Maria Jimenez came to Houston in the fifties and went to Franklin Elementary. It was here that she first experienced racism toward Mexican-Americans. At Franklin, she was not allowed to speak Spanish and was cut off from her culture entirely. Even speaking Spanish to classmates who understood it caused her to receive threats of being reported. Her teachers refused to pronounce her surname correctly and her classmates openly made fun of her heritage.
This article interested me because it shed light on the plight of the Mexican-American of the fifties and sixties. This is an issue which has been swept under the rug, so to speak. It seems to me that it has been obscured by the African-American Civil Rights movement, Gay Rights movement, and the Vietnam War protests. These were major events that dealt with pressing issues, but they seem to have garnered much more attention than the Mexican-American Civil Rights movement, which dealt with an equally pressing issue. It was interesting, albeit saddening, to be able to learn more about the daily lives of Mexican-Americans in a much more oppressive America.
https://houstonhistorymagazine.org/2015/07/a-life-of-activism-maria-jimenez/
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