A Class Apart

How and why did many Mexicans become US citizens in 1848?

Racist attitudes against Mexican-Americans intensified in the 20th Century. Of mixed Spanish and Indian ancestry, Mexican-Americans did not fit into iron-clad racial categories: black or white.

Hundreds of thousands of Mexican-Americans fought in the US military in World War II. They suffered casualties and received honors disproportionate to their numbers, but came home to the same segregated country they had left.

In 1953, The lawyers in Hernandez v. Texas argued for their client as well as for themselves.

In the 1950s, Mexican-Americans took to the courts to get equality under the law, including the right to be tried by a jury of their peers.

The 1954 Supreme Court had little awareness of what life was like for Mexican-Americans.

This 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Hernandez v. Texas, was a major civil rights achievement, giving Mexican-Americans equal protection under U.S. law.

Hear some of the background on this story from Director/Producers Carlos Sandoval and Peter Miller.

A selection of scenes that were deleted from A Class Apart.

From a small-town Texas murder emerged a landmark civil rights case. The little-known story of the Mexican American lawyers who took Hernandez v. Texas to the Supreme Court, challenging Jim Crow-style discrimination.