Chapter 5 Timeline- Group 4 (Ben Lakly, Eve Mungai, Grace Williams, Caitlyn Morning, and John Moseley)

By cmorning

  • Whites Only Naturalization Act

    This law provides the context for all the historical developments to come. It declared U.S. citizenship to free white people who didn’t claim any foreign relations. This was the first time the United States had any defined process for citizenship. Any future considerations of citizenship would have to be compared to this act and prove more culturally relevant.

  • Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

    This Treaty ended the Mexican-American war, causing discussion about what would happen to the people in lands America had conquered. As party of the treaty, America essentially bought the land they had conquered and began to discuss citizenship of the people there. Eventually, it was decided to grant them citizenship and, hypothetically, the privelages that followed.

  • Civil Rights Act

    This is a foundational document of American history, resulting from Reconstruction’s efforts to repair the South. The point of this Law is to guarantee U.S. citizenship to any person born in the United States of America. It prepared the constitution for the 14th Amendment, which aimed for similar goals as this law.

  • Plessy v Ferguson

    This Supreme Court case created the doctrine of separate but equal. This allowed schools and other public facilities to segregate based on race, under the guise that facilities would be equally adjusted to either race. This decision caused an outcry in oppressed communities and was a center of controversy when it was decided.

  • Foraker Act- Americanization of Puerto Rico

    This act was the “official” Americanization of Puerto Rico, it required there to be a celebration of US holidays, pledging to the United States flag, replacing the textbooks in schools with American ones, and many other things. This act also brought in American teachers to Puerto Rico, causing native Puerto Ricans to have less jobs. They also attempted to make English the language of instruction despite everyone speaking Spanish.

  • Strike at Central High School

    After collecting signatures to support legislation that would make Spanish the instructional language in Puerto Rican schools, Francis Grovas was expelled from Central High School in Puerto Rico. This resulted in a strike at the school, and any student who was to participate would be suspended. The students were unfazed and continued to fight for independence.

  • Jones Act

    The Jones Act granted U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans. This monumental legislation brought together Americans and Puerto Ricans, although Puerto Ricans cant do everything that other U.S. citizens can do, it created a sense of familiarity and commonality between them. While Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, they cannot vote in national elections, but they were obligated to serve in the U.S. military.

  • League of United Latin American Citizens

    Formed in Texas as a way to combat discrimination, the LULAC was a civil rights organization advocating for Latino rights. This group focused on desegregating schools, expanding voting rights, and fighting against discrimination in the workplace. The legal battles formed from this, as well as its advocacy, paved the way for challenging racial exclusion in public schools.

  • Del Rio ISD vs. Salvatierra

    Also being a Texas court case, it was one of the first legal challenges to school segregation of Mexican American Citizens. In this case, Parents sued the school district for purposefully segregating their children. Although the court was able to visibly see this discrimination, it ultimately ruled against these parents and used the argument of the schools still abiding by the separate but equal laws in facilities.

  • The Padin Reform

    The Padin reform changed the instructional language to Spanish in Puerto Rican elementary schools. This reform was a result of protests against the English policies in schools. Despite the change in the instructional language to Spanish for elementary students, English textbooks remained, and it also remained the instructional language in high schools.

  • Zoot Suit Riots

    Taking place in Los Angeles, the Zoot Suit Riots broke out as U.S. servicemen and white civilians attacked Mexican American children, targeting them because of the specific clothes they were wearing. These riots were a symbol for the intense racial tensions in the community that were fueled by anti-Mexican initiatives and systemic exclusion. As a result of this, law enforcement blamed the victims of these crimes, which ultimately reinforced institutional discrimination.

  • Mendez vs. Westminster

    Being one of the landmark cases in California, Sylvia Mandez and her family sued a school district for excluding Mexican American children from attending white schools. The court ruled that school segregation was unconstitutional, which set a legal precedent that influenced Brown v. Board of Education. This case ended with a huge victory over segregation.

  • Spanish is Instituted as language used in Puerto Rican Schools

    Mariano Villaronga had expressed the intent to institute Spanish as the language used in schools after being appointed as commissioner of education by President Harry S. Truman in 1946, but was forced to resign before he could. After being reinstated as commissioner of Education by the first elected governor of Puerto Rico, Luis Meñoz Martin, Mariano Villaronga instituted Spanish as the language of education in Puerto Rico. English was taught as a special subject in Puerto Rican schools.

  • McCarran-Walter Act

    This law made it so that people who wanted to immigrate to America wouldn't be able to get in unless they were from Northern and Western Europe. This act would affect the classroom because it wouldn’t be as diverse, and students wouldn’t know how to interact with those who don’t look like them or act like them. This law also made it easier to deport people if there was suspicion that those people were connected to radicalized groups.

  • The Civil Rights Act of 1964

    This law that was signed instituted that all places- including schools must desegregate(among many other things). While this did create an uproar among many groups, it also allowed schools to be more diverse and for funding to not only go to the white schools, while the colored schools had to remain receiving the already used items.

  • Bilingual Education Act

    Enacted on January 2, 1968, the Bilingual Education Act (BEA) was the first federal legislation to address the needs of students with limited English-speaking abilities. While it aimed to support Spanish-speaking and other non-English-speaking students, funding was limited, and many schools failed to fully implement bilingual programs, continuing to exclude Latino students from equal educational opportunities.

  • Lau v. Nichols

    On January 21, 1974, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Lau v. Nichols that a California school district receiving federal funds must provide non-English-speaking students with instruction in the English language to ensure they receive an equal education. While this was a victory, many Latino students still faced barriers to accessing quality bilingual education due to a lack of enforcement and resources.

  • Plyer Vs. Doe

    The Supreme Court ruled that “illegal aliens” are protected under the 14th Amendment protection clause, meaning that students who are undocumented have the same rights to education as legal students. This also enforced that schools are not allowed to report to ICE, require an SSN, or question the immigration status of a student.

  • Proposition 187 in California

    On November 8, 1994, California voters approved Proposition 187, a ballot initiative that sought to deny undocumented immigrants access to public services, including education and healthcare. Those who opposed this act created many large protests. Though it passed, it faced legal challenges and was later ruled unconstitutional, highlighting ongoing exclusionary policies targeting Latino communities.

  • Immigration Protest

    Between March and May 2006, millions of Latinos and allies marched across the United States to protest proposed federal legislation (H.R. 4437) that would have criminalized undocumented immigrants and those who assisted them. These protests were among the largest mass mobilizations in U.S. history, demonstrating Latino resistance to exclusionary immigration policies.