Community Segregation Policies

Title

Community Segregation Policies

Description

Similar to Southern California, ethnic Mexicans were subjected to social, residential and educational segregation throughout Santa Clara County. According to a 1950 SJSU student study and a 1978 study done by the Garden City Women’s Club, ethnic Mexicans, African Americans and Asians experienced de facto segregation in policies regarding public pools, bowling alleys, and ballrooms and dancehalls.

Santa Clara County followed California’s segregationist housing policies, which also aligned with school segregation patterns. According to California law, segregated schools were built if a community had more than ten students of Native American, Chinese, Japanese or Mongolian ancestry and if these minority students’ parents petitioned a district to build one. If the community had less than ten non-white students, these students would only be allowed to attend the community school if white parents approved. If not, then these non-white students could not attend school. Students of Mexican ancestry were not included in California’s school segregation laws until their numbers increased by 1910 due to the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) pushing people out of México and the need for agricultural labor pulled Mexicans to the U.S.

Since many ethnic Mexican families migrated to new jobs every two to three months following the crops, their children’s school attendance could be sporadic. At that time, schools were divided between elementary (K-8) and high school (9-12). Since few employment opportunities existed outside of agriculture before WWII Mexican children were encouraged to work in order to supplement the family income or drop out of school after the 8th grade. After WWII, educational opportunities changed for ethnic Mexicans. Young people began attending high school and college, and skilled, higher paying jobs opened up to them. In post-war California, attitudes toward ethnic Mexicans slowly changed. Ethnic Mexican soldiers had become “brothers in arms” during the war as they fought in Anglo units, not segregated as African American soldiers had been. (See Civil Rights section for court cases and the ending of California school segregation.)

Additional Online Information

A Tale of Two Schools | Learning for Justice

South by Southwest: Mexican Americans and Segregated Schooling, 1900-1950

Identifier

B4SV Exhibit Topic Four: Slide 009