los Angeles Democrat Representative Jimmy Gomez proposed naming the new courthouse on 1st Street after Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez – hence the bill number HR 5754.
“This court will remind us that history and law aren’t just made by judges,” Gomez said in a speech to the House last month. “They are made by people who have the courage to challenge unjust laws and change our country for the better.”
HR 5754 has passed and is now before the Senate. If it becomes law, the LA federal courthouse will become the first courthouse named for a Latina, which is a recent breakthrough. A historic recovery project over the past quarter century That has pulled the mass lawsuit — Mendez, et al v. Westminster School District of Orange County, et al — out of the proverbial shadows.
Documentaries, plays, books, scholarly papers, exhibitions, and even a postage stamp commemorate it. A California bill that would mandate its inclusion in the state’s academic curriculum has passed unanimously in the Assembly and Senate.
Gomez’s effort to honor Mendez and his place in history sounds like the kind of feel-good story this country needs more of these days. So who on earth could resist that?
Four other families.
They want the court’s name to include them, or at least to include “et al.”
“Only four little letters — how hard is that?” Mike Ramirez, whose parents Lorenzo and Josefina sued the current Orange Unified School District, said at the protest.
Very difficult, alas. Federal courts can only be named after municipalities or people – not after court cases.
“It makes you angry,” said Beverly Guzman Gallegos, 74, whose grandparents, William and Virginia Guzman, sued the Santa Ana Unified School District. She held a framed letter signed by Barack Obama thanking her for her family’s role in a landmark civil rights case.
“These were five families fighting together at the time,” said Tammy Guzman, 50, a West Covina resident who is married to Amanda Guzman, a great-granddaughter of William and Virginia. “But 75 years later, we’re fighting for inclusion again, this time against one family. I don’t understand it.”
“It’s very simple,” Ramirez replied. “People take soundbites, and the loudest people get all the attention. History moves forward from there.”
Paul Granado plays harmonica on the steps of the 1st Street federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles, protesting the proposed renaming of the building after Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez, who participated in a lawsuit that helped end school segregation in California. Four other families who participated in the lawsuit oppose the bill.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
The feud between Mendez and the other four families is decades old. Historians and the media focus almost entirely on Mendez’s contributions, the four families argue, beginning with how the case became known: Mendez v. Westminster, a brief that follows legal citation protocol.
They have pressured journalists and academics to add “et al.”, but most of their anger is focused on Mendez’s daughter, Sylvia.
2011 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Moving across the country, she describes how she was forced to attend a seedy Mexican-only school away from her home while her fair-skinned cousins went to the white school nearby. Who were the other four families? She acknowledges, but does not go into detail about them, she claims.
Public schools named for Gonzalo, Felicitas, and Silvia exist from Santa Ana to Santa Ana. Boyle Heights Berkeley and even to North Carolina. The only civic memorials the other families have are a library named after Lorenzo Ramirez at Santiago Canyon College and a formal street sign honoring William and Virginia Guzman that the Santa Ana City Council unanimously approved earlier this week.
I’ve been following this controversy off and on for 15 years, ever since I wrote a long story on it. I’ve seen descendants of four families excluded from events meant to remember their relatives’ contributions to civil rights because the hosts were afraid of what they might say. I’ve had to interrupt some of them during presentations when their comments about their inclusion in historical footnotes became too personal.
On the day of the protest, I had to correct them once again – they first came to the courthouse where their separation case was heard long ago, not the new courthouse that would be named after Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez. At the time, OC didn’t have its own federal courthouse, so the family traveled to LA for court hearings.
Their anger may seem historically bitter, but the incident involving Mendez and others touches on an important point. For too long, American history has operated under the great man theory, which holds that brave individuals who overcome haters and doubters achieve great things, not ordinary people.
“This is one of the most frustrating historical cases to me,” said Chaffey College history professor Luis F. Fernandez. He has conducted oral histories with members of all the families except Mendez, and Mike Ramirez and Beverly Guzman Gallegos have spoken in his classes. “This should be a history of unity — a history of its power and organization — of how to defeat a structure that systematically excluded Mexican American students from a pathway. As it is, it is a chosen, selective history.
“I wouldn’t even call (focusing on Mendez’s contributions) history,” Prof. He added, “At this point, it’s a narrative.”
Fernandez has urged the four families to further refine their strategy by contacting politicians such as Gomez and California Democrat US Senator Alex Padilla. He also believes they should stop calling themselves “et al.”
“Nobody knows what it means,” he said. “It seems like a tongue-twister. Introduce yourself as a family and get name recognition.”
A photo of Gonzales and Felicita Mendez hangs in the library at the Mendez Intermediate School in Santa Ana
(Gina Ferrazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Sylvia Mendez did not respond to multiple requests for comment made directly and through a friend.
Gomez’s spokesperson sent me a message that read, “Naming this courthouse further enshrines this key part of American civil rights history — which has been unknown to many for too long — in our national consciousness.” The congressman “proudly” names Mendez, as well as the Estrada, Guzman, Ramirez, and Palomino families “every time he shares this story publicly,” the message adds.
That’s not enough for the four families whose protest at the First Street Courthouse was small but heartfelt.
Connie Pimentel-Reagins, 44, said she “felt insulted” to hear about Gomez’s bill. She is the great-granddaughter of Thomas and Maria Luisa Estrada, relatives of Mendez who also sued the Westminster School District.
“It’s unfair and wrong,” said Andrew Palomino, the 53-year-old grandson of Frank and Irene Palomino, who sued the Garden Grove Unified School District.
Nearby, Beverly’s niece, Tracy Guzman, 59, picked up a cell phone. An NBC News story on the courthouse’s proposed name changeOnly the Mendez family is mentioned. Both the reporter and Sylvia limit the contributions of the Estradas, Guzmans, Palominos, and Ramirezes to the phrase “four other families.”
“It’s always about one family,” Tracy said, shaking her head in disgust. “The Mendezes don’t care. They’re doing fine on their own. They don’t need us.”
