It's done. The three panel exhibit on the school segregation of Topeka's Mexican community is done. The exhibit follows a timeline beginning with a very basic overview of Mexican immigration into Kansas and concludes with the beginning of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. The opportunity...
There's a ranger on the site whose last name is Standingwater. Standingwater. Still water. Still water. There was a small bird on the ground this quiet morning. Still morning. Still morning. There was a life taken...
They left their country as people, they arrived as laborers. I can hear my mother say, "Who's gonna clean their homes? Who's gonna work the fields? Los americanos don't want to do that." In the process of drafting my final essay I have...
People don't come to Kansas for the land—they come for the sky. Kansas is flat. Very flat. Consequently you can see the end of storms approaching even when its pouring in Topeka. I was thinking about the expansive sky the other day when I...
This week, while reading the court transcript of the Mendez v. Westminster the importance of studying the segregation in Topeka became more apparent. The separate schooling of Mexican American students in Southern California started as an effort to teach English to parents that could not speak English;...
This week's research and work has made me realize that the Latino narrative has been consistently erased in a nation that values its past. From the Civil Rights movement, to the desegregation of education, to reproductive rights, there are perspectives that effect the Latino community...
This week's research demonstrated the development of a concept that quickly spread throughout education in America and Topeka. The movement to "Americanize" children and their families was an effort to cleanse immigrant communities of their non-American habits (although this affected other communities, for our purposes I...
My name is Fernando Rojas and I'm a rising sophomore at Yale University. I'm spending 10 weeks in Topeka, Kansas researching Mendez v. Westminster. I've been given the amazing opportunity to work on the case that ended school segregation for Mexican-American students in Santa Ana,...
"Being Mexican is a state of soul—not one of mind, not one of citizenship. Neither eagle or serpent, but both. And like the ocean, neither animal respects borders."—Gloria Anzaldúa THE PEOPLE INVOLVED Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez (Source: Sylvia Mendez) The story of...