Mobilizing for national inclusion: The discursivity of whiteness among texas Mexicans' arguments for desegregation

In January of 1948, Texas Mexican communities joined together, in Delgado v. Bastrop Independent School District (B.I.S.D.), to fight the segregation of students of "Mexican extraction" in Texas schools, a battle they expected would have to be fought all the way to the Supreme Court. A short six months later, a federal court in Austin ruled that the segregation of children of "Mexican extraction" was indeed unconstitutional. The ruling, which followed a similar California-based struggle, was based on the argument that segregation "within one of the great races" and by "national origin" was in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's protections of the rights of citizenship (Allsup). Not surprisingly, the victory was heralded as an instrumental moment in Texas Mexican history. For instance, community leaders Joe Garza, retiring vice president general of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), and Hector de Pena, president of the Corpus Christi LULAC, described the ruling as "a great step forward for the Latin American people" (quoted in "Segregation Ban" 1). In practice, the victory had less impact than was hoped for, as schools across Texas managed to circumvent the ruling in a variety of ways (Quiroz 49).