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Courtroom 8: Mendez v. Westminster

Eight years before Brown, five families beat four school districts here.

Collection: Los Angeles · USA · Open in OpenStreetMap

U.S. Court House on Spring Street
U.S. Court House on Spring Street · Los Angeles, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

Listen to this place’s story in Peplos.

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How the story begins

Soledad Vidaurri was told her children could stay and her brother's could not. It was the fall of 1944, at a school in Westminster, in Orange County. She had brought both sets of cousins to enroll. The school took the Vidaurri children, apparently because of their fair skin and their surname. It turned away her brother's children, the Mendezes, and sent them to a school set aside for Mexican children.

The rest is in the app. Peplos plays the full story when you reach the place. You can also listen ahead of time.

Visiting

312 North Spring Street, Downtown. A federal courthouse with security at the door. See it from the Spring Street sidewalk.

Sources

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