Seventy-five years after the Mendez v. Westminster ruling, leading to the desegregation of schools in California, the city of Westminster celebrated the opening of a new small park honoring the landmark case.
The Mendez Tribute Monument Park opened Thursday, Dec. 1 with new statues as well as stations that incorporate technology, allowing visitors to learn the story of children who back in 1943 were denied entry into White schools. Then, they were told: “Go to the Mexican school.”
Sylvia Mendez, now 86, was one of those children.
On Thursday, she thanked city officials, the Orange County Department of Education and all those who made the park a reality.
“I have to tell you how happy I am today. It’s such a big honor,” Mendez said to an audience of more than 200, including students who showed up for the grand opening.
In 1943, Mendez and her brothers were denied entry at what was then called the 17th Street School in Westminster because they are of Mexican descent. Other children faced similar discrimination in surrounding cities. Five fathers, including Gonzalo Mendez (Sylvia Mendez’s father), filed a lawsuit in 1945 against school districts in Westminster, Garden Grove, Santa Ana and El Modena, which today falls under the Orange Unified School District.
A year later, a federal judge ruled in their favor; on April 14, 1947, that ruling was upheld by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Mendez, et al v. Westminster School District, et al is said to have laid the foundation for the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, the landmark ruling that determined racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional.
“Gonzalo Mendez’s fight to get a quality education for his daughter sowed the seeds of equality legislation for the nation,” said former Westminster Councilmember Sergio Contreras, who worked with Sylvia Mendez and others to create the park and a future 2.5-mile trail that will also feature interactive stations.
Thanks to the case, Orange County “is a pivotal seat of the civil rights movement in this country,” Contreras said. “Who would ever imagine that Orange County would be the birthplace of desegregation in California and in our country?”
Gonzalo Mendez was the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, along with Sylvia and her brothers Gonzalo Junior and Jerome. The other petitioners were: Santa Ana resident William Guzman and his son Billy; Garden Grove resident Frank Palomino and his children Arthur and Sally; Westminster resident Thomas Estrada and his children Clara, Roberto, Francisco, Sylvia, Daniel and Evelina; and Lorenzo Ramirez and his sons Ignacio, Silverio and Jose, of El Modena in Orange.
Their names are now immortalized in one of three monuments at the park. Another monument features statues of Sylvia Mendez’s parents, Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez. And a third monument depicts a boy and a girl, holding books that say “college;” they symbolize the 5,000 children represented in the class action case.
The statues were created by sculptor Ignacio Gomez, whose work is featured in the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Addressing the crowd, Gomez thanked “Mr. and Mrs. Mendez for their courage and what they accomplished.”
The park was funded with a $1.4 million grant from California State Parks. A future 2-mile “Mendez Freedom Trail” along Hoover Street will cost approximately $5 million, mostly coming from the California Natural Resources Agency and other state funding, as well as $1.2 million in Westminster city money, according to assistant city manager Adolfo Ozaeta.
The park is “truly one-of-a-kind,” Ozaeta said. “It is the only public park that we know of that provides augmented reality technology, free of charge to its visitors.”
“The various interpretive stations display special markers that enable augmented reality visuals, photographs, and audio narrations. Kids and adults can participate in a virtual scavenger hunt. At the statue stations, you can activate a virtual video of Sylvia telling you her story. You can even take a photo with a virtual Sylvia,” Ozaeta said.
Over 20 years ago, Sylvia Mendez began telling the story of the case and her family to students across Orange County and the U.S. In 2011, then-President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. More recently, her mother was featured in a Google Doodle.
The quarter-acre park at the corner of Westminster Boulevard and Olive Street is geared to attract students and anyone else who wants to learn about the landmark case.
Students Michael Perez, Miguel Barrera and George Ortega, on hand with classmates from Stacey Middle School in Huntington Beach to sing “The Star Spangled Banner,” learned about the Mendez case only a day before from their teachers.
“She was telling us about these kids who couldn’t go to their school because of their skin color,” said Perez. “I was really surprised to hear this history.”
Contreras, the former Westminster council member who grew up in the city, said he didn’t learn about the local history until he was in college.
“Now, students can learn about this historic case directly from Sylvia through augmented reality,” he said, noting the panels are offered in English, Spanish and Vietnamese.
Grace Holliverse, an instructional aide, was on a field trip to the park for the grand opening Thursday with students from Orangethorpe Elementary in Fullerton, including two of her children.
“I told my daughters, ‘Look, a person who looks just like you, because of her, you can go to any school you like,’” Holliverse said of Sylvia Mendez. “They were just regular people who stood up for themselves and for everyone else.”
