Ann S. Epstein Writer

The first successful school desegregation court order happened 23 years before Brown v. Topeka Board of Education. On January 5, 1931 in San Diego, California, Lemon Grove Grammar School principal Jerome Green, acting under instructions from school trustees, turned away Mexican children. In the resulting lawsuit (Roberto Alvarez v. the Board of Trustees of the Lemon Grove School District), the Superior Court of San Diego County ruled that building a separate school for the children of 50 Mexican families (said to be “backward and deficient” and in need of special Americanization education) violated CA laws because ethnic Mexicans were considered white under the state’s Education Code (which did allow segregating Oriental, Negro, and Indian children). Read more about this 1931 San Diego case as well as the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court Topeka ruling in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

In the last century, San Diego’s Italian immigrant population was small compared to other cities, but the “Italian Colony” (often called “Little Italy” elsewhere) was tight-knit and insular. Many became fisherman, especially hauling in tuna, although their livelihood was threatened when the U.S. imported tuna from other locations, such as Japan, and canned it for domestic consumption. Read more about poor labor conditions in the tuna industry in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

Marshall Field & Company, a Chicago landmark built 1891-1892, boasted lavish restaurants. The Narcissus Tea Room for women was named for a bronze statue atop a huge center fountain. Chicken croquettes cost 45¢. The Men’s Grill, where no women were allowed, featured heavy walnut furniture and table-cloth free tables. Read more Chicago history in Tazia and Gemma (see (NOVELS).

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case that declared separate public schools for black and white students to be unequal and hence unconstitutional. The unanimous decision paved the way for subsequent civil rights legislation. Read more about race relations in Topeka and elsewhere 50-100 years ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

In 1910, there were only two Chinese Americans listed in the Las Vegas census. One immigrated in 1878, the other in 1880. Both owned laundries and lived on the same street. A somewhat larger Chinese community lived in outlying Clark County, mainly single males or men with wives left behind in China due to racist immigration restrictions in the U.S. Read more about the life of a lonely Chinese American during this period in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Topeka’s “Smoky Row,” set among the commercial buildings of lower Kansas Avenue, was the site of pool halls, liquor joints, and brothels. This disreputable area was a colorful part of Topeka’s turn-of-the-century prohibition history. Read more Topeka and Kansas history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle, detailing the horrors of the Chicago meat-packing industry, was first published in serial form in the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason. Sinclair spent seven weeks as an undercover worker at a plant to research the story. What he revealed was so repulsive that U.S. meat consumption fell by half. Read more Chicago and labor history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).