In January 1931, 12-year-old Roberto Alvarez was among 75 Mexican-American students returning to the Lemon Grove Grammar School after their Christmas break.
But when the students approached the school’s entrance, they were blocked by the principal. He told them that henceforth they would be attending classes in a separate building – segregated from the school’s white students.
Shortly after the confrontation, which became known as the “Lemon Grove Incident,” the students refused to attend the school. Their parents formed the Comite de Vecinos de Lemon Grove (The Lemon Grove Neighbors Committee) and took the school district to court.
Alvarez was the lead plaintiff, representing the students.
In March of that year, a San Diego Superior Court judge ruled in favor of the students and reintegrated the school. The victory was an important precursor to the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, which outlawed school segregation nationwide.
On Tuesday, nearly a century later, the Lemon Grove City declared March as “Lemon Grove Incident month.” Alvarez’s son, Roberto Alvarez Jr., attended the council meeting. In an interview with KPBS, he said the case remains an important history lesson, especially in light of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
“In some ways it's very difficult, because … all the work that they did back in 1930-31 and all the success that the country had … and the period of the civil rights movement,” Alvarez Jr. said. “We thought we had won a battle. I think we did win a battle. But you know, it's coming back to haunt us again. I mean, the same type of sentiment.”
Same sentiment, different era
The school board’s push for a segregated school came during the Great Depression, another time when anti-immigrant sentiment was strong in California and across the country.
During the 1930s, approximately 400,000 American citizens and legal residents of Mexican ancestry were deported to Mexico, according to the California Legislature.
A San Diego History Center article written by Alvarez Jr. quotes a news story from January 1931: “Aliens who are deportable will save themselves trouble and expense by arranging their departure at once,” the story said.
It was against this backdrop that Alvarez Sr. and his classmates were turned away from their school. Alvarez Jr. says the case could have been lost to history.
“My father never told me about it,” Alvarez Jr. said. “(He) never told us about it.”
In the 1970s, Alvarez Jr. researched his family’s history while completing his PhD dissertation in San Diego on immigration. Family members told him about “the school thing.”
He asked his father about it. Alvarez Sr. told him that his grandmother had saved a box with documentation from the incident. It was the first time Alvarez Jr. saw the newspaper clippings and school board minutes. His discovery came at a time when there was a push for language assimilation in the U.S.
“That kind of spurred me as well to talk about the case and talk about the fact that these people stood for their rights and actually won this case,” Alvarez Jr. said.
Since then, Alvarez Sr.’s legacy has been recognized in Lemon Grove. The Lemon Grove Academy Middle’s auditorium is named in his honor, and a mural at The Neighborhood events center tells the story of the Lemon Grove Incident.
But Alvarez Jr. says the real narrative of this push for school desegregation goes beyond Lemon Grove.
“I really try to make this not so much just a story of Lemon Grove but a story of the movement… a very large movement of Mexican immigrants and Mexican citizens fighting (for) desegregation,” Alvarez Jr. said.
Preserving history
In this current moment, community members like Anne Stapleton, pastor of the Grace Communion church, have joined in. She helps preserve the Lemon Grove Incident mural at The Neighborhood event center.
“This Lemon Grove Incident is just one more demarcation that civically we need to all gather together and protect our neighbors and stand up with our neighbors and do what's right,” Stapleton said. “So that our neighbors have equal access and voices when they don't have a voice.”
Stapleton has planned several events this month at The Neighborhood.
Alvarez Jr. is now a grandfather. He shares the family history with the generations that have come after him.
“That whole generation needs to be aware that this is part of who they are and what they need to keep struggling for,” Alvarez Jr. said. “That's the big message of Lemon Grove.”
There will be several events this month celebrating the anniversary. On March 7, The Neighborhood event center will be open to the public, showcasing the mural, some articles and historic mementos and a documentary commemorating the case. On March 29, the space will host a larger celebration.
