Separate is Never Equal:

Slyvia Mendez and her family's fight for desegregation

Duncan Tonatiuh, 2014

This story revolves around a young girl named Sylvia Mendez that experiences segregation in her life and how she and her family fought for all children of all races, cultures, and languages to be able to go to school together with the white kids. The story starts with Sylvia going to school on her first day but being yelled at by a white boy telling her to go back to Mexican school since she didn't belong there. The story then proceeds to the whole story about how she got to that point.

Three years before, she and her family moved to California on a farm. Her aunt brought Sylvia, her siblings, and her cousins to enroll in the local public school. Sylvia noticed how nice the school was, it had a playground and had a spacious, clean interior. Unfortunately, Sylvia and her siblings could not be enrolled and were told that they had to "Mexican school". Mr. Mendez heard of what happened and spoke with the superintendent of the school and was still told that they had to go to a Mexican school. The children ended up in the Mexican school which was very different from the other school. There was no playground nor was it clean. Cows surrounded the school and they had to eat lunch outside meaning flies would land on their food.

Mr, Mendez created a group called 'Parents' Association of Mexican-American Children' and tried to collect signatures of different parents to be able to get the same opportunities as the white children. Unfortunately, that didn't work but instead, Mr. Mendez decided to hire a lawyer, David Marcus. They traveled around to find families that experienced the same they experienced and were able to find another family to join the case. They were able to file a lawsuit, from there, Sylvia's father was able to get his answer to why his children weren't able to join the Westminister school. It was because they found white students superior to Mexicans.

They went through hearings and almost a year later, the Mendez family won. He said public education should be open regardless of lineage. The family had to argue the case again in San Francisco. This time, the family had the support of many different groups even from different backgrounds. The Mendez family won again and the governor signed a law saying all children are allowed to go to school together no matter race, language, and ethnicity.

This goes back to the present time and shows Sylvia back in school, ignoring all the harsh words she receives. She was very proud of her family since she knew that these other kids smiling at her are because her family ended school segregation.

IMPACT

The author of this mentioned in her author's note that she hopes children and young people will learn about this important event in American history through her book. She also hopes that children will realize that their voices have an impact no matter how big or small because it makes a contribution to what could happen in the future.

Children will be able to look at this book and know that those types of actions can hurt and aren't acceptable.