Books: Fiction

Sylvia & Aki

Book — Historical fiction. By Winifred Conkling. 2011. 160 pages.
Based on the true story of two girls who meet in 1940s California and a landmark lawsuit on education.

Time Periods: 20th Century
Themes: Asian American, Civil Rights Movements, Education, Latinx, Laws & Citizen Rights, Organizing, Racism & Racial Identity
Levels: Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8
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Sylvia & Aki is a middle school book based on the true stories of Sylvia Mendez and Aki Munemitsu Nakauchi, two 3rd graders whose lives are connected by history. When Munemitsu’s family is forced to leave their home in Westminster, California to a Japanese American incarceration camp in Arizona, the Mendez’s move into their home.

Sylvia Mendez looks forward to her first day of school, only to be told she and her siblings cannot enroll, whereas her lighter skinned cousins can. This leads to the ground-breaking Mendez v. Westminster School District desegregation lawsuit which preceded Brown v. Board. Munemitsu worries everyday about her father who is incarcerated separately for most of WWII.

This book of historical fiction by Winifred Conkling (author of Passenger on the Pearl: The True Story of Emily Edmonson’s Flight from Slavery) alternates chapters between the experiences of Sylvia and Aki, introducing the reader to the daily injustices of incarceration and school segregation. [Adapted from publishers’ description.]

ISBN: 9781582463377 | Tricycle Press/Random House

Four other Orange County families joined the Mendez family in the class action lawsuit to fight against Mexican American school segregation. These include the families of Thomas Estrada and William Guzman of Santa Ana, Frank Palomino of Garden Grove, and Lorenzo Ramirez of Orange. Too often the other plaintiffs are left out of this history. It is important to recognize their struggles and commitments.

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Related Resources
Japanese American Internment Featured Image
Teaching Activities (Free)

A Lesson on the Japanese American Incarceration

Teaching Activity. By Mark Sweeting. Rethinking Schools. 4 pages.
How one teacher engaged his students in a critical examination of the language used in textbooks to describe the Japanese American incarceration.

Picture Books

Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation

Picture book. By Duncan Tonatiuh. 2014. 40 pages.
Upper elementary school picture-book about the Mendez v. Westminster case to desegregate California schools.

Books: Non-Fiction

Mendez v. Westminster: School Desegregation and Mexican-American Rights

Book — Non-fiction. By Philippa Strum. 2010. 186 pages.
Description of a pre-Brown v. Board desegregation court case involving Mexican-American families.

Films

The Road to Brown

Film. By William Elwood. 1990. 56 minutes.
The little known story of Charles Hamilton Houston who paved the road to Brown v. Board.

This Day in History

Feb. 18, 1946: Courts Ruled in Favor of the Mendez Family

The courts ruled in favor of the Mendez family and their co-plaintiffs in California, finding segregated schools to be unconstitutional.

This Day in History

April 14, 1947: Mendez, et al. v. Westminster Ruling

When Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez, two California farmers, sent their children to a local school, their children were told that they would have to go to a separate facility reserved for Mexican American students.