Separate is Never Equal

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This picture book follows the true story of Sylvia Mendez family and their fight to get the schools in their area desegregated. When Sylvia and her family moved to a new area for her father to run a farm and her aunt takes her up to the school to register the children in the family, they are informed that there is a Spanish school. After hearing this Sylvia's father is outraged and tries to find a way for her to attend the other school with all of the other children. He goes to many different people, hearing the same answer from everyone. By the end of the story, with help from other cultures and their groups, Sylvia and her family win two lawsuits, bringing in the law that everyone can attend the same school, no matter their race or skin color.

This book shows how, even during World War II, Hispanic people were still being segregated in the United States. The reasoning that the Hispanic students were not allowed to attend the school with the other students are unfounded, but show the example of how Hispanic people were treated in this time. At the end of the book the author includes pictures and a short description regarding the real Sylvia Mendez.

Even though it is a great deal longer, Echo is a great companion story for this book. Within Echo, one of the three stories is about Ivy, a young girl who is going through the exact same issue as Sylvia Mendez. When reading Echo, this story would be a great one to bring in more detail about this specific issue and time period.

This book was reviewed by Booklist, an excerpt of the review follows:

Grades 2-5. Pura Belpré Award–winning Tonatiuh (Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote, 2013) makes excellent use of picture-book storytelling to bring attention to the 1947 California ruling against public-school segregation. The concise, informative text, with occasional and always translated Spanish lines, discusses how being banned from enrolling in an Orange County grade school because of her skin tone and Mexican surname inspired Sylvia Mendez’ family to fight for integrated schools. Soon they were joined by many others, including the NAACP and the Japanese American Citizens League, which led to their hard-won victory. Tonatiuh’s multimedia artwork showcases period detail, such as the children’s clothing and the differences between the school facilities, in his unique folk art style. An endnote essay recapping the events, photos of Sylvia and her schools, and a glossary and resource list for further research complete this thorough exploration of an event that is rarely taught. This would be a useful complement to other books about the fight for desegregation, such as Deborah Wiles’ Freedom Summer (2001) or Andrea Davis Pinkney’s Sit-In (2010).

Citation: 

Tonatiuh, D. (2014). SEPARATE IS NEVER EQUAL. New York, NY: Abrams.