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Speaker 1: Dear listener, o LA. Today on Latino USA, we want

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Speaker 1: to share with you the Pulso podcast, hosted by Liz

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Speaker 1: Alercon and Marie bel Guesada Smith. They too discuss issues

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Speaker 1: important to the Latino community, just like us. Often they

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Speaker 1: do this through the prism of history. Today, we're featuring

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Speaker 1: a story set in nineteen fifty one Texas. At the

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Speaker 1: center of it is a Latino farm worker who shoots

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Speaker 1: and kills a man at a bar. At his trial,

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Speaker 1: Latinos were not allowed on the jury, leaving an all

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Speaker 1: white group to decide his fate. The case would go

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Speaker 1: all the way up to the Supreme Court, ultimately changing

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Speaker 1: history and civil rights. Here are Liz Alercon and Marie

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Speaker 1: bel Gesada Smith with the episode Latinos Versus the State

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Speaker 1: of Texas.

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Speaker 2: It's August nineteen fifty one in a little town called Edna, Texas,

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Speaker 2: and a crime is about to take place.

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Speaker 3: A young MC American farm hand named Pete Hernandez walks

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Speaker 3: into Chinko Sanchez's tavern with a rifle. He pointed at

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Speaker 3: a man named Joe Espinos, who'd been bullying him earlier

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Speaker 3: that day, and fires a single bullet into his chest.

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Speaker 4: Joe dies on the spot.

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Speaker 3: Pete is arrested and put on trial for murder.

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Speaker 2: The case seems cut and dry, but when the all

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Speaker 2: white jury refuses to give Pete a fair trial, a

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Speaker 2: bold team of Latino lawyers decide it's time to fight back,

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Speaker 2: and their fight will alter the history of civil rights forever,

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Speaker 2: changing what it means to be Latino in the US.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to the Pulsa podcast, where we tell the untold

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Speaker 3: stories and unheard voices that make up our history, our culture. Noesrajente,

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Speaker 3: I'm Mariven.

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Speaker 2: And I'm Liz.

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Speaker 3: Today's episode is a story about a team of ambitious

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Speaker 3: Latino lawyers who decided it was time to change the

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Speaker 3: system from the inside.

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Speaker 2: You've heard us say this before. Being a Mexican American

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Speaker 2: in Texas during the nineteen fifties was not easy.

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Speaker 5: Mexicans were segregated in schools, they were segregated in the theaters.

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Speaker 5: They were even segregated in the cemeteries. So you had

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Speaker 5: a section for Mexicans and a section for others.

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Speaker 2: This is doctor Ignacio Garcia, professor at Brigham Young University

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Speaker 2: and author of White But Not Equal. When it comes

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Speaker 2: to the story, we're about to tell he's literally the

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Speaker 2: guy who wrote the book.

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Speaker 3: At this time, people of Mexican American descent were badly

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Speaker 3: discriminated against. Many lived in desperate circumstances, had very little rights,

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Speaker 3: and often faced violence or death if they spoke out.

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Speaker 5: It was very particularly difficult in the rural communities of

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Speaker 5: Texas to have a voice of the Texas Rangers and

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Speaker 5: very much regulated and controlled these communities.

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Speaker 3: And this is the backdrop where the catalyst of our story,

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Speaker 3: Pete Hernandez, comes into the picture.

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Speaker 5: Pete Hernandez was a young farm worker. He was a

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Speaker 5: Mexican American, one of these young men in these rural

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Speaker 5: communities without much future. He was no one's hero.

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Speaker 2: He was no one's hero. Pete had a rough hand

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Speaker 2: dealt to him. He was poor, he was physically disabled,

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Speaker 2: and he spent grueling days working in the fields.

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Speaker 5: He was small, he was brown, and so people have

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Speaker 5: picked on him.

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Speaker 3: And in a little town like Edna, Texas, there wasn't

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Speaker 3: much else to do other than work or drink. Naturally,

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Speaker 3: Pete and a friend end up at the local spot,

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Speaker 3: Jingo Sanchez's s tavern bar. After a few drinks, Pete

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Speaker 3: starts to get loud and make a bit of a scene.

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Speaker 3: And in the bar that day was a man named

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Speaker 3: Joe Espinoz, another Mexican American.

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Speaker 4: But Joe was a field boss.

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Speaker 3: He was the guy in charge of workers like Pete

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Speaker 3: and one of the few Mexican Americans who was respected

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Speaker 3: within the white community.

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Speaker 5: So he came up to Pete told him to shut up,

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Speaker 5: and they got into words.

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Speaker 2: An argument begins.

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Speaker 5: Joe and another farm worker from the community grabbed Pete

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Speaker 5: and they dragged him out and threw him out.

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Speaker 3: This was not the first altercation between them. Joe bullied

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Speaker 3: Pete regularly, but this time Pete was embarrassed, angry, and

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Speaker 3: wanted to get back at Joe.

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Speaker 5: He walked home, I got a twenty two and walked

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Speaker 5: back and he goes into the bar and he fires

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Speaker 5: and he kills him.

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Speaker 3: Pete shoots Joe Aspinosa in the chest, killing him on

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Speaker 3: the spot.

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Speaker 4: The police are called.

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Speaker 3: Pete is arrested, taken to jail, and tried for murder.

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Speaker 5: This is a very tight case. He murdered somebody. You

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Speaker 5: have witnesses, you know, there's nothing to litigate. He would

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Speaker 5: have easily gone to jail. Orden, they would have thrown

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Speaker 5: away the key and nobody would have remembered him.

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Speaker 2: But that's not what happened. Because Pete's mother refused to

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Speaker 2: give up on him. She went to San Antonio, looked

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Speaker 2: up lawyers and found Gus Garcia.

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Speaker 3: And this is where our story takes a significant turn.

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Speaker 3: Gus Garcia was a young, successful Mexican American lawyer from

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Speaker 3: San Antonio. By this point, he had already been involved

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Speaker 3: in the founding of the United Nations, worked as advisor

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Speaker 3: to the American gi Forum and helped these segregate schools

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Speaker 3: in Texas.

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Speaker 2: And Gus had a personality. He was charming, he was

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Speaker 2: charismatic and energetic. He was the guy that everyone would

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Speaker 2: turn to when he walked in the room. And Gus

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Speaker 2: wasn't alone. He was working alongside two brilliant Mexican American

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Speaker 2: lawyers named Carlos Karna and John Jay Erera. This was

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Speaker 2: an all star team.

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Speaker 5: When Peter nad this mom came over. She said, I

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Speaker 5: don't have any money, but my son is going to

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Speaker 5: be put to debt if he doesn't have good representation.

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Speaker 5: Gus Garcia argus that he had a weakness for crying mothers.

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Speaker 4: So they decide to take the case.

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Speaker 2: But this was not only out of a weakness for

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Speaker 2: crying mothers. They had a goal in mind. The criminal

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Speaker 2: justice system in Texas was incredibly unjust towards Mexican Americans,

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Speaker 2: and one major problem was that the state would never

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Speaker 2: allow them to sit on a which meant they could

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Speaker 2: never be guaranteed a fair trial. Guss and the team

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Speaker 2: of lawyers had been looking for a case that might

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Speaker 2: be able to change this and thought that maybe this

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Speaker 2: could be it.

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Speaker 3: So they poured through the wreckords of jury selections in

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Speaker 3: Jackson County where the crime took place, an area with

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Speaker 3: a large Hispanic population, and find that not one of

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Speaker 3: the six thousand jurors selected over the past twenty five

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Speaker 3: years had a Hispanic last name. And when they arrived

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Speaker 3: in court to the fen Pete, sure enough, they walk

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Speaker 3: in to find an all white jury, not a single

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Speaker 3: Latino on the bench.

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Speaker 5: The jury, you know, in a very short time, decides

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Speaker 5: that Pete is guilty and should go.

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Speaker 4: To jail ninety nine years in prison.

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Speaker 2: So the next step was to appeal the decision. They

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Speaker 2: went back to court again in Edna, Texas for the

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Speaker 2: appeals trial before a team of Hispanic lawyers arguing a

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Speaker 2: case in Edna was complicated during the trial, they weren't

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Speaker 2: even allowed to use the court bathroom. They had to

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Speaker 2: go to the basement to the bathroom labeled colored and

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Speaker 2: ombres aki. And this wasn't even the worst they had

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Speaker 2: to face.

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Speaker 5: They didn't want to stay in Edna. It was it

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Speaker 5: was dangered because Mexicans were pretty much marginalized and some

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Speaker 5: Mexican American with a suit and a nice car they

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Speaker 5: weren't seeing very highly.

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Speaker 3: So they would drive two hours back to San Antonio

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Speaker 3: each night to avoid trouble. But eventually Gus, being the

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Speaker 3: rebel he was, decided to try his luck and stay

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Speaker 3: in town for a while.

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Speaker 5: Gus decided to stay in Edna in a motel, supposedly

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Speaker 5: puts a table out front in the parking lot and

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Speaker 5: a chair and gets in a bottle of liquor, sits

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Speaker 5: there and screams out here I am come and get me.

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Speaker 3: His patience for the overt racism they faced was getting

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Speaker 3: thinner every day, but this wasn't enough to make a difference.

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Speaker 5: Yet the apuse cord comes back and says, no, you

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Speaker 5: have no grounds because your people are considered white and

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Speaker 5: so a group of twelve white guys is a jury

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Speaker 5: of your peers?

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Speaker 2: And this was the core question they were grappling with.

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Speaker 2: At the time. There was no legal room to be

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Speaker 2: something other than white or black. In this Jim Crow era,

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Speaker 2: segregation against Black Americans was legal and was used to

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Speaker 2: discriminate against them in all kinds of ways. But because

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Speaker 2: there was no legal definition of Mexican American or Hispanic

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Speaker 2: at the time, and they weren't black, then they could

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Speaker 2: only be white. And while this theoretically gave them the

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Speaker 2: same rights as white people, in reality they were discriminated

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Speaker 2: against just like other marginalized communities.

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Speaker 5: They kept being grown back to them and said, well,

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Speaker 5: you can't proclaim discrimination by you know, if you have

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Speaker 5: a jury of all white people, because you're white, right,

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Speaker 5: And so they had to hit back and say, well,

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Speaker 5: maybe I am white in terms of the legal sense,

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Speaker 5: but I'm not white in the way you treat me

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Speaker 5: or the way the law treats me. Yes, you're white,

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Speaker 5: but you're not Eco.

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Speaker 2: Mexican Americans were living in a gray zone where they

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Speaker 2: were discriminated against. But every time they spoke up about it,

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Speaker 2: the white community would say, but you're white, how can

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Speaker 2: you complain about having an all white jury? That's not discrimination?

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Speaker 2: So there was no legal protection for anything.

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Speaker 3: Now you might already be thinking it, but we can't

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Speaker 3: help point out an obvious issue with the logic. It

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Speaker 3: upholds a racist system. Here's Lisa Ramo's historian and professor

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Speaker 3: at San Antonio College.

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Speaker 6: It's not challenging white supremacy, it's upholding it. That argument

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Speaker 6: is saying the problem here is that we're whites, but

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Speaker 6: Texas won't accept it.

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Speaker 2: So in making this argument, the lawyers are not fighting

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Speaker 2: the worst injustice. But we have to understand that this

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Speaker 2: was one strategy to chip away at all the issues

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Speaker 2: one piece at a time, and that they were doing

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Speaker 2: the best they could.

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Speaker 5: Hear.

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Speaker 2: They didn't feel like it was possible to dismantle a

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Speaker 2: whole system, but they could at least get fair trials

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Speaker 2: and a recognition of Mexican American identity.

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Speaker 3: So after losing the case in the appeals court, they

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Speaker 3: took the next step sending it up to the Supreme Court.

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Speaker 2: Understand how risky this is. If they failed, then they

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Speaker 2: would have solidified the legal discrimination for years to come.

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Speaker 2: But if they succeeded, this could be the start of

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Speaker 2: a new era for Mexican Americans, a turning point.

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Speaker 4: But there was a problem.

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Speaker 3: Money. Sending a case to the Supreme Court meant paying

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Speaker 3: for months of work, legal fees, and sending the whole

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Speaker 3: team to DC. Luckily, words started to spread among the

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Speaker 3: Mexican American community and all throughout Texas people started giving

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Speaker 3: whatever money they could to support the cost.

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Speaker 4: People held fundraisers and concerts.

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Speaker 3: Poor farm hands would even give their crumpled up dollar bills.

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Speaker 5: There's a couple instances where prisoners, Mexican prisoners was send

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Speaker 5: a dollar fifty cents, you know, in support of the

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Speaker 5: the NANDAS case.

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Speaker 3: And with donations like these, the team packed up and

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Speaker 3: went to the nation's capital.

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Speaker 2: They arrive in Washington, d C. Ready to be the

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Speaker 2: first Mexican American lawyers to set foot inside the Supreme Court.

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Speaker 2: But all is not well.

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Speaker 5: Gus, you know, Gus was an alcoholic. He suffered from

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Speaker 5: alcohol abuse and the stress.

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Speaker 3: Got to him the night before their schedule to be

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Speaker 3: in court. Gus is nowhere to be found until around

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Speaker 3: four in the morning, when he stumbles into the hotel

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Speaker 3: so drunk he can barely walk. They throw him in

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Speaker 3: a cold shower, desperately trying to sober him up and

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Speaker 3: save the fate of the case.

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Speaker 2: Early in the morning, Gus and the rest of the

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Speaker 2: lawyers walk through the giant stone columns of the Supreme

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Speaker 2: Court and into the chamber where just a week earlier

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Speaker 2: Thurgood Marshall had been arguing the landmark case Brown versus

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Speaker 2: Board of Education. First, Carlos Calena goes up to the stand.

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Speaker 5: Carlos Cadena presented his brief, and Carlos Cadna was not

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Speaker 5: a very you know, flashy kind of speaker, but his

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Speaker 5: brief was really good. But when the judges started asking

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Speaker 5: him certain questions about, you know, things on the.

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Speaker 3: Ground, this is where he starts to stumble. Kadena is

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Speaker 3: a brilliant legal scholar, but he's struggling to get across

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Speaker 3: to the court just how bad things are in Texas.

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Speaker 3: And it's clear that the justices have no idea because

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Speaker 3: they've never even been addressed by Mexican Americans or even

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Speaker 3: thought about the issue of Mexican American rights from their

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Speaker 3: seats in Washington. They have no idea what's going down

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Speaker 3: in Texas. They ask dozens of questions.

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Speaker 2: What is a Mexican American.

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Speaker 4: Can they speak English?

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Speaker 2: Are they Mexicans?

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Speaker 4: They call them Greecers down there, don't they?

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Speaker 5: And so Gars Garcia then takes over.

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Speaker 2: Gus gets up to the podium and begins speaking. He

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Speaker 2: starts with a history lesson and says, my people were

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Speaker 2: in Texas one hundred years before Sam Houston, that wept

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Speaker 2: back from Tennessee. Yes, he refers to Sam Houston, the

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Speaker 2: former president of the Republic of Texas, as a wet

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Speaker 2: back because when Sam arrived, Mexican people were already there.

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Speaker 3: He describes the discrimination happening in Texas, the violence. He

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Speaker 3: captivates the entire room with his eloquent and passionate speech,

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Speaker 3: and then a small red light on the podium clicks on,

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Speaker 3: meaning that his time is up.

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Speaker 5: When you're speaking to the Supreme Court, to the justices,

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Speaker 5: and the light goes on, you stop, even if you're

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Speaker 5: in the middle of a word, you stop and you

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Speaker 5: sitdan it's over, And so of course Gus stops.

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Speaker 2: But the Chief Justice, Earl Warren, leans forward and says, continue,

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Speaker 2: mister Garcia, and Gus continues his speech for another sixteen minutes.

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Speaker 2: When the case is over, they head back to San

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Speaker 2: Antonio and all over town. Spanish language radio stations air

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Speaker 2: updates to the many people who contributed their heart earned

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Speaker 2: money towards the case.

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Speaker 5: Inform me respect to the castle, the peat the nandis

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Speaker 5: and come to theasentlemen, the angel Suprema Courts.

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Speaker 2: And then they wait four whole months of silence until

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Speaker 2: May second, nineteen fifty four, when the news comes in

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Speaker 2: the court had made its decision.

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Speaker 3: They unanimously ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment applied to all

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Speaker 3: racial and ethnic groups facing discrimination, and in excluding Hispanics

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Speaker 3: from jury duty, Texas had unreasonably singled out a class

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Speaker 3: of people for different treatment and deprived them of the

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Speaker 3: equal protection guaranteed by the Constitution. They had beaten Texas's

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Speaker 3: racist and unjust system. They had beaten the odds and

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Speaker 3: became the first Latino lawyers to argue and win a

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Speaker 3: case in the Supreme Court broadening civil rights laws to

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Speaker 3: include Hispanics and all other non whites for the first time.

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Speaker 2: In the end, Pete Hernandez was able to get a

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Speaker 2: new trial, this time with a jury that included several

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Speaker 2: Mexican Americans. He ended up serving twenty years in prison

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Speaker 2: instead of a life sentence. Carlos Galena and John Jay

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Speaker 2: Errera went on to have successful careers, but for.

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Speaker 4: Gus it didn't go so well.

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Speaker 3: He struggled deeply with his alcoholism for years, until eventually

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Speaker 3: he was abandoned by his friends and colleagues who could

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Speaker 3: no longer stand to see him destroy himself. He died

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Speaker 3: in nineteen sixty four, but he's always remembered as someone

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Speaker 3: who fought for the Latino community, and thanks to him

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Speaker 3: and the others, a precedent.

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Speaker 4: Was set that led to the successful.

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Speaker 3: Challenges of employment and housing discrimination, school segregation, and voting

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Speaker 3: rights barriers against Mexican Americans, things that helped improve the

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Speaker 3: lives of millions of Latinos nationwide. You can subscribe to

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Speaker 3: the pot wherever you get your podcasts, and if you

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Speaker 3: like what you heard, please leave us a review on

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Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts and tell a friend to give us a listen.

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Speaker 3: Have questions our story, ideas to send our way, send

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Speaker 3: us an email to info at Projectpulso dot org. This

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Speaker 3: episode of the Pulsa podcast was written and produced by

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Speaker 3: Charlie Garcia. It was edited by Lisa Larcon, Audio engineering

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Speaker 3: and mixing by Charlie Garcia. Music and additional audio engineering

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Speaker 3: by Julian Blackmore. Our hosts are Lisa Larcon and myself,

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Speaker 3: Marivel Cassara Smith. Special thanks to LULAC historian David Contreras.

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Speaker 3: You can learn more about the history of this case

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Speaker 3: in doctor Ignacio Garcia's book White But Not Equal,