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A Look at the Promise of “Education on Equal Terms:"
The First Ten Years After Brown vs. Board 1954-1963
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Introduction We conducted a critical public history project investigating Los Angeles schools in the first ten years after Brown v. the Board of Education. We looked at census data and created maps in order to paint a demographic portrait of this period. We also interviewed people who attended schools in this era in order to get first hand accounts of their educational experiences. By conducting this research we hope to educate the public and ourselves about the history of schooling and use this knowledge as we work to obtain education on equal terms for all students today. 1931 – 1963 Historical Context of Desegregation Explanation of Methods: Census Data / Maps The software that was used to plot the census data was My World. The software uses the data to depict the census data using different colors. In each map there was more than one set of demographic data that needed to be mapped. Each demographic data is a layer and the layer sits one over the other. The maps were then converted to a format that could be opened in Acrobat Reader. Then the map is copied through print screen operation on the computer and is pasted in a PowerPoint slide. Now the files are ready to be presented. Using colored maps in place of raw data makes the presentation interesting and easy to comprehend. The maps were made so that we could provide qualitative data to support our thesis. Some of the questions we tried to answer were whether there was segregation in schools and if yes, was it due to de facto segregation or if no, how diverse was the school compared to the community. This type of research is comparatively complicated to that of traditional research because it requires thorough understanding of the software and the data. The data is also not easily accessible and, even if it were, the software would not be available to map the data. For a traditional research project in school, we don’t have access to the technology and information. In critical research we use primary resources like census data, unlike the traditional research which would rely more on other people’s books and articles about the same data. The questions asked in critical history are different. An example of critical research question would be, “Were the schools more segregated than the communities in which they were located?” but a traditional research question, or at least a traditional school question, would be, “What were the major events and court decisions involving race and ethnicity in the period 1950-1960.” Traditional history looks at the conditions society is supposed to have, but critical public history is one in which critical researchers use primary resources to depict the actual scenarios, and that’s exactly what we are doing. Explanation of Methods: Yearbook Analysis Schools did not have to collect information on the race or ethnicity of students and teachers at schools until the late 1960’s, so we acquired this data for our decade by using yearbook analysis. First, we went to each of the high schools: Fairfax, Garfield, Jordan, Lynwood, Santa Monica, and South Gate, and got yearbooks between 1953-1964. We would sit down in pairs with one yearbook and analyze it, inferring the ethnicity of each senior student and faculty member. The researcher looking at the yearbook would go photo by photo and decide which ethnic group the student or teacher appeared to belong to, making an inference by their last name and appearance. The research partner would keep a tally. We all used the same protocol so that we could all record our data consistently and could easily compare them to different schools. On the protocol we categorized the students into five groups: White, African American, Latino, Asian, and other/unknown. These categories use updated terms compared to the 1950 census; we only included categories we thought we could place people into just by looking at their photo and surname so there are fewer categories than the 2000 census. Once we had all the numbers of the 16 yearbooks from 6 schools, we decided to convert to percentages. Percentages allows us to compare schools even if they are of different sizes; making bar graphs helps us visualize ethnic breakdowns between different years in the same school and between different schools. The only problem that we encountered was the fact that our methods were not totally accurate. The pictures were in black and white, which made it harder to tell their skin complexion. For example, there were a few people that looked almost white but had a traditionally black last name, so we would discuss these difficult cases with our partners and vote on a category for the person. Even though there were some controversy, the majority of them were easy to group. After looking at the senior class and the faculty, we also looked at sports teams and other extracurricular activities to assess the group’s diversity. We decided to do this because most of our interviewees said that sports were the uniting factor between races. Also, some said that if the school was predominantly white you could find the few minority students in the athletics department and extracurricular activities. We also attempted to estimate the dropout rate in a school by counting the number of sophomores in one class and comparing it to the number of seniors in the same class three years later. However, because Los Angeles was growing at such a fast rate during our decade the senior class was always considerably bigger than the sophomore class. Therefore, we could not estimate the number of students who had dropped out. In future research, it might be more effective to do a name-to-name analysis, following specific sophomores through their high school careers and seeing how many graduate and how many disappear because they move away or drop out. Our yearbook method was chosen mostly because the census data from our decade did not entail information on ethnicity in schools. Being able to do the yearbook analysis gave us the opportunity to compare and contrast the data on the communities around the schools. We were able to see that if the communities were predominantly Hispanic or African American the closest school would probably be a minority school. Our yearbook analysis contrasts with traditional research because we not only looked at the student body but we saw what they were doing. For example, we tried to see who was in what sport, activity and so on. Critical Public History relates closely to the differences between the traditional research and our own. Critical Public History is when you take the information attained by the different kinds of research and analyze it. You take the information you have and ask why is this like it is and what made it that way. After you have asked the questions and gotten the answers you were looking for you can give your opinion on it. I think that Critical Public History is 1/3 research and 2/3 opinion. Explanation of Methods: Interview Education on equal terms is an important issue that we are studying. The study of public education is complicated since it involves racism, injustice, and the lack of opportunities for many students to succeed in life. For example, the opportunity for students to obtain a higher education is often denied, because they are minorities. As students attending high schools in greater Los Angeles, we are participating in this UCLA seminar in order to research the conditions of schools prior to 1963, to record people’s accounts at these schools, and to inform others in order to empower them to change. We used various methods and tools to achieve our purposes. To capture our subjects’ appearances and surroundings, we used digital video cameras, digital photo cameras, voice recorders, and notebooks. The cameras helped for back up, in case we needed to scrutinize the interview once more. We had well thought out questions, which served as our main source for gathering data. Not every one was given the same questions, but our general questions were about people’s experiences and memories about the segregation and integration of schools, communities and classrooms. We did, however, ask each subject more probing questions based on what he or she had already said, to get more detail. Our methods were different from traditional research methods and traditional school projects. In traditional research we usually do not go to primary sources. Usually we would look at history books, which are secondary sources, and more likely to be less accurate. We spoke directly with people who were students attending schools in Los Angeles during that time, instead of just reading about these people. Instead of reading about the way conditions in schools were supposed to be, or the way the schools looked according to official reports or laws, we asked people how they actually were. We also went to some of the places where the conflicts and tensions of our decade occurred. The research is critical public history. Many people doubt the reasons the school board has behind their actions. Many students as well as parents wonder why predominantly Anglo schools have better resources for information, materials, and better schools. By understanding the history behind these questions, we can help to answer the questions about our own schools today. Mapping the Scene: Analyzing Census Data and Creating GIS Maps 1950 Los Angeles: Census Tracks by Ethnic Majority
Observations Reflection 1960 Los Angeles: Census Tracks by Ethnic Majority
Observations Reflection 1950 and 1960 Los Angeles: Distribution of Each Ethnic Group These below eight maps show the distribution of different races around LA during 1950 and 1960 with schools plotted on each map as dots. The four ethnicities are:
1950 1960 1950 Los Angeles: Property Values
Observations Reflection 1950 and 1960 Los Angeles: High School Graduation of Residents
Observations
Reflection Mapping the Scene: Analysis of Yearbooks Los Angeles Schools 1954 – 1963 Fairfax High School – 1956 & 1963 Students Teachers Sports and Activities Garfield High School – 1954, 1957, 1963, 1964 Students Teachers Sports and Activities Jordan High School – 1952 Students Teachers Sports and Activities Lynwood High School – 1954, 1955, 1963 Students Teachers Sports and Activities Santa Monica High School – 1954, 1955, 1959, 1963, 1965 Students Teachers Sports and Activities South Gate High School – 1962 Students Teachers Yearbooks as Artifacts The quality of the yearbooks at each school didn’t vary much. The yearbooks were all hard-back with beautiful, creative designs on the cover and sturdy, glossy pages, except the yearbook for Jordan High School which had thinner, yellowed pages. The Jordan yearbook fit many more students on each page, requiring smaller pictures, probably because yearbooks with fewer pages cost less to produce than yearbooks with more pages. The Jordan yearbook also consisted only of student portraits followed by copies of the entire year’s school newspaper. There didn’t seem to be a separate group or class to publish articles just for the yearbook like other schools had – so they just dropped the newspaper in, which did make for an interesting overview of the school year’s events, sports, etc. The quality of the yearbooks says something about the school because it says if they actually knew how to create yearbooks or if they had the equipment to make them. Also, the yearbooks show what the school looked like showing the facilities, the students, and the activities they were involved in. Conclusions Students Teachers Sports and Activities A Closer Look at Sports Teams Throughout our critical research, we have been traveling to various schools interviewing students who attended those schools in 1963 and earlier. We have also been doing yearbook analysis. According to many of our subjects such as Frank Nishamura of Santa Monica High school, “sports was the unifying factor.” The Maravilla Veteranos were a group of Latino men who attended Garfield High School who enjoyed playing football and shared experiences of sports unifying them and their other teammates as well. Many of them believed that sports created a space where students of different ethnic background could find common ground. Mr. Nishamura also stated that in competing against other teams, sports allowed him and the members of his team to unite as one. Upon observing these yearbooks, we noticed that if a school was integrated many of the students of color were on sports teams. In fact, if a school had very few students of color, and we could not find them by flipping through year book pages, all we had to do was turn to the sports page. However, when we picked up one of Santa Monica High School’s yearbooks, and turned to the sports page we saw something, and pointed it out to my teacher. There was a photo of an all girl sports team. The team was composed of all Caucasian students wearing white, and in the far back, almost completely covered, stood an African American girl wearing all black. So we said maybe she’s the coach. It turns out she was not the coach, and she looked the same age as the students. So we then suggested that perhaps she was the assistant of the coach. That was possible, but what we failed to understand was why she was so far in the back and practically covered up by the students. Shouldn’t the assistant coach stand beside the coach? Puzzled, we kind of left that alone and moved on. A couple of days later we looked at the sports page of Garfield High School. This school and sports team was clearly more integrated than Santa Monica. This team was composed of Whites, Asians, and Latinos, but no black students. We then looked to the side and saw an African American boy kneeling on the side of the team and wearing different attire than the rest of the team. So we said, again, perhaps he’s the assistant coach. By this time we were questioning why there were no African American students on the team. The next time we looked at a yearbook from Lynwood High School and noticed the exact same thing. The team was composed of all White students, and there was one Latino male standing off to the side of the rest of the team. The team had on uniforms while the Latino student stood to the side in plain clothes. We began to wonder if sports were really unifying students? There were many teams that appeared truly integrated, but these three particular teams really stuck out and suggested a different story. Were these African American students the assistants or managers because that is what they wanted to be? Or was it because it was okay for them to assist but not okay for them to actually be a part of the team? As critical researchers, it was our job to gather data from our different sources and come up with a conclusion about what school was like during our time period. As for sports, it is difficult to tell because a picture is complex. For many it appears that sports was one of few areas where all were accepted. On the other hand, there were cases where something just didn’t seem to be right-- looking at the pictures, something didn’t feel right. Sports seemed to do two things, unify and segregate. From interviews we learned that sports teams were integrated and brought students together, however the three yearbooks from Santa Monica, Garfield, and Lynwood suggest something different. Comparison of School and Surrounding Community Demographics Santa Monica High School Fairfax High School Garfield High School Lynwood High School Jordan High School Experiencing Education: Analysis of Interviews Overt Racism Many people are aware of the overt racism that has historically characterized the South, but fewer are aware of the overt racism in the lives of students and even teachers of color in California. During the 1950’s and early 1960’s many Los Angeles students and teachers of color experienced racism not only in their communities, but in their schools as well. The majority of the subjects we interviewed from this time period experienced or witnessed overt racism, and were willing to share their stories with us. One recurring tension discussed in the interviews was the conflict between Whites in authority versus people of color. Sidney Thompson was a student in Los Angeles public schools from a young age, and he eventually became a teacher, administrator, and superintendent in the district. In sharing some of his personal experiences with racism as a student in school, Mr. Thompson came on the topic of school dances. He stated that he and the other African American students were forced to go outside and remain outside for the duration of the dances. African Americans were the only students excluded. Young Sidney began to question why they had to go outside and weren’t allowed to participate. An African American classmate responded, saying, “We’re frogs.” A frog is seen as an inferior, dirty creature. This classmate had clearly heard the derogatory metaphor from someone else, and accepted it. Black students were told that they were animals. By dehumanizing these African American students, the authority at the school could feel justified for separating them from the rest of the school; if African Americans were seen as less than human, they could be seen as undeserving of socializing with everyone else. This was not Sidney’s only experience with overt racism. When he got older he had an incident where he was pulled over just because he was diving in Beverly Hills, which was predominantly White. Later on in his career as Superintendent, schools were starting to not only integrate students but teachers as well. He came across a young White woman who refused to teach students of color and threatened to get pregnant if she had to, and that’s exactly what she did. Individual acts of racism like this one contributed to the picture we see in our census data and maps of Los Angeles schools, where schools with high numbers of students of color have more teachers of color than schools that have White student populations. We also interviewed Mildred Wade who attended Centennial High School in Compton. Mildred went to this all Black high school, which she has heard was built for the Black community in and around Compton, because Compton High School was all White. Mildred said that her experiences in this segregated high school were terrific. She enjoyed school. She felt that her school’s conditions were just as good as White school’s conditions – although with such extreme segregation in her community, it is not clear how much opportunity she had to learn about the conditions in White schools. Mildred did not have any overtly racist experiences, because she stayed within the Black community on her side of Compton -- but she did recall that her cousin was arrested for riding his bike in a nearby white neighborhood. Her cousin hadn’t done anything to break the law, but was arrested only because he was a Black male in a White area. Similarly, Henry Gonzalez was a student at Jordan High School when its students were all Black and Latino. The nearby schools of South Gate and Lynwood were almost entirely White. Like Ms. Wade, he enjoyed his school years and admits that he doesn’t know for sure how the quality of his segregated school compared to the nearby schools full of White students. Also like Ms. Wade, he has stories of extreme segregation of neighborhoods. He recalls that when he and other Latino boys would cross the train tracks to South Gate, they would be met by police, turned around, and sent back home. We also interviewed Tassie Hadlock-Piltz who attended Santa Monica High School and John Adams Middle School in the early and mid-60s. Even though Santa Monica did have a small minority population and prided itself on being a liberal and tolerant community, Ms. Hadlock- Piltz shared with us some examples of overt racism she saw during her school years. As a young White student, she was not the target of the racism herself, but she did see it first hand. She could recall teachers having the attitude that Blacks were inferior and did not belong in school. One time when she had a substitute teacher in physical education class, the substitute would not talk to any of the Black students in the class. She asked Tassie, a White student, “Would you get those Negroes in order?” Sometimes it isn’t even what a person says, but their actions, that reveal the type of person they are. Before the sub even said this comment it was clear that she was racist just by the fact that she would not even acknowledge the Black students. Another example of overt racism Ms. Hadlock –Piltz recalled was how students of color were seated in the back of the classroom, forced to feel less than the other groups who sat in the front, close to the teacher. Ms. Hadlock –Piltz also told about a young boy she considered her boyfriend when she was in grade school. When she told her mother about him, and her mother found out he was black, she sat her daughter down and had a talk with her. Her mother told her that black and white people don’t get married. She didn’t mean it as a personal threat, but as a statement of fact about the culture of the time. Still, this is an example of overt racism that was common in the time period, because her mom simply flat out said that whites and blacks do not get together. Like Sid Thompson’s school dances, this suggests to a Black child that if whites don’t “mix” with them then something must be wrong with them, that whites consider themselves superior. Fortunately, this was not the mentality Ms. Hadlock–Piltz chose to have, but many kids who had that same experience with their parents would have turned out differently. Next, we interviewed Frank Nishamura, who also attended Santa Monica High School. Frank is Japanese-American, and we asked him the same questions in order to gain understanding of his experience in school. Frank was a successful student in high school. He socialized with students he perceived as college bound. He got along with students from all ethnic backgrounds. He was also on the football team, and was elected ASB President. However, Frank also personally experienced racism like our earlier interview subjects – and like them, it came up relating to boy-girl relationships. While he had great social relationships with male classmates and casually with females, he always felt that dating was off limits to him, that his white female friends were resistant to the idea. With only a couple of Asian girls in his class, one being his sister and the other an immigrant with whom he had little in common, he felt he had no options to experience dating the way typical high school students did. One white girl’s parents said outright that they would not let her date him because he was Japanese. Frank believes that racism is a “learned behavior” and that it is learned through others’ actions, and in this case it was being passed down to this young girl from her parents. Nathaniel Trives, another one of our subjects, could recall many instances of overt racism he witnessed and personally experienced. He attended Santa Monica High School where he was very popular and became the student body president; he eventually became the mayor of Santa Monica. As a student he could recall the times when there would be an annual dance, and students would vote for a king and a queen. One year, for the first time the king was black and the queen was white. It is customary that the king and queen get the first dance, so this year the coach decided that in order to prevent the dancing of a mixed-raced couple, there would be no dancing allowed at the dance at all. The principal stood up to the powerful coach and overruled his decision, an act Nat considers courageous in this time. Nat also discussed how black student worked in the Vikes Café at school, but couldn’t go in the community to get jobs, because they weren’t given the opportunity. They learned all this business sense at school, but a racist community would not give them the chance to use it. Nat also recalled another time when he and some friends, a group of boys and girls who were all white except for him, were parked in their car a couple of minutes past curfew. When the police came up and saw Nat, he asked, “What’s this n**** doing in the car?” The police officer was more worried about why they were in the car with a black boy then why they were out pass curfew. The “n***” word in itself can completely tear down a man’s self esteem, and make him feel less than everyone else. And the implication that different races of students in Los Angeles could socialize and attend school together in some areas, but not date, is a pattern we have seen emerge through many interviews. Nathaniel Trives also touched on the subject of the neighborhoods of Santa Monica today, and how the Pico neighborhood has more residents of color. He stated that the Virginia Avenue Park which is in the Pico neighborhood still hasn’t been finished, but millions of dollars have been spent on the posh Promenade. Also, many are unfamiliar with the story of the I-10 freeway and how it came about. Mr. Trives shared some of his knowledge of the history of the freeway with us. It seems that it was built in areas where predominantly all people of color lived, because it is the state’s policy to get the cheapest land in areas of least resistance, a policy which resulted in (and continues to result in) tearing down poor and minority neighborhoods in order to build projects “for the good of the people.” Mr. Trives family was one of many families affected by this project. A large population of Blacks and Latinos were taken out of Santa Monica after this “eminent domain” project. Finally, like Ms. Hadlock-Piltz, Mr. Trives also recalled earlier on in his child hood when he was a student who witnessed children of color being seated in the back of classrooms and not being called upon by teachers. We then spoke with Daniel Solorzano who grew up in Lincoln Heights and attended Cathedral High School. At an early age he discovered racism not only for himself, but by viewing racist acts against others. Mr. Solorzano stated that he could remember when he was only ten, discovering that an all white college would not admit a black student. Later on he shared an experience where his school’s team was playing against Sara High, an all white school, and he recalled the white students calling them names when they arrived at the school. Lastly we spoke with Harry Handler who was a graduate of UCLA in 1951. Mr. Handler taught at Audobon Middle School and shared with us many examples of overt racism that he saw while teaching. When he taught at Audobon, the school was predominantly white and Foshay Middle School was mainly black. As a teacher Handler over heard a counselor tell a black mother that her son would be happier at Foshay because there would be more children like him there. This counselor took it upon herself to basically state that this child was not welcomed at this school because of the color of his skin – after the Mendez decision of 1947 and probably after Brown in 1954 which mandated the desegregation of schools. Later on, when the integration of teachers began taking place. Mr. Handler recalled a time when African American woman came to teach at Audobon. The other teachers would not share their rooms with her, because she was black. One teacher suggested that the black teacher have her own restroom separate from all of the other teachers. He even recalled a time where the district would not give an African American girl a permit to go to South Gate, which was a predominantly white school, even though there was room in the school for her. Our interviews reveal that in the time leading up to and immediately after Brown, there were varying degrees of racism and segregation in Los Angeles. The range included totally segregated spaces where crossing the tracks could put a person’s life in danger, and schools where the sports fields and student governments (but not the dance floors) were integrated. Education on Equal Terms We have been traveling to various schools in greater Los Angeles, and interviewing previous students of Centennial, Fairfax, Jordan, Garfield, Santa Monica, and Dorsey High School. We hoped to gain understanding of what schools and their communities were like during the 1950’s and 1960’s. We discovered there were integrated and de facto segregated schools, but we posed the question of whether or not everyone experienced education on equal terms. Centennial, Fairfax, and Jordan High School were all de facto segregated. Mildred Wade attended Centennial High School, which was an all black school. Mildred stated that Centennial High and Compton High were the two main high schools in Compton. Centennial was an all black school and Compton High was an all white school. Both schools were in Compton, but because African Americans lived in the Centennial area, which had more fare housing they all attended that high school. The whites lived in the area near Compton high and because of that they attended that school. Barbara Bilson attended Fairfax High School. Ms. Bilson told us that there was de facto segregation at Fairfax. According to Ms. Bilson housing patterns were segregated, causing schools to be almost all one ethnicity. The community that Fairfax was in was an all white community. Not only were the students all white, but so were the teachers. Ms. Bilson also talked about UCLA and Stanford and how they were not very integrated either. Ms. Bilson mentioned that Santa Monica, which happens to be the area she eventually lived in, was and still is a segregated city. Jordan High School was also a segregated school. Jordan was a black and Latino school, but had no white students. Jordan high school was in the minority neighborhood. The Maravilla Veteranos were a group of about twenty Hispanic men who attended Garfield High. Garfield was an integrated school, mixed with Latinos and whites. The classes how ever were segregated because whites had college prep classes and the Latinos were placed in remedial classes. Ms. Tassie Hadlock- Piltz attended Santa Monica High School. According to her Santa Monica was an integrated school, but at lunch students were divided into clusters and ate lunch mainly with people of their own races. Mr. Frank Nishamura was also a student of Santa Monica High School. Mr. Nishamura said that the school was integrated, but there was internal segregation. Mr. Nathaniel Trives also attended Santa Monica High School, and eventually became the mayor. According to him Santa Monica was de facto segregated. The majority of the residents of Santa Monica were white, and because of that the majority of the students of Santa Monica High School were white as well. He said that in school students segregated themselves into clusters at lunch. He also said that very few lived, worked, and played integrated. Reverend David Morris attended Dorsey High School. He said that the school was integrated, but people mainly hung out with their own. He stated that the sports teams were racially diverse, but in his math and science classes sometimes he was the only black student. According to the subjects we interviewed we learned that some schools were segregated due to where people lived. We also learned that other schools, which were integrated, were still segregated in classrooms and at lunch. The question is are schools truly integrated if students are clustered together at lunch with people who are only of their own race? It all depends on what one’s definition of integrated is. According to our subjects true integration involves not only interaction in a classroom, but interacting socially as well. We feel that it was impossible for every one to have experienced education on equal terms when so many schools were completely segregated due to de facto segregation. Equal means the exact same. If students of different ethnicities are being taught at separate schools, even if it is not by law it still seen as not equal. When schools are separated even if it is due to living environments it can still cause inequality in schools. In some cases if the white neighborhood has wealthier residents then naturally the school in that neighborhood, which will have all white students will have better school buildings, facilities, and materials than an all black or Latino school, in a more poverty stricken neighborhood. Cases like this show education is not available on equal terms, because the same thing provided at one school is not provided at another, and the same bad conditions certain students have to deal with, others do not. Social Reproduction California is supposed to be the land of opportunity. Everybody should be entitled to the American Dream. Yet, from our critical research we find that many students of color during the 1950’s and 1960’s did not have the same opportunities as their white peers. We have been trained to think that school is our ticket out of whatever situation we might be in, and that everyone is presented with the same opportunities to learn the same material, attend a college and be successful. Many people blame students alone for not going to college and being successful. If we take a look at the fact that more white people have attended universities than people of color, we would notice that there are other reasons for this besides the failure of students to try. It is true that there are people of color who choose not to do what needs to be done in school, but there are whites, and Asians who choose to do the same. So why is it that minorities tend to be less successful in school, and don’t tend to attend four-year universities? One reoccurring theme in our interviews with students of from our time period were the disparities in quality of classes, and overall differences in the quality of education, between and even within schools. Society says that school is the equalizer, and that it allows each person to be whatever they want to be despite their ethnicity, what their parents do, or where they come from. The theory of Social Reproduction offers another story. This theory states that schools are institutions working against betterment and rising above one’s background. According to Social Reproduction Theory, institutions reproduce society by sending students away from high school prepared for jobs and class levels that their families and communities have historically belonged to. Students from working class families are trained to be working class, while wealthy students whose grandparents and parents went to college and became successful are trained to be college-bound successes. Our research suggests the theory of Social Reproduction was an active force in Los Angeles schools in the 50’s-60’s. Through our interviews, we found that many factors at schools played into students of color not attending universities, such as their not being informed, and their placement into tracked classes. Students had unequal experiences not only when they attended different schools, but also sometimes within the same school. Sydney Thompson attended elementary through high school in Los Angeles, and eventually became a teacher, administrator, and superintendent. When asked about the quality of education during this time period, Mr. Thompson stated that the teachers at his school were predominantly white, but were excellent teachers, and that his school provided college preparatory classes. However it was interesting to find that his school was predominantly white, and that a predominantly black school called Jordan High School didn’t even provide algebra or geometry, which are the basics of math , which should be taught at a high school. It is impossible for a student to be even considered for a four-year university if they have not taken the basics. This was a hindrance to many students of color who attended Jordan because they did not have access to what they needed in order to attend college. That alone was hundreds maybe even thousands of students of color who may have had the potential to attend a university, but were not provided with courses many other schools did provide. Mr. Thompson even mentioned how at his own school blacks and Hispanics had to fight administration to get into college preparatory classes. Because the administration was attempting to place students of color in remedial classes, many students of color were being trained to remain in working class society, instead of being trained to strive for what ever they wanted to be, go to college and be successful. When we spoke with Mildred Wade she discussed how her counselors never talked to her about college. In order for a student to want to attend a university, or even consider college as an alternative to just graduating, and living an average life, one must be informed. It is essential that one knows that they have options and can make decisions about where they want to be and how they will live their lives. Tassie Hadlock- Piltz attended Santa Monica High School during this period. As a young white student she recalled that there weren’t many students of color attending Santa Monica High during that time. She stated that her college prep classes were mainly white students. She did however state that there were students of color in her PE class. The question is why were only the physical education classes integrated? But the classes that prepared students for college were segregated. This is what social reproduction theory states. It says that institutions are training those who have parents and grandparents who were successful college graduates, to be college- bound, while at the same time it’s training those who have working class parents and grandparents to be the same way. We interviewed Frank Nishamura who also attended Santa Monica High School. Frank stated that very few of his classes prepared him for college. It was interesting seeing the contrast between a Japanese students experience versus a white students experience. Ms Hadlock- Piltz , as a young white student was in college preparatory classes with no students of color, while Mr. Nishamura, a young Japanese- American student recounts not having any classes that prepared him for attending a university. According to Nishamura institutions were not preparing students of color. Former mayor of Santa Monica, Nathaniel Trives also spoke with us about his experiences and views of education while he was a student attending Santa Monica High School. According to Nat Trives, as students of color those in authority already had pre determined views on where you should be, and because of this students of color were tracked and placed in a line. Mr. Trives also stated that he was automatically given shop classes even though he was not experienced at all with woodwork. This again ties in with what was said previously about students of color not being placed in classes preparing them for college but instead being placed in remedial classes. Shop classes did not prepare students to attend universities, but instead taught them to focus on manual labor. This ties to The Social Reproduction Theory, because again you see students of color being tracked and placed in classes that lead to remedial work, and not successful careers that lead to successfulness. Daniel Solorzano grew up in Lincoln Heights and attended Cathedral High School, which was predominantly Latino. Mr. Solorzano was in one of the highest tracks at his school, but was never told about college. Daniel did attend college, but only because of athletics. Daniel could remember being pulled out of class when military recruiters came to the school, but was not once pulled out of class because of college recruiters. Again we saw the reoccurring theme of students of color being informed of anything that has to do with working manually, but not receiving any information or guidance for college. The Maravilla Veteranos are a group of about twenty men who attended Garfield High School, a predominantly Latino school. While speaking with them we learned that almost all of them, like students of color at other schools, were placed in or recommended for shop classes. They also talked about punishments. As high school boys they would get into trouble some times as many high school students do, but they were punished by being hit on the behind with a paddle. We next talked with Barbara Bilson who attended Fairfax High School. Fairfax at the time was about 99% white. Ms. Bilson was a white teenager, but she was an activist who believed in equality. When we asked Ms. Bilson about her experiences in High School, she did not remember very many students of color because there were hardly any attending the school. Ms. Bilson didn’t recall there being any shop classes at her school, contrary to what was remembered by Nat Trives , and the Maravilla Veteranos. We found it interesting how shop classes were provided and forced upon students of color at various schools, but at a predominantly all white school, they did not even exist. This suggests that many white students weren’t pushed toward the field of manual work. Barbara also talked about how there was no corporal punishment at her school. Barbara stated how she was in the principal’s office quite often, she was told to sit down and think about her actions, but was never touched. As young students it is clear that Ms. Bilson was being trained one way while the Maravilla Veteranos were being taught another. We also spoke with Reverend David Morris. Reverend Morris attended Dorsey High School. As an African American male, Reverend Morris did end up taking college preparatory classes, and attended UCLA. Reverend Morris was not placed into these classes even though he was a bright student. He had to appeal to get into the college prep classes because from the beginning he was automatically placed in low achieving classes. As an African American student attending a fairly integrated school, Reverend Morris was able to appeal those low achieving classes because higher achieving classes were offered at his school. He talked about how schools like Manual Arts and Freemont which were both predominantly black, were just focused on industrial art, emphasized wood shop, and were low achieving because they were all black. Reverend Morris made the decision to resist the way of thinking that would have been produced by attending a school that chose to emphasize remedial work, and further add to the thousands of students who chose to accept social reproduction. Instead he made the conscious decision to resist this way of thinking and become successful, bursting free from the shackles of Social Reproduction. From our critical research it is clear that the US of the 1950’s was not the land of opportunity for all. Many students of color did not attend universities because they were not informed. Many students of color did not attend universities because their classes did not prepare them for college. Many students of color did not know that if they deserved to be in higher leveled classes the only way for them to get into them was by fighting administration. The question is why should students of color with the same potential as a white student had to fight to get into the same class that a white student is automatically placed in? The theory of social reproduction seems to hold true from the information we have gathered. During the 1950’s and 1960’s it seemed that white students were being trained to become college bound, and successful, while students of color were being trained to remain in working class society. Habitus Habitus is a social reproduction term. Bourdieu defines it as “the composition of the attitudes, beliefs, and experiences of those inhabiting one’s social world.” Basically it is what you perceive to be normal in your social group. It means, for example, that if a minority student grows up in a poor neighborhood and never sees someone like him succeed, he will automatically believe that it is not possible to do so, because otherwise someone else would have already done it. If that same student grew up in a wealthy neighborhood and all he or she saw were people that succeeded, he would be more likely to succeed because he would perceive it as normal and the thing to do. David Morris is one of our subjects who had to choose what kind of people to surround himself with, basically changing his own habitus by surrounding himself with different people. When Mr. Morris was a young man he had the same stereotypes of African Americans that whites had even though he African American one himself. He had come to believe that black people were dumb and ugly. But Mr. Morris thought that he was different than the rest. For that reason he chose to identify with white and Asian people. He perceived the white and Asian people as the smartest and most successful. His best friends were white and Asian. In the habitus theory you do what most people around you do. And David Morris did just that -- he went to UCLA just like all of his friends did. Unlike David Morris, Frank Nishamura also felt he had to be around the succeeding students. Mr. Nishamura thought that he had to choose whom to identify with in order to maximize his chances for success. Since he was Asian he had the capability to identify with minorities or white students. Seeing these choices he decided to identify with the college bound students, the white students. Throughout his high school career he said he felt like “a banana, yellow in the outside but white in the inside.” Because of his surroundings Mr. Nishamura did not praise his own culture. By consciously working to change his habitus, he ended up going to college and succeeding in life. Habitus is a big part of whether you succeed or not. What is interesting is that both David Morris and Frank Nishamura felt that they had to identify and become part of the white population in order to have a habitus that would lead to success. It was good for them to ally themselves with the group that was successful. However, it might have impacted the way they perceived their self worth in a favorable manner and probably been as successful if they’d had the opportunity to identify with college bound students of color. Frank Nishamura and David Morris both made the best decision concerning their future and likeliness to succeed. By habitus theory if Frank Nishamura and David Morris had identified with kids that were not college bound they probably would not have gone to college. Views on Integration “Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other ‘tangible’ factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal education opportunities? We believe that it does” Brown vs. Board (1954) “The methods of segregation prevalent in the defendant school districts foster antagonisms in the children and suggest inferiority among them where none exists” Mendez vs. Westminster (1947). The courts decided that segregation was bad not only for the purpose of education but also for the feelings of the children --even if schools could possibly be otherwise equal -- but we wanted to research how people who experienced school as students in Los Angeles felt about integration. Tassie Hadlock-Piltz, a white student at Santa Monica High School, thought integration was good. Nothing else made any sense to her. She grew up in an integrated community. She saw integration as normal, so much that when she was a little girl she had a black boyfriend. To her integration was not something to be done but something that was a part of her every day life. David Morris, an African American student, also went to an integrated school, Dorsey High School. He believed that maintaining supposedly “separate but equal” schools was not practical, because he thought that it would be better for students to meet other people outside of their own ethnicity. He not only thought that, but acted on it also. During high school he had five or six best friends who were Jewish and Asian. His having only Asian and white friends might have been a way for him to escape his own insecurity about his ethnicity. The effects of belonging to an integrated group of friends were not all simple and positive. He said that he was confused about what to feel about himself. He felt different than most African Americans. He bought into the stereotype that black people were dumb and he was smart; he thought they were bad people and he was not. It made him feel bad that he was different but at the same time he was proud because as an African American he overcame the stereotype of the average black man by succeeding which made him feel good. If he had been in an all black school, he might not have had this identity crisis. Furthermore, he disagrees with some people’s arguments that black students need to be in the presence of whites in order to learn; he seemed to feel that if conditions between schools were actually equal, then it would be alright for them to be separate. Morris helps us see that some students of color felt confused and felt like they had to identify with white students to succeed. The case of Brown v. Board of Education, which made schools in the United States integrated by de jure, might not have impacted everyone but it sure made some happy. Sylvia Mendez was very happy when she heard about Brown v. Board being won, which is no surprise since it was her family’s case that led to the desegregation of California schools before Brown. Her family wanted the schools desegregated so that she could have an equal opportunity to succeed. One of our subjects was a bit undecided on the theme of integration. Mrs. Mildred Wade was a student at Centennial High School in Compton. Centennial at that time was predominantly a black school. At first she said that it was okay for schools to be separate but equal. She really believed that it was a better environment when everyone was the same ethnicity. Mildred did not experience anything but desegregation, though, so she assumed everything was equal between her school and the white school, even though they were separate. But when pushed, she said that integration was good overall, that the good outweighs the bad. When she implied that there was something bad with integration, we asked her to elaborate. She said that the good was that you could learn to get along with other people. Then she said the bad part was that you could loose your sense of community. She felt being with your own kind gives you a sense of community. Some Los Angeles students of the 50’s and 60’s preferred integration, while others were sketchy on the subject. Usually, everyone says integration is good for the camera, but underneath they might have a more complicated story. Structural Changes for Integration Integration is not only attained by agency, but through structures such as the courts that decided it was the right thing to do. This is not to say that individuals’ agency has no effect on legislation for integration. Actually agency is the very reason any court says that something is wrong. Without agency no one would know that anything was wrong. But after the court decides that something is wrong, like segregation, they make a law to change it, and the structures are supposed to change accordingly. We consider legislation for integration in the realm of “structure.” One of the biggest examples of legislation for integration is the Mendez case. It took place in 1947 and it was versus Westminister school district. Gonzalo Mendez, Sylvia Mendez’s dad, brought up the whole case. It all started when Sylvia Mendez’s aunt took her, her siblings and her cousins to school to enroll them. Sylvia’s cousins had a very light complexion compared to her and her siblings. When her aunt got to the school to enroll them the school told her that she could enroll her kids at the school but not her brothers kids. She said that Sylvia and her siblings had to go to the Mexican school. Well, her aunt said if she could not enroll her niece and nephews there she would not enroll her kids there. Sylvia says that when they got home and her aunt told her dad what had happened he said that must be a mistake and for her to go back and enroll them in that school. When the school did not accept them the dad decided to do something about it. He tried to get support from the community but no one wanted to get involved. Him and his family went to court and protested on their own. After the community saw how it was going they decided to join in and give their support. The Mendez case went to state court. The Mendez family ended up winning the case. The success of the case impacted Governor Warren so much that he decided to desegregate the entire state of California. Thurgood Marshall was the lawyer for the Mendez case. When the Brown v. The Board of Education case was filed the lawyer coincidentally was Thurgood Marshall. Since he took part in writing the argument for Mendez he used the same things for Brown. Also during the Brown case one of the Supreme Court Justices was the ex governor of California, Earl Warren. So the Mendez case impacted the Brown case in many small but significant ways. Both the Mendez and the Brown case desegregated the United States in some way but only by de jure and not by de facto. Mr. Nishamura is a Santa Monica High School graduate. In 1950 he attended Garfield Elementary in Santa Monica. At the time, Garfield Elementary was a predominantly minority school. A few years later, the Brown case was decided in favor of Brown, which meant that the schools in the United States had to be desegregated. Shortly after the case the Santa Monica school board decided to break Garfield apart in order to desegregate the city’s schools. They sent the kids to surrounding schools. Mr. Nishamura got sent to Edison, which was predominantly a white school. This action of Santa Monica’s school board showed that they were trying to follow the court’s ruling. Mrs. Wade was talking to us about going to Centennial High School. Throughout our conversation she mentioned that Compton use to be predominantly white. Before Centennial was built Compton High School was the communities high school. Interestingly enough once Compton started to have a rising of black people the government decided to build a new school. Not surprisingly, that new school had most, if not all, the minority students enrolled in it. This left Compton High a white school and Centennial High a minority school. When you compare Mrs. Wade’s situation is not exactly what you would expect to see after the Brown v. The Board of Education case. The Brown case said that the United was to be desegregated but Mrs. Wade said that Centennial, where she attended, was an all black school and that Compton H.S. was an all white school and they both were located in Compton. We learned that the Brown case desegregated U.S. but with our critical research we discovered that was not true. Legislating structural changes for integration is great, but like Frank Nishamura said “laws do not do anything unless people believe in them.” Agency Agency refers to people’s ability to make a change. While some people think of agency as walkouts or acts of rebellion that might involve police officers, the truth is that you can call on agency in your every day life. We learned through our interviews that some of our subjects did exactly that, while others did not see themselves as agents of change. Nat Trives, an African American Santa Monica High School student, was one of our subjects who both acted as an agent for change and benefited from the agency of others. For example, he became a police officer in San Francisco and worked for integration throughout his twenty years on the force. He not only engaged in agency for change himself, but also benefited from it on the part of his parents. He recalls that at SMHS, most minority students got placed in manual labor classes and Caucasian students got placed in college prep classes, what we now refer to as ‘tracking.’ He said that when he was a student the only thing that prevented him from getting ‘tracked’ into shop classes with the other ethnic minority students at Santa Monica High School was the agency of his strong parents. They had the courage to go to the P.T.A. meetings and get involved, and they stood up for their son in front of the schedule-making counselors. Nat Trives’ parents did not only have courage but they had the knowledge on the types of classes he needed to be enrolled in to go on to college. I believe that his parents were good observers. Maybe they noticed that white kids went on to college more than any other group of people and assumed that their kid had to be in classes with them. Maybe they went through that and knew what their kid had to take. Or maybe they heard from someone that it is better for their kid to be in the college prep classes. The point is that they showed that in order to be an effective agent you must be informed. Harry Handler, a white Los Angeles teacher during our decade, acted as an agent for change on many occasions. He worked at Audubon, which was a majority white school. On one occasion the principal of the school asked him if it would be a good idea to hire an African American woman as a teacher. Mr. Handler thought it was the best idea. Once the teacher arrived the rest of the staff was not very hospitable -- none of the teachers wanted to share their classrooms with her. When Handler heard, he said “No problem, she can share my room.” That was not the only effort he made for change. In Audubon he started groups that were for students with common interests, in an effort to bring together students from different ethnic backgrounds who were socially segregated within his school. He said that there is nothing better to bring people together than common interests. Handler became a Superintendent between the years of 1981-87. While he was there he was faced with the problem of finding a way to integrate Los Angeles. What he decided to do was start to bus children from the inner city to the higher education schools, which were white schools, and of course the inner city kids were minority students. Mandatory busing did not really solve anything. It was just like a Band-Aid to help cover up the big problem. The big problem is and was the fact that inner city kids do not get the equal education that the U.S. should give all kids. From that problem people decided that white kids get great education so the minority students should integrate with them. The problem with busing is that only a small percent of minority kids get helped out and the rest end up were they started. So even that approach did not really help a great deal. Harry Handler did a lot of great things with agency but he also helped preserve undesirable structures. Barbara Bilson, a white Jewish student from the predominantly white Fairfax High School, participated in groups of students who shared common interests. She was active in the progressive Kappa Pi group in high school, and she was also involved with a very progressive (but nameless) group of students who met to discuss and act on issues of civil rights. Her eleventh grade boyfriend actually got her interested in activism and introduced her to the group, many of whom were children of Communist parents being persecuted in the McCarthy era. Their group of friends would get together and talk about how they could create change. They would read articles and discuss the news, sometimes writing letters to their congressmen about making changes regarding racial issues. She and her group of friends recognized that their school and community, all white, was segregated from other schools and communities of color. So, as agents, they tried to create integrated spaces themselves. They would go to predominantly minority places and interact with the people they encountered. For example, they would go to black church services. She did not stop there. She took lessons and plans generated by this progressive high school group with her when she attended UCLA, where she had an Asian roommate. They made it a point not to join any organization that was segregated. Later, Mrs. Bilson got a BA in English. Even as an adult she made a difference by starting an Ethnic American Literature class (an alternative to the American Literature class) and teaching it for twenty-five years at Santa Monica College. The course is still institutionalized. Sylvia Mendez and her parents are key agents of change in the history of California. Because of her, the state legally desegregated California schools. Her parents wanted her to have the same education as all the other white students. But when she attempted to attend her local Orange County elementary school, the school did not want her and her siblings integrate the predominantly white school. They told her that she should go to the Mexican school. So her dad sued and, after a few years of court battles, won in 1947. The entire case was important because most people only know Brown v. Board of Education as the case that made the country integrated, but they do not realize that California was already desegregated de jure, a direct result of the Mendez family and a small group of other families who acted as agents to change the structures of racism and segregation. The interesting part is that most of the Mexican-Americans in Mendez’s community did not want to fight for integration. They considered themselves happy in the barrio. Which is much like how Mildred Wade, an African American student from Compton’s Centennial High, felt about her community. She said that everything was great the way it was, segregated. She talked a lot about how they would go to segregated social activities at night. She also mentioned that everything was good, but admitted no one went to the white side of Compton and visa versa. Except for this one occasion when her cousin went to the white neighborhood and got beat up for it, but everything was good to her and she felt no need to call on her agency. Mrs. Tomeo, a white student from the ‘40s in Santa Monica, also said that everything was calm, peaceful, and delightful. She said there was no racial tension but of course you had to live in the Santa Monica area to attend Santa Monica High School. The community at that time was predominantly white of course so there was no one to really feel tension about. Therefore, everything was good and she felt no need to call on her agency. The Maravilla Veteranos, Latino graduates of Garfield High, also said that everything was good. They went to the football games and had a blast in high school. Of course there was some corporal punishment, they recalled, but it was still a good time. One of them even said that if him and a white student did exactly the same thing he would be the only one to get punished physically and the white student just got told not to do it again, but everything was good. They accepted conditions the way they were at the time, so none of them felt the need to call on their agency for change. When they look back, though, many of the veteranos clearly think the white minority population was favored at their school, from corporal punishment to access to high level and college classes. The veteranos themselves were automatically tracked into shop classes and most did not feel school prepared them for college – that was more for white kids. The 1950’s were a time of complex feelings. Most people in our time were perplexed by agency. Some of our subjects acted with agency in order to survive, as Frank Nishamura and David Morris portrayed. Others acted with agency because they wanted to change the structure itself. As Harry Handler, Barbara Bilson, and Sylvia Mendez’s father showed. Then there were those that thought that everything was fine at the time and that there was no need for agency. Mendez’s community, Mrs. Wade, Mrs. Tomeo, and the Maravilla Veteranos were great examples of that. Agency is powerful. As our subjects have shown, by exercising your agency you can impact anyone – and any thing-- you come in contact with. Conclusion How do we define “education on equal terms”? Education on equal terms means that all students are presented with the exact same educational opportunities, including:
What needs to be done to realize education on equal terms?
What is the role of critical public history in pushing this agenda forward?
What role can young people play in this struggle?
How can we work together to rebel?
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