American Experience

Ignacio García: If you can imagine Carlos Cadena and Gus García getting the opportunity that no one else has ever had, to be able to paint a picture of a community and where it stood in time, and all of the–the practices, the laws, the–the circumstances that keep them where they were.

Norma Cantú: “Carlos Cadena sitting at the counsel table wearing a very dark serious suit, Gus García sitting next to him. The nine justices sitting on a long bench facing the two sets of parties. The Texas Attorney General sitting at their own table ready to defend the state’s decision that Mexican Americans were really Whites.

Ian Haney-López: The lawyers in Hernandez needed to argue that the 14th Amendment protected Mexican Americans to a court that had barely ever heard of Mexican Americans.

Carlos Cadena: I opened the argument and I said “Your petitioner is a … an American citizen of Mexican descent” and one of the judges asked me “What is that?” “What the-you stupid guy everybody knows what that is!” But anyway I was explaining and Justice Frankfurter interrupted and said “they call him greasers down there don’t they?”

Ignacio García: Gus García who seemed to be “out of it,” during most of the presentation by Carlos Cadena, was suddenly awoken by, several questions that were asked by the judges – can Mexican Americans speak English, are they citizens? And I think was the key for … for Gus García, because Gus García tended to personalize that and he saw within himself all the abilities and qualities of the Mexican American community.

Narrator: Fueled by indignation, García offered the justices a brief irony-laced history lesson. “My people,” he told them, “were in Texas a hundred years before Sam Houston, that wetback from Tennessee.” And he was just getting started.

Bob Sánchez: Gus’s delivery was so eloquent, it was so beautiful, so penetrating, so down to earth in high…spun…legal argument.

Mike Herrera: There are some lights there on the rostrum and when the red light comes on, you stop. And everybody knew that. When the red light came on, Gus stopped in mid-sentence. And then Justice Earl Warren leaned off the bench and said, “Continue, Mr. García”.

John J. Herrera Audio: Gus García was told to proceed. So he stole sixteen extra minutes. So when we walked out of the Supreme Court of the United States he met with one of the attachés and the attaché was an old black man he says ‘this is unprecedented’ he says they’ve never even given extra time here to Thurgood Marshall and he was here last week.

Narrator: After years of planning and all the legal work, it was finally over. The case that the activists and lawyers had focused on for so long was now out of their hands. The exhausted Hernandez legal team headed home to await the court’s decision.

Soon after their return, García and Herrera went on the radio to share their tale with the public that had supported them with their dollars and their prayers.

Gus García Audio:
Para mi fue una gran satisfacción participar en este caso y decirles las verdades a los señores magistrados de la suprema corte en Washington. Y acuérdate Johnny que ni a ti, ni a Carlos Cadena ni a un servidor, nos han faltado palabras jamás para defender nuestros derechos.

SUBTITLE:It was very gratifying to be part of this case and speak the truth to the Supreme Court justices in Washington. And remember Johnny, neither you, nor Carlos Cadena, nor I have ever been at a loss for words to defend our rights.

Narrator: Finally, on May 3, 1954 the United States Supreme Court announced its ruling in the case of Hernandez v. Texas.

The decision of the Texas court was reversed. Pete Hernández would receive a new trial, before a true jury of his peers – a trial that would ultimately result in his reconviction for the killing of Joe Espinosa.

But far more important was the Court’s legal reasoning – a holding that Mexican Americans, as a group, were protected under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, in keeping with the theory that they were indeed “a class apart.” It was a victory for the ordinary people who had endured discrimination without recourse for generations, and the activists who had fought on their behalf.

For Carlos Cadena, the meticulous legal theorist.

And for Gus García, who had disproved the doubters, and triumphed despite his inner demons. Hailed as heroes, the Hernandez lawyers were applauded by Mexican Americans across the Southwest.

Ignacio García: In every place they went and spoke, it was about, “Look at what Mexican Americans have done. Look at what – how we presented our case to the nation. Look at how we have finally made the people of the United States listen. Now they know we’re here.”

Ian Haney-López: The victory in Hernandez was huge for the Mexican American community. They now had the highest court in the land saying it’s unconstitutional. Indeed, symbolically it’s un-American to treat Mexicans as if they’re an inferior race.

Narrator: With the decision and the power of the United States’ Constitution behind them, Mexican Americans successfully challenged employment and housing discrimination; they tore down barriers to their right to vote and run for office; they ensured that their children would no longer be forced to attend segregated schools.

Carlos Guerra: This case is incredibly important because it guarantees that even being different that we are still protected under the laws of this great land. I think Mexican Americans in particular, Latinos in general but America as a whole owes a great debt to the people who pursued this case.

Narrator: For Gus García, the future would be shadowed by tragedy. Not long after his legal triumph, his personal life spun out of control. Alcoholism would be cruelly compounded by mental illness, taking García in and out of institutions for the next decade.

Eleanor McCusker: I didn’t see him those last few months when they said he was just beyond himself in San Antonio.

Dr Ramiro Casso: All the reports that I got back were that his mind was deteriorating; that his behavior was changing. And he died on a bench. Isn’t that tragic, I mean somebody with such a brilliant mind, my God.

Narrator: Gus García died of liver failure in 1964, at age 48.
Less than a year later, Carlos Cadena would be named the first Mexican American justice of the Texas Court of Appeals, and would go on to become Chief Justice.

Narrator: After the Hernandez case, Mexican Americans across the country would no longer be considered second-class citizens under the law. The struggle was hardly over, but the lives of millions of Americans had been changed forever.

Ian Haney-Lopez: Hernandez v. Texas belongs in the pantheon of great civil rights cases, indeed of great American cases. But even more important, it belongs in the pantheon of great moments in American history. This is a moment when a people long regarded as inferior, organize and demand equal treatment and succeed in that demand. This is an inspirational moment in American history, a moment in which equality is demanded and achieved.