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Floor Speech

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Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize an important part of Colorado history and of our Nation's history, the case of Francisco Maestas et al. v. George H. Shone et al. (1914)-- ``Maestas''--one of the Nation's oldest school desegregation cases.

In 1848, at the end of the Mexican-American War, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded most of present-day Colorado from Mexico to the United States. The resulting influx of Mexican settlers brought major economic, industrial, political, linguistic, and cultural challenges to the region, including questions regarding public education.

In the early 1910s, railroad foreman Francisco Maestas and other Mexican American parents sought to place their children into the public school on the ``White side'' of town in Alamosa, CO. After the school district repeatedly denied to enroll their children, Maestas and other parents formed the ``Spanish-American Union'' and brought together 180 parents on a petition to challenge Alamosa's school segregation. Their petition was denied, as was their attempt to seek assistance from the Colorado State superintendent. Following these denials, the community staged a boycott for 3 months to protest these injustices, to no avail.

Colorado's Constitution has long prohibited public schools from classifying and distinguishing school children based on color and race, but as the Maestas case demonstrates, school districts sometimes fell short of ensuring equity before the law. Faced with these repeated denials, the community continued to organize with the help of the Society for the Mutual Protection of Workers--SPMDTU--one of America's oldest mutual aid societies, and Father E.J. Montel, a Catholic priest, who helped them raise funds to hire legal representation and file a lawsuit against the Alamosa Board of Education.

The school district contended that since it viewed Mexican American students as part ``of the Caucasian race,'' it was not discriminating based on race but rather addressing its Spanish-speaking students' needs. However, the school district was disproven of its assertion when students answered questions in English while on the stand.

In March of 1914, the district court ruled in favor of Francisco Maestas, stating that ``the only way to destroy this feeling of discontent and bitterness which has recently grown up, is to allow all children so prepared, to attend the school nearest them''--an early and important step toward desegregation and a victory for Colorado's Mexican American community.

In recent years, bipartisan leaders in Colorado have worked to ensure this landmark case gets the recognition it deserves. After the Colorado Legislature and the State board of education recognized the case as a significant Colorado court decision, it is now taught as part of the revised social studies curriculum for all Colorado high school students. Now, schoolchildren across Colorado will learn about Colorado's early steps toward ensuring equity in education for students from all backgrounds.

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