1. Chicana/o Education from the
Civil Rights Era to the Present
by: Dolores Delgado Bernal
Natalie Dominici
Jeniffer Garcia
Jesús López

2. De Facto School Segregation:
The 1950s to the Early 1960s
• California
Méndez v. Westminster (1946)
• Landmark case that ended de jure
segregation for Mexican students
• “Five Mexican Families, including
Felicitas and Gonzalo Méndez,
claimed that their children and
other children of Mexican descent
were victims of unconstitutional
discrimination in the segregated
schools of Orange County”
(Moreno, p. 78-79)

3. De Facto School Segregation:
The 1950s to the Early 1960s
• Texas
Delgado v. Bastrop Independent School District (1948)
• “In Texas, just one year later, Minerva Delgado and twenty other parents filed a
suit against several Texas school districts” (Moreno, p. 79).
• “As in California, the court ruled that placing Mexican students in segregated
schools was arbitrary and discriminatory, and in violation of the constitutional
rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment” (Moreno, p. 79).
Mathis High School (Mathis, Texas) “Mexican Ward School” (Mathis, Texas)

4. De Facto School Segregation:
The 1950s to the Early 1960s
• Although these two powerful cases ended de jure segregation
(“concerning law”), de facto segregation (“concerning fact”)
was still practiced.
• When the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)
and the American G.I. appeared in front of the State Board of
Education in 1950, armed with a long list of 20 Texas cities who
still practiced segregation, the board simply gave power to the
districts on how to handle grievances and complaints.
• This just led to an unfortunate decrease in the amount of
grievances that could reach the state commissioner of
education. Only 9 districts were brought before the
commissioner between 1950-1957 for special hearings, leaving
hundreds of districts to continue segregation of Mexican
students.

5. De Facto School Segregation:
The 1950s to the Early 1960s
• Reasons de facto segregation continued:
o White American belief in the cultural deficiency of
Mexicans
• Coincidently the act of “school segregation itself perpetuated
an ideology of inferiority” (Moreno, p. 79)
• Injurious Message: “Mexican students were inferior and did not
deserve society’s investment in their education” (Moreno, p.
80).
o Historic devaluation of Spanish
• “Prohibiting Spanish-language use among Mexican
schoolchildren was a social philosophy and a political tool
used by local and state officials to justify school segregation”
(Moreno, p. 80)
• Bilingualism=“unAmerican”= perceived language deficiency

6. De Facto School Segregation:
The 1950s to the Early 1960s
• Teacher comments by Los Angeles teachers in the
1960’s (Moreno, p.80):
o “I have never had a Mexican who could think for himself”
o “These Mexican kids, why do they have to be here?”
• How do you think Mexican students would feel if they
overheard their teachers speaking like this in the hallways?
• Recollection of Vickie Castro, student during
the1950’s (Moreno, p. 80):
o “I do recall my first day of school. And I did not speak English…. I just recall
being frightened and I recall not knowing what to do and I recall being told to
just sit over there in the corner. And there was one other little girl and we were
just scared out of our minds. ”
• If you were Vickie’s parents, what advice would you give her
and how would you console her?

7. De Facto School Segregation:
The 1950s to the Early 1960s
• “Assimilationist” Perspective:
o Held Mexican students back for several years while they learned English
causing them to most likely drop out of school before graduating
because they are over age for their grade
o Bilingualism is a cognitive disability that caused confusion and impeded
academic development. The brain can’t handle multiple languages
• “Many Mexicans internalized these negative views of Spanish- and
therefore a negative view of themselves and their families- in order to
assimilate into the dominant society” (Moreno, p. 81)
• Did you know, at this time, most teachers, and even some Mexican
educators and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)
advocated for the English-only assimilationist language approach?
Why do you think they felt this way?

8. De Facto School Segregation:
The 1950s to the Early 1960s
• Curriculum:
o “Mexican boys and girls continued to be tracked into vocational classes
that served an economic function and supported the unequal division of
power, wealth, and status, just as in the era of de jure segregation”
(Moreno, p. 81)
• Curriculum & Gender:
o “Young Mexican women were tracked into home economics and clerical
or secretarial classes, which prepared them for low-paying domestic
subservient work” (Moreno, p. 81)
o “The sexist attitudes of the wider society were manifested in the Mexican
culture through such common sayings as, ¿Para que quieres educarte si
de nada te va a servir cuando te cases? (Why do you want to educate
yourself if it will not be of any use to you when you get married?)”
(Moreno, p. 82)

9. De Facto School Segregation:
The 1950s to the Early 1960s
• “Throughout the 1960s, the message that both Chicana and Chicano
students were inferior continued to translate into overcrowded and
underfinanced schools, low graduation rates, and the
overrepresentation of Chicana/o students in the special education
classes, including classes for the mentally retarded and the
emotionally disturbed” (Moreno, p. 82)
• In addition to forced de facto segregation by school districts,
“Demographic factors such as the expanding Chicana/o school-age
population, immigration, urbanization, and White flight also
contributed to the increased de facto segregation of Chicana/o
students” (Moreno, p. 82)
• “As educational conditions worsened, tension and resentment
increased” (Moreno, p. 82)

10. Social Activism and Social
Policy of the Late 1960s
• During the East Los Angeles walk outs the students presented a list of 36
grievances to the Los Angeles Board of Education. The demands included
“smaller class sizes, bilingual education, an end to the vocational tracking of
Chicana/o students, more emphasis on Chicano history, and community control
of schools” (Moreno, p. 83)
A Time for Chicanas in Action!
• “In the early 1970s, in response to the absence of women in the curriculum,
Chicana activists at a Chicano Studies/MEChA conference at California State
University, Northridge, proposed five courses on La Chicana… they also proposed
a requirement that all Chicano Studies majors take at least one class on La
Chicana” (Moreno, p. 85)
• At the National Women’s Political Caucus Convention on 1973 “the women of the
Chicana Caucus attempted to address the unique problems that confronted
Chicana students by shaping national social policy” (Moreno, p. 85)
A Time for Action!
• “The last half of the 1960s marked the first time
that youth played a central role in the shaping of
movements aimed against social institutions and
those in power” (Moreno, p. 82)

11. Social Activism and Social Policy
of the Late 1960s
Policies that addressed the needs of Chicana/o students and
increased their access into higher education institutions
• During the Kennedy administration and Pres. Johnson’s War on
Poverty, affirmative action was administered as an attempt to
equalize the playing field (p. 85)
• Higher Education Act of 1965 authorized funding programs
• Title VII extended the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include all
educational institutions
• The Educational Opportunities Program (EOP) was one of the
federal and state programs created that was critical in
recruiting and retaining Chicana/o students into universities
and colleges

12. Social Forces Shaping Bilingual Education
• Historian Guadalupe San Miguel (1985) proposes that two
views on bilingualism came into conflict and contributed
to the formation of policies on bilingual education – the
“assimilationist” perspective and the “pluralist”
perspective.
• “Assimilationist” perspective: post-World War II belief that
bilingual education is un-American, a disability rather than
an asset.
• “Pluralist” perspective: accepted the multiplicity of
languages as a necessary ingredient in U.S. education.
o Embraced by most Chicana/o communities and political allies
o Viewed L1 and culture of the child as essential to the instructional
and learning process

13. Social Forces Shaping Bilingual Education (cont.)
• Much political pressure from the Chicana/o communities +
liberal educators who held a pluralist perspective = federal
government (1st time) funded bilingual education in 1968
through Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education
Act of 1965
• 1968 Bilingual Education Act: provided $ to train teachers and
aides, to develop instructional materials, & to establish
parent-involvement projects
• The Act was meant to “develop and carry out new and
imaginative elementary and secondary school programs… [for]
children of limited English-speaking ability”. However , the act did
not impose teaching methods or even define the concept of
bilingual education. In addition, the bill was viewed as a
compensatory educational program in which linguistically
“disadvantaged” children were assisted. (Moreno, p.87)

14. Social Forces Shaping Bilingual Education (cont.)
• In most Chicana/o communities, bilingual education
represented a way to maintain one’s language & culture &
was by definition a rejection of colonization. However, the
official goals of bilingual education emanating from federal
and state bilingual education guidelines from 1968 to the
present have never included the maintenance of the student’s
first language. (Moreno, p.87)
• One of the sponsors of the original 1968 Bilingual Education
Act stated during the deliberation of the bill: “It is not the
purpose of the bill to create pockets of different language
throughout the country… not to stamp out the mother tongue
and not to make their mother tongue the dominant
language, but just to try to make these children fully literate in
English, so that the children can move into the mainstream of
American life”.
• Native-language instruction was seen as a necessary strategy
that allowed children to achieve competence in English.
Never has federal or state legislation stated that it should help
students maintain their first language to become bilingual and
biliterate citizens.

15. Conservative Retrenchment
• mid-1970s socialpolitically conservative era: negative
impact on Chicana/o schooling conditions
• Backlash against the social equity programs of Pres.
Johnson’s War on Poverty that was accompanied by:
o Increased military spending
o Reduced education spending
o A growing recession
• The conservatives regained a strong voice, which
reflected in social ideas, educational policy, and judicial
decisions. As tension between desegregation and
bilingual education intensified, the funding for bilingual
education was drastically reduced and public school
finance was restricted for Chicana/o schools.
(Moreno, p.89)

16. The Tension Between Desegregation
and Bilingual Education
• By the 1970s, more Chicana/o students attended second-rate
segregated schools than at the time of the 1947 Mendez
decision. Many Chicana/o scholars & activists believed that the
Brown decision had no effect on the schooling of Chicana/o
students until the 70s when the courts were forced to decide how
to treat Chicana/o students in the desegregation process.
• Cisneros v. Corpus Christi Independent School District: filed in
1968 by Chicana/o labor activists in Corpus Christi, Texas, and
was decided in 1970 at the federal district level.
o Plaintiffs challenged the legal framework for future
desegregation cases and the segregation of Chicana/o and
African American school children in Corpus Christi.
o Court ruled that Chicanas/os were an identifiable ethnic
minority and found them to be unconstitutionally segregated
in the public schools
o Required that an appropriate desegregation plan that
included Anglos, Chicanas/os, and African Americans be
submitted.

17. The Tension Between Desegregation
and Bilingual Education
• Prior to this case, the strategy used in most successful
school desegregation efforts was based on Chicanas/os’
claim to “Whiteness.”
• The U.S. Supreme Court reinforced how Chicana/o
students where to be treated in the process in the1973
Keyes v. School District Number 1 case.
o Before this case, Denver Public Schools (like many throughout the
Southwest) integrated Chicana/o students with African American
students and called it desegregation.
o The Court either had to define Chicana/o students as “Caucasians -
& integrate them with African Americans or redefine their ethnic
status (as a protected ethnic minority group) and integrate them
with everyone else. (Moreno, p. 90)
• The court authorized racial-balanced remedies &
required districts to integrate African Americans &
Chicanas/os into White urban school districts.

18. The Tension Between Desegregation
and Bilingual Education
• Growing tension between the pursuit of bilingual education & school
desegregation… resegregation based on language within
desegregated school.
• Education policymakers who opposed bilingual education could
avoid it by scattering limited-English-proficient students throughout
their districts in the name of desegregation. At the same
time, someone who opposed mixing White and Chicana/o students
in the same classroom could use the opportunity to segregate
Chicana/o students in bilingual classrooms, thus using the same old
racially motivated rationale for separating Mexican children from
White students based on their perceived language deficiency.
• Under the Reagan administration, while the government spent billions of dollars
on the military, Title VII bilingual education funding was cut from $167 million in
1980 to $133 million in 1986, representing more than a 20 % reduction – this at a
time when the number of English learners was greatly increasing.
(Moreno, p.90)

19. Educational Inequity in the 1970s and
Beyond80s & 90s:
• Chicana/o schools – severely underfunded – most overcrowded
… limited curriculum with fewer resourced
• Throughout the Southwest, Chicana/o students were highly
unlikely to have Chicana/o teachers to act as mentors, since
Latinas/os made up only 2.9% of all public school teachers in the
country.
• Chicanas/os and other high school students of color continue to
report that they feel their teachers, school staff, and peers neither
like nor understand them, and many of their teachers admit to not
always understanding ethnically diverse students.
• Continued school tracking of Chicana/o students into vocational
programs & into special education programs for learning-disabled
students has promoted educational, social, and economic
inequities for such students and has limited their access to higher
education. (Moreno, p.93)
o 75% of all Latina/o high school seniors in 1980 had been enrolled in a
curricular program that made a college education improbable

20. Meritocracy and Chicana/o College
Students
• Meritocracy: a system of rewards presumably based
solely on ability and talent, so that rewards go to those
who “perform the best”
• Values drive a wide range of educational practices such
as testing, grading, admissions, and ability tracking, all in
the spirit of “equality”
• -
• Americans do no question the myth of meritocracy in
higher education, believing that admissions decisions
are fair and based solely on comparing one’s
qualifications to a universal standard of excellence. (ex.
SAT)

21. Meritocracy and Chicana/o College
Students
• “Reverse discrimination”: claimed by Whites & conservatives
when they perceive that an allegedly fair and meritocratic
system is being threatened
• Regents of the University of California v. Blakke (1978)
o 34-yr old White engineer, rejected by 13 medical schools (UC,Davis
administrator suggested he sued as presumably less qualified
students of color had been admitted)
o Challenged the special admissions program that set
aside sixteen slots out of one hundred for
“disadvantaged” students
 The university’s set-aside program was found to be illegal
and the Court also ruled that race could be used in
admissions provided that it was not the sole selection factor.
• The Blakke case decision reflected growing public opinion that
higher education had “gone too far” in trying to accommodate
the special needs of “minorities” and was a precursor of the
discourse of “reverse discrimination.” (Moreno, p. 96)

22. Progress of Chicano/Latino Students
• College Enrollment
• Chicano Studies course
offered
• Increased # of high school
graduates
• SAT and ACT tests
• Eligibility for community
college and state university
system
• Most unlikely ethnic
group to finish high
school, attend
college, and to graduate
from college
• Anti-Latino and anti-
immigrant beliefs
continue to manifest
themselves in propositions
like 187, 209, and 227

23. California’s Prop 187
In the early 1990s, then governor Pete Wilson, and a group of “concerned”
California residents tired of undocumented immigrants began the SOS (Save
our State) movement which put Prop 187 on the ballot
• Proposition 187 attempted to deny public education to
anyone
who was “reasonably suspected” of being an “illegal
alien” in the United States.
• These terms depicted immigrants as criminals just as just
as de jure segregation conveyed an idea of inferiority of
Mexican students
• It required teachers and other officials to report those
who were suspected of being in this country illegally

24. Proposition 187 was unconstitutional…
but that didn’t stop them
• Prop 187 was in direct conflict with a 1982 U.S.
Supreme Court’s ruling in Plyer v. Doe: the state of
Texas could not bar undocumented children from
public education as it violates the Equal Protection
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
• One of the goals of the authors of this proposition
was to get a more politically conservative Supreme
Court to overturn the Plyer ruling
• Proposition 187 passed 59% to 41%

25. So what happened?
• Five lawsuits were filed against the state and
consolidated into one federal action
• U.S District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer ruled that
Proposition 187 was unconstitutional “from top to
bottom” because the state has no power to
regulate immigration
• Unfortunately, California had already gotten the
ball rolling in the wrong direction and similar
measures followed in other states

26. California’s Prop 209
• Proposition 209, the California Civil Rights initiative,
sounded nicer than Prop 187:
California shall not use “race, sex, color,
ethnicity, or national origin as criterion for
either discriminating against, or granting
preferential treatment to any individual or group.”
• This was a way of trying to use the Equal Protection
Clause to provide protection against “reverse
discrimination”
• California voters passed Proposition 209 in 1996

27. So what’s the problem?
• This proposition was based on the meritocracy myth
• This ideology ignores the reality that social inequities
exist and it validates a subjective and highly
selective admissions process that tracks Chicanos
into community colleges and keeps the gate to four
year campuses guarded.
• Prop 209 limited access to higher education just as
an increasing number of Chicano students were
attending K-12 schools

28. The SAT Factor
• Legal scholar Richard Delgado argues for an overhaul of
the admissions process that would result in an increased
number of woman and students of color gaining
admission but he points out that these
recommendations are ignored.
• In 1997, the University of California Latino Eligibility Task
force recommended that the university system simply
eliminate the SAT in determining eligibility without
reducing any other admissions standards. They argued
that without the SAT, the proportion of Latino graduates
that would achieve full eligibility to the UC system would
rise by 59% (from 3.9 to 6.2 percent).

29. Do you feel that the University
System should eliminate the
SAT in determining eligibility?
Why or why not?

30. What Came of Prop 209?
• November 27, 1996: U.S. District Court Judge Thelton
Henderson blocked enforcement of the proposition
• A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals overturned that
ruling.
• August 2, 2010: The Supreme Court of the state of California found
for the second time that Proposition 209 was constitutional
• April 2, 2012: The Court of Appeals rejected the latest challenge to
Proposition 209
• September 1, 2011: SB 185 passed both chambers of the California
State Legislature, but was vetoed by Governor Jerry Brown. SB 185
would have countered Proposition 209 and authorized the
University of California and the California State University to
consider race, gender, ethnicity, and national origin, along with
other relevant factors, in undergraduate and graduate admissions,
to the maximum extent permitted by the 14th Amendment to the
United States Constitution. SB 185 is strongly supported by
the University of California Student Association.

31. California’s Prop 227
• Proposition 227 called for the elimination of all
bilingual programs in the state of California.
• The proposition mandated that within 60 days of its
passage, all 1.38 million limited-English-speaking
students be put into separate classrooms –
regardless of age, language background, and/or
academic ability.
• In June 1998, California voters passed Prop 227, the
“English Language Education for Immigrant
Children” initiative

32. The Problem with Prop 227
• Prop 227 required a 180-day English-only approach
during which “all students would be taught in
English by being taught in English.”
• This proposition did away with all bilingual
education and English-language development
programs that did not meet its 180-day English-only
approach.
• Prop 227 allowed schools “to place English learners
of different ages in the same classroom but of
whose degree of English proficiency was similar.”

33. Even more frustrating than the fact that
it passed, was the way that it passed.
• Prop 227 supporters misleadingly presented themselves
as the voices of Latinos, arguing that Latinos supported
the measure by an overwhelming majority.
• The proposition was carried by a 2 to 1 vote among
whites in an electorate in which Whites represent a
larger percentage than they represent in the general
population.
• “The hope that the new law would not be enforced, as
a coalition of schoolchildren and civil rights groups filed
a lawsuit in federal court to challenge Proposition 227
the day after it was passed by voters.”

34. So how’d we save ourselves from
this one?
• In short, We Didn’t!
• Bilingual and Dual-Immersion Programs are scarce
• Some school districts responded by defining Prop
227's requirement that they teach “overwhelmingly
in English” as teaching in English for 51 percent of
the school day (the Los Angeles school district) or
60% of the day(the Riverside and Vista school
districts).

35. Biliteracy Would Get Federal Boost in
Proposed Legislation
• Discusses a measure introduced last month by U.S.
Democratic Representative Julia Brownley called
the Biliteracy Education Seal and Teaching (BEST)
Act.
By Leslie A. Maxwell
Education Week: July 8, 2013
edweek.org

36. Biliteracy Education Seal and Teaching
(BEST) Act
• The purpose of this bill is “to help the future U.S.
workforce compete in an increasingly global economy.”
• Would create grants in the U.S. Department of Education
to help states that want to grant certification (seal of
biliteracy) to high-school students who can demonstrate
proficiency in English and at least one other language
• Proposes $10 million each year from 2015 through 2019
to be used to cover the administrative costs of setting up
and carrying out a seal of biliteracy program, as well as
for public outreach

37. Why Julia Brownley Feels
This Is Important
• “For a young person to be biliterate and bilingual –
they can read and write in a second language – it’s
so critical to 21st century skills and jobs. I don’t think
we as a country do the very best job of this, so it’s
critically important for our young people to speak a
second language.”
• “When a college or employer sees the Seal of
Biliteracy on a diploma or resume, they know this is
an individual with an important and unique 21st
century skill.”

38. Something To Be Proud Of!
• Last year, California was the first state to offer a seal
of biliteracy to its high school graduates. New York
followed suit last year. Illinois lawmakers approved a seal of
biliteracy bill late last month.
• In 2012, California issued 10,000 seals to high school
graduates.