Presentation
Exploring the little-known history of the first school system in Texas organized ‘top to bottom’ by Mexican Americans
Fronteras, Texas Public Radio, KSTX 89.1
(2023)
Abstract
This radio program explores a Latino community in the borderlands city of Del Rio, Texas, that, in 1929, established the first and perhaps only autonomous Mexican-American school system called the San Felipe Independent School District against a background of institutional racism, poverty, and segregation. As detailed in the forthcoming publication, Raza Schools, this program traces the experiences of the residents of San Felipe who faced a Jim Crow society in which deep-seated discrimination extended to education, making biased curriculum, inferior facilities, and prejudiced teachers the norm. Moreover, this program highlights how the people of San Felipe harnessed the mechanisms and structures of this discriminatory system to create their own educational institutions, using the courts whenever necessary to protect their autonomy. For forty-two years, the Latino community funded, maintained and managed its own school system—until 1971, when, in an attempt to address school segregation, the federal government forced San Felipe ISD to consolidate with a larger neighboring, predominantly white school district. This program concludes with a description of the ensuing clashes—over curriculum, school governance, teachers’ positions, and funding—as several multiracial communities in Del Rio struggled to find and maintain a sense of pluralism.
Jesús Esparza, Associate Professor of History at Texas Southern University in Houston, explores the conflict between the two school districts in his upcoming book, Raza Schools: The Fight for Latino Educational Autonomy in a West Texas Borderlands Town (Sept. 19, 2023).
Keywords
- education,
- civil rights,
- activism,
- community
Disciplines
Publication Date
Summer July 28, 2023
Location
San Antonio, Texas
Citation Information
“Exploring the Little-Known History of the First School System in Texas Organized ‘Top
to Bottom’ by Mexican Americans.” Fronteras, Texas Public Radio, KSTX 89.1 FM, San Antonio, Texas. Interviewed July 19, 2023. Aired July 28, 2023. https://www.tpr.org/podcast/fronteras/2023-07-28/fronteras-exploring-the-little-known-history-of-the-first-school-system-in-texas-organized-top-to-bottom-by-mexican-americans.