This is a short diary. A friend who teaches Chicano Studies posted this article from HuffPo http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... and I thought I would share. The article is worth reading and if you have not watched the PBS documentary A Class Apart, it is well worth looking up. (Link is further down)
Frequently we forget our heroes, especially those that were early in the fight. Gus Garcia is one of those. Every Mexican American and most Hispanics should know his name and his story ... unfortunately it is not a story that is told often, neither is it a story that is in any history book. Mostly Hispanics tend not to be noticed, as the article states:
The fact that he [Gus Garcia]is not a household name is no surprise to us.
We register on the American Imagination in three phases.
First, we are invisible.
Then, we are vilified.
Then, we are accepted, but as only a consumer group.
We are never imagined as Intellectuals. This step is key to fully entering the American Imagination. But we are at a point in history where we can achieve this, and the story of Gus Garcia is powerful and tragic enough to get us there.
In 1954, Garcia argued and won the landmark case, Hernandez v. Texas, which established Mexican Americans as a protected class and served as a vital precedent for civil rights. He died in 1965, on a bench in Ben Milan Park in San Antonio, homeless, suffering from alcoholism and mental illness.
One of the comments was from a relative:
rubiograce
22 hours ago (10:21 PM)
Mr. Gus (Arguindegui) Garcia was my Uncle. My Father, Homero (Arguindegui) Rubio looked so much like him. They were both originally from Laredo,TX. I wish I could personally thank Eva Longoria for buying the rights to make this film. I am also from Corpus Christi,TX. His story has a sad ending but what he did and how he stood and defended the Mexican Americans was heroic. During the trial he needed to use the bathroom and was told the bathroom for Blacks and Mexicans was in the basement. The bathroom on the same floor was for the White folks only! How about that!
Apparently, Eva Longoria wants to make a movie of his life possibly based on the PBS documentary A Class Apart
http://www.pbs.org/... and Texas Senator Sylvia Garcia wants to name this Saturday, July 27, the first annual Gus Garcia Day. There are some events scheduled in Houston.
I will leave you with a quote from Gus Garcia when he first went to argue his case before the Supreme Court:
The Justices asked: "Can Mexican Americans speak English?' and "Are they citizens?"
It was Gus Garcia who set the tone of the proceedings with his now famous reply, "My people were in Texas a hundred years before Sam Houston, that wetback from Tennessee."
Sorry I have to post and run but I am taking care of 7 month old twins and running ragged.