A historical counterstory of three elementary schools in Pasadena, California, 1900-1920

• In Event: Narratives of Resistance within Education, Past, Present, and Future

Abstract

Overview and Purpose
Three schools educated the elementary-age children living within the southwest portion of early 20th century Pasadena, California. This paper explores their development alongside interweaving discourses of race, gender, class, and citizenship that ultimately enacted inequitable experiences for Mexican-descent students and their White peers. It focuses on 1900-1920 when Mexican-descent students were increasingly segregated at James A. Garfield School and ultimately into the separate school plant of Junipero Serra School, at the same time that Polytechnic Elementary School was established as the first independent school in Southern California with an almost exclusively White student body. The design of each school’s educational program reveals the complicated ways race, gender, class, and citizenship have undergirded schooling in Pasadena since its beginnings.

Theoretical Perspectives
This narrative draws from cultural intuition (Delgado Bernal, 1998), critical race theory in education (Solórzano, 1998), and critical race educational history (CREH) (Santos et al., 2017; Partida & Ramírez, 2023). The author engaged cultural intuition (Delgado Bernal, 1998) through the purposeful centering of community memory; existing literature on Chicana/o education history in particular (see García,2018; González, 1990/2013; San Miguel, 1987/2001); and professional experience across public and private schooling contexts when approaching school archives with a focus on unforgetting the experiences of Students of Color. CREH methodology builds the historical narrative of segregated education for Mexican students as a distinct educational alternative from the other two local elementary programs in Pasadena. CREH upholds the tenets of CRT in education that (a) center race and racism in education; (b) challenge the dominant ideology; (c ) commit to social justice; (d) value experiential knowledge; and (e) emphasize interdisciplinary perspectives (Solórzano, 1998). CREH applies those tenets to historical inquiry through methodological commitments of intentionality, embodying a collaborative process, and creating spaces for multiple voices to be heard (Santos et al., 2017).

Methodology
District, school, local, and federal archives along with local print media illuminate the interweaving discourses of race, gender, class, and citizenship in Pasadena’s elementary education. School board minutes, district reports, and newspaper articles recount the gradual segregation of Mexican students at Garfield into separate classrooms, then bungalows, before an entirely new school plant, Junipero Serra, was created. As this phased segregation for Mexican students occurred, a group of parents (including a noted eugenicist) founded Polytechnic as a school described in their school catalogs as designed to foster both a discipline in and joy for learning.

Findings & Significance
By 1920, three elementary schools operated within walking distance of each other with distinct intentions for the children attending them. This paper concludes by highlighting their curricula, specifically vocational education and how it differed in form and purpose across the three schools. It contributes to existing literature that has identified the legacy of unequal education in Pasadena’s public K-12 schools (James, 2004; Wollenberg, 1978) by adding their independent counterpart to the analysis. In this way, this paper reveals the very real ways that the schools together solidify the full design of schooling in a community as a whole.

Author

• Michaela J. López Mares-Tamayo, Polytechnic School