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Before Hernandez v. State of Texas Latinos were not treated fairly legally. This landmark case pointed out that Latinos were being discriminated against. For 25 years no person of Mexican American dissent served on a jury in Jackson County, Texas, despite having significant representation in the county (https://www.law.uh.edu/hernandez50/347_U_S_475.pdf). After this case people of different national backgrounds could be protected legally under the 14th Amendment. This first step paved the way for the Cisneros v. Christi case in 1970 which helped classify Latinos as a racial group along with blacks and caucasians. Latinos were no longer considered the "other white". And it became illegal for them to be discriminated against. After 1970, thanks to the brave lawyers who fought for justice in for Pedro Hernandez,  Latinos were fully protected by our Constitution.

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Topic Sentence: It caused the problem that made the Corpus Christi case necessary in that Mexican Americans were treated as the "other white" and used to show that schools were desegregated after Brown v Board of Education.

- the Hernandez case made it so that not all Mexican American communities were protected because it wasn't a race based decision - didn't clearly make them another race until Cisneros (358) -http://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1231&context=elj

Quotes:

1) "the Court failed to state
outright in Hernandez that classification as Latino or
Mexican American could be a distinct racial classification
and subject to Fourteenth Amendment protections." (358) - http://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1231&context=elj

2) "Some civil rights organizations have argued that
Hernandez u. Texas was debilitating to Mexican Americans
because it did not go far enough. James A. Ferg Cadima,
legislative staff attorney for the Mexican American Legal
Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), argues that
Hernandez stood in the way of equal protection because it
classified Mexican Americans as white and deprived them
of the benefits that Hernandez's companion case, Brown v.
Board of Education,:16 provided for blacks." - (360) http://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1231&context=elj

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Before 1954 Mexican Americans were not protected as a group under the 14th Amendment. Hernandez v. State of Texas changed that
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Before 1954, Latinos were not legally recognized as a separate group or minority entitled to certain protection and rights under the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution. In some states, like Texas, people involved in court cases were allowed to systematically exclude people of Mexican descent from serving on juries even when the accused person was of Mexican descent. Consequently, if a Mexican American was accused of a crime in one of these states the prosecutor could try and keep Latinos off the jury. As a result, the person accused would be more likely to be found guilty by a jury because the case would not be heard by a jury of his or her peers. In 1954, the United States Supreme Court changed this unequal and discriminatory treatment of Mexican Americans in the case of Pedro Hernandez v. The State of Texas. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court decided that what Texas was doing was unlawful discrimination and Mexican Americans were protected under the 14th Amendment and could not be excluded from juries based upon their heritage. This landmark case changed the way Mexican Americans were treated in America and legally paved the way for future decisions outlawing discrimination against Latinos in general.

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Most articles say that Latinos still are not getting equal representation on juries because of the rules around who gets on the jury related to language and background.

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Topic Sentence:
This was the foundation for the Cisneros v. Corpus Christi case, 18 years after, that made it so Latinos were considered a racial group along with blacks and caucasians.

Quotes:

1) "Cisneros v. Corpus Christi Independent School District (1970) was the first case to extend the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas decision (1954) to Mexican Americans. It recognized them as a minority group that could be and was frequently discriminated against." - https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/jrc02

2)
"Hernandez was the first case to take the issue of racial
bias against Mexican Americans to the national level.
Mexican Americans were able to use the precedent set in
Hernandez to implement the Fourteenth Amendment protections afforded to minority groups other than blacks in
order to desegregate using the principles established by
Brown v. Board of Education. In Cisneros v. Corpus Christi
Independent School District, 151 parents brought a class
action against the Corpus Christi Independent School
District and its Board of Trustees alleging that the schools
were segregated in Corpus Christi." (378-379) - http://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1231&context=elj

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Topic Sentence:
In a unanimous decision the US Supreme Court decided that Mexican Americans and all other national groups were protected under the 14th amendment.

Supreme Court decision

Quotes:

1) "Warren, Ch. J., speaking for a unanimous Court, reversed
the conviction, holding, first, that the state court
had erred in limiting the protective scope of the equal
protection clause to the white and Negro classes..." -  (P.2) https://www.law.uh.edu/hernandez50/347_U_S_475.pdf

2) Treated as a separate class and discrimination is shown.

"But it taxes our
credulity to say that mere chance resulted in there being
no members of this class among the over six thousand
jurors called in the past 25 years. The result bespeaks
discrimination, whether or not it was a conscious decision
on the part of any individual jury commissioner. The
judgment of conviction must be reversed." - https://www.law.uh.edu/hernandez50/347_U_S_475.pdf

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Topic Sentence:
Pedro Hernandez was convicted or murder by an all white jury. He was found guilty for murdering Joe Espinosa in Edna, Texas in. -(https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/jrh01)

Describing his case and who he was
- he was convicted of murder but he wasn't tried by a jury of his peers, he was tried by racists white people who convicted him of the murder

Quotes:

1) In the summary section of the Supreme Court decision:
"Prior to defendant's trial
for murder, he brought timely motions to quash the indictment
and the jury panel on the basis that persons of
Mexican descent who were otherwise qualified were systematically
excluded from service as jury commissioners,
grand jurors, and petit jurors, in violation of defendant's
rights as a member of the class." (P. 1) - https://www.law.uh.edu/hernandez50/347_U_S_475.pdf

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Topic Sentence:
Mexican Americans were considered white before 1954, and were not protected under the 14th Amendment

How they were treated before this landmark case
- They weren't protected under the 14th amendment --> they weren't seen as a separate group that could be treated badly
- no Mexican American's allowed on a jury

Quotes:
"The state of Texas contended that the Fourteenth Amendment covered only whites and blacks, and that Mexican Americans are white." -  https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/jrh01

"14th Amendment: Privileges and Immunities Clause:  No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States" - https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv/

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Hernandez v. The State of Texas was a landmark case that helped changed the way Latinos were treated in America legally

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How did the case of Hernandez v. State of Texas contribute to later cases and movements?

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This case made room for the case Cisneros v. Corpus Christi --> made it so Hispanics were considered a minority group

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Was the decision actually helpful to national groups (specifically Latinos)?

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Latinos were a minority

Latinos were discriminated against

Latinos were fighting for their rights through this case

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1) Why did the white majority separate/disconnect Mexicans' heritage from their race? *nationality v. race*
2) What was the historical context that let white people (the majority) believe that Mexican Americans were a separate group?
3) What was the effect of the outcome of this case on groups of people of the same national origin?

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1954 - Pedro Hernandez (Mexican American) --> realized Latinos were being discriminated against