Saving segregated 'Mexican' schools
We go to Marfa, Texas, where Latino students of a once-segregated school want to make it a national historic site.
Headlines From The Times · Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Gustavo Arellano, Denise Guerra, Shannon Lin, Kasia Broussalian, Melissa Kaplan, Ashlea Brown, Angel Carreras, Mario Diaz, Kinsee Morlan, Jazmín Aguilera, Shani O. Hilton
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Show Notes
Marfa, Texas, is known internationally for its arts scene. But on the south side of the city, there’s this old school. It’s a school where teachers once paddled Latino students for speaking Spanish. Now, some of those same students — grandparents and retirees in their 80s — are working to save the long-shuttered segregated Blackwell School and make it a national historic site to teach the history of segregated schools for Latinos in the United States.
This episode has been updated. An earlier version included audio of Jessi Silva describing an integrated school she attended in addition to the Blackwell School in Marfa, Texas. That school was in California, not Marfa.
More reading:
Saving the school where kids were paddled for speaking Spanish
Lorenzo Ramirez, late plaintiff in famed school desegregation case, honored by Orange