Before Heman Sweatt, an African-American from Houston, won his lawsuit to attend the University of Texas (UT) School of Law, Carlos Cadena, a Mexican-American from San Antonio, was among its brightest students. Cadena graduated summa cum laude from the law school in 1940, a decade before Sweatt's lawsuit forced UT to open its graduate and…

This article takes a look at the Mendez v. Westminster School District, a landmark case that faded into historical obscurity. In the 1940s, Gonzalo and Felicita Mendez wanted their three children to attend the school nearest their farm, which was the 17th Street Elementary School in Westminster. But in the Westminster, Orange County, El Medina,…

As a student in the Chicana/o studies program at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), Jesse S. Arrieta decided that her classroom instruction about the culture and history of people of Mexican origin wasn't enough. Arrieta, 27, who graduated from UTEP in 2002 before earning a master's in American history from the University of California,…