Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez United States Courthouse

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 5754, which designates the Federal courthouse in Los Angeles, California, as the Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez United States Courthouse.

The Mendezes were activists whose efforts culminated in the 1946 Federal court case Mendez v. Westminster School District of Orange County. This helped to end segregation in California schools and helped pave the way for desegregation efforts nationwide.

Mrs. Mendez was born in Puerto Rico and moved with her family to California at the age of 12. She and her family encountered discrimination and racism in California because of their Puerto Rican heritage. She married Gonzalo Mendez, a Mexican immigrant who had become a naturalized U.S. citizen. They had several children and operated a successful agriculture business in southern California.

The Mendezes attempted to enroll their children in a local school but were rejected because of their Mexican names and appearance. In response, the Mendezes bravely organized and filed a lawsuit against the local school district to end the district's practice of segregating Mexican schoolchildren.

After they won the case in 1946 and won a subsequent appeal in 1947, the State of California took the further action of enacting a law officially desegregating California public schools, making it the first State in the country to do so.

The law was signed by then-Governor Earl Warren. Seven years later, Mr. Warren, then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, wrote the opinion in Brown v. Board of Education in which the Court ruled that segregation of any kind in public schools is unconstitutional.

If H.R. 5754 is enacted, the Los Angeles Federal courthouse would be the first courthouse in the Nation named after a Latina.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly support this legislation and urge my colleagues to do the same.
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Ms. TITUS. Mr. Speaker, I strongly support this historic legislation, I urge my colleagues to do the same, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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