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Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of I Heart Radio, Hey

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Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Boglebaum. Here here in the United States,

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Speaker 1: it's Hispanic Heritage Month, but which officially began as Hispanic

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Speaker 1: Heritage Week in ninety eight. Unlike many other campaigns that

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Speaker 1: observe and honor the contributions of a particular group of Americans,

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Speaker 1: Hispanic Heritage Month doesn't run throughout September, but rather starts

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Speaker 1: on September fift and continues through mid October. So why

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Speaker 1: does it start in the middle of the month. Well

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Speaker 1: of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua all

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Speaker 1: celebrate their Independence Day on September. Mexico's is on September,

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Speaker 1: Chile's September eight, and belize Independence Day is September twenty one,

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Speaker 1: and by stretching into October, the holiday also includes Dia

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Speaker 1: de la Razza on October twelve, which is a kind

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Speaker 1: of rejection of Columbus Day because of Christopher Columbus's many

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Speaker 1: crimes against humanity and see our episode on Columbus Day

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Speaker 1: for more about that. Dia de Larrazza instead celebrates the

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Speaker 1: melding of Hispanic races or raza and cultures. In honor

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Speaker 1: of Hispanic Heritage Month, Let's talk about three times that

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Speaker 1: Hispanic Americans have changed the course of U s history.

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Speaker 1: Some three hundred years after Spanish conquerors became the first

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Speaker 1: non native Americans to view the Mississippi River and later

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Speaker 1: the Grand Canyon, when Josef Marian Hernandez helped smooth the

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Speaker 1: transfer of the territory of Florida into US rule. Florida

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Speaker 1: was still part of Spain when Hernandez was born in St.

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Speaker 1: Augustine in seventeen eighty four, but that changed when he

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Speaker 1: was selected to serve in the House of Representatives and

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Speaker 1: was sworn into duty in eighteen twenty three, as the

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Speaker 1: first Hispanic person to serve in Congress. In historical context,

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Speaker 1: Hernandez being a slave owner is a controversial figure. Still,

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Speaker 1: he remains the first of a hundred and twenty eight

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Speaker 1: Hispanic people to serve in the US Congress. Maybe of

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Speaker 1: more relevance today is the first Hispanic senator elected to

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Speaker 1: a full terming Congress, New Mexico's Denis Chavez. In but

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Speaker 1: we spoke with Paul Orretz, a historian at the University

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Speaker 1: of Florida. He said in addition to being the first

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Speaker 1: American born Hispanic senator, He's critical for the time we

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Speaker 1: live in because he fought on behalf of all working

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Speaker 1: class equally. He fought for higher wages legislation. He fought

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Speaker 1: for people to have the right to organize a union.

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Speaker 1: He fought for more progress in US foreign policy for

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Speaker 1: Latin America. He organized with n double A c P

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Speaker 1: leaders against Jim Crow's aggregation. Dennis Chavez is one of

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Speaker 1: those people. We can use Hispanic Heritage Month to talk

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Speaker 1: about our connection to other people's democratic struggles. Today's Congress,

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Speaker 1: the U sixt has forty seven members of Hispanic heritage.

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Speaker 1: Hispanic Americans also helped turn the tide of the Civil War.

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Speaker 1: Some twenty thousand were involved in the conflict. While some

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Speaker 1: in the Southeast sided with the Confederacy, especially those who

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Speaker 1: came from wealthy families with plantations or other businesses. In

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Speaker 1: Louisiana and Alabama, more supported the Union, or it's said

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Speaker 1: a lot of Mexican American soldiers fought on the side

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Speaker 1: of the Union Army in the Southwest and actually helped

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Speaker 1: defeat the Confederacy in the Southwest. Hispanic people in the

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Speaker 1: West backed the Mexican government too, and celebrated the country's

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Speaker 1: defeat of the French at the Battle of Puebla on

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Speaker 1: May five of eighteen sixty two, single Demio in a

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Speaker 1: victory that may have helped prevent the French from siding

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Speaker 1: with the Confederacy and thus ultimately helping the Union win.

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Speaker 1: A bit more modernly, about eight years before the U. S.

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court ruled in Brown versus the Board of Education

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Speaker 1: that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional, a Hispanic school

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Speaker 1: girl showed the way. Sylvia Mendez, a Puerto Rican and

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Speaker 1: Mexican heritage, was just eight years old when she and

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Speaker 1: her brothers were denied enrollment into the white only Westminster

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Speaker 1: School District in Orange County in ninety three. At the time,

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Speaker 1: about eight of cow Alifornia school districts were segregated. Her parents,

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Speaker 1: Gonzalo and Felicita Mendez, enlisted other parents to fight the decision,

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Speaker 1: and they took the school board to court. After appeals

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Speaker 1: that were abandoned short of the U. S. Supreme Court,

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Speaker 1: Mendez versus Westminster became the first successful federal school desegregation

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Speaker 1: case in the nation. That was in ninety seven. The

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Speaker 1: case was important in arguing that segregation itself, even if

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Speaker 1: schools were separate but equal, was harmful and unconstitutional under

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Speaker 1: the Fourteenth Amendment, specifically the clause that calls for equal

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Speaker 1: protection of the laws for all citizens in appeals. Sylvia's

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Speaker 1: case was argued by third Good Marshall, who went on

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Speaker 1: to argue for the plaintiff in the Brown versus Board

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Speaker 1: of Education case too, and later would become a Supreme

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Speaker 1: Court justice. Felicitas died in but Sylvia has continued to

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Speaker 1: tell her family story. In two thousand seven, a U. S.

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Speaker 1: Postage stamp marked the sixtieth anniversary of the case, and

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Speaker 1: on February, then President Barack Obama presented Sylvia with the

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Speaker 1: Presidential Medal of Freedom. Today's episode was written by John

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Speaker 1: Donovan and produced by Tyler clang Or. More on this

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Speaker 1: and lots of other historic topics, visit how Stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com. Brain Stuff is production of I Heart Radio

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Speaker 1: or more podcasts. My Heart Radio visit the I Heart

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Speaker 1: favorite shows.