The Production of the Mendez v. Westminster Narrative: How Mendez Becomes History

• In Event: Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: Learning Models and Frameworks for Humanities and Social Science

Abstract

This paper explores the historical and sociocultural context surrounding the development of Mendez v. Westminster narrative and its inclusion into state history standards. In California Mendez, a story about 1940s Mexican American school segregation, has become a new vehicle for including Mexican American contributions into U.S. history classrooms. Analysis of oral history interviews, historiography, and Mendez instructional materials sheds light on the process of its inclusion into the public’s historical consciousness. To gain access into our historical consciousness, Mendez had to be more than the historian’s interpretation of Mexican American racial complexity. People had to construct a narrative that would appeal to an audience’s sense of heritage at the expense of historical complex interpretation.

Author

• Maribel Santiago, Stanford University