How Have Hispanic Americans Helped Shape the U.S.?

does it start in the middle of the month. Well of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua all

celebrate their Independence Day on September. Mexico's is on September, Chile's September eight, and belize Independence Day is September twenty one, and by stretching into October, the holiday also includes Dia de la Razza on October twelve, which is a kind of rejection of Columbus Day because of Christopher Columbus's many crimes against humanity and see our episode on Columbus Day for more about that. Dia de Larrazza instead celebrates the

melding of Hispanic races or raza and cultures. In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, Let's talk about three times that Hispanic Americans have changed the course of U s history. Some three hundred years after Spanish conquerors became the first non native Americans to view the Mississippi River and later the Grand Canyon, when Josef Marian Hernandez helped smooth the

transfer of the territory of Florida into US rule. Florida was still part of Spain when Hernandez was born in St. Augustine in seventeen eighty four, but that changed when he was selected to serve in the House of Representatives and was sworn into duty in eighteen twenty three, as the first Hispanic person to serve in Congress. In historical context, Hernandez being a slave owner is a controversial figure. Still, he remains the first of a hundred and twenty eight

Hispanic people to serve in the US Congress. Maybe of more relevance today is the first Hispanic senator elected to a full terming Congress, New Mexico's Denis Chavez. In but we spoke with Paul Orretz, a historian at the University of Florida. He said in addition to being the first American born Hispanic senator, He's critical for the time we live in because he fought on behalf of all working

class equally. He fought for higher wages legislation. He fought for people to have the right to organize a union. He fought for more progress in US foreign policy for Latin America. He organized with n double A c P leaders against Jim Crow's aggregation. Dennis Chavez is one of those people. We can use Hispanic Heritage Month to talk about our connection to other people's democratic struggles. Today's Congress, the U sixt has forty seven members of Hispanic heritage.

Hispanic Americans also helped turn the tide of the Civil War. Some twenty thousand were involved in the conflict. While some in the Southeast sided with the Confederacy, especially those who came from wealthy families with plantations or other businesses. In Louisiana and Alabama, more supported the Union, or it's said a lot of Mexican American soldiers fought on the side of the Union Army in the Southwest and actually helped

defeat the Confederacy in the Southwest. Hispanic people in the West backed the Mexican government too, and celebrated the country's defeat of the French at the Battle of Puebla on May five of eighteen sixty two, single Demio in a victory that may have helped prevent the French from siding with the Confederacy and thus ultimately helping the Union win.

A bit more modernly, about eight years before the U. S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown versus the Board of Education that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional, a Hispanic school girl showed the way. Sylvia Mendez, a Puerto Rican and Mexican heritage, was just eight years old when she and her brothers were denied enrollment into the white only Westminster School District in Orange County in ninety three. At the time,

about eight of cow Alifornia school districts were segregated. Her parents, Gonzalo and Felicita Mendez, enlisted other parents to fight the decision, and they took the school board to court. After appeals that were abandoned short of the U. S. Supreme Court, Mendez versus Westminster became the first successful federal school desegregation

case in the nation. That was in ninety seven. The case was important in arguing that segregation itself, even if schools were separate but equal, was harmful and unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment, specifically the clause that calls for equal protection of the laws for all citizens in appeals. Sylvia's case was argued by third Good Marshall, who went on to argue for the plaintiff in the Brown versus Board of Education case too, and later would become a Supreme

Court justice. Felicitas died in but Sylvia has continued to tell her family story. In two thousand seven, a U. S. Postage stamp marked the sixtieth anniversary of the case, and on February, then President Barack Obama presented Sylvia with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Today's episode was written by John Donovan and produced by Tyler clang Or. More on this and lots of other historic topics, visit how Stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production of I Heart Radio

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