Class Motto: Never Again : Segregated La Habra School Spawned Activists Who Work to Inspire Latino Students to Strive

Enrique (Kiki) Zuniga believes education fosters ethnic pride. He volunteers countless hours in classrooms at local high schools and in jails, determined to persuade Latinos to strive for higher education.

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What drives this Fullerton College professor is the memory of his own grade school education.

Zuniga, 55, is one of hundreds of Latinos who attended the racially segregated Wilson Grammar School in La Habra more than 44 years ago. Of the school’s graduates still living in Orange County, many have become community activists, seeking to inspire other Latinos to excel in school and achieve success in life by building self-esteem.

“We got such an inferior education that we don’t want our youths to go through what we went through,” said Zuniga, who lives in Placentia. “Because of the poor schooling we got, we thought we were dumb, and it’s sad that we received that kind of treatment.”

Today, Wilson School alumni will gather for a reunion to reminisce about their experiences and share strategies for continuing to strengthen community volunteer work.

Wilson opened in 1919 and was razed in 1950. It was known as the “Mexican school”; classrooms were in old barracks brought from the Army Air Corps base in Costa Mesa to the school site on 2nd and California streets. The playgrounds consisted of dirt fields that eventually were replaced with condominiums and Portola Park.

Zuniga’s older brother, Alfredo Zuniga, who also attended Wilson, said the school was little match for Lincoln Grammar School across town. Lincoln, which also opened in 1919, greeted students with a new brick schoolhouse, emerald playing fields and tennis courts.

White students went to Lincoln; the children of Latino farm workers who lived in the nearby Campo Colorado and Alta Vista neighborhoods went to Wilson.

La Habra residents had passed a $90,000 school bond to build both Wilson and Lincoln, but only $15,000 went to Wilson, said the elder Zuniga, who is the town’s oral historian. More than $75,000 was used to build Lincoln.

“The whole school was Mexican American--100%. It was definitely a segregated school,” said Candelario J. Mendoza, 75, the first Mexican American teacher hired in La Habra in 1942.

There was no bilingual instruction for the Spanish-speaking students. Only English was spoken, under the theory that children had to learn it to get good jobs, Mendoza said. He agreed with the theory but said it “was a shame” that Spanish was not allowed.

“I locked the door when I spoke Spanish with my students,” Mendoza said.

Corporal punishment was allowed then and some teachers used it to cow Spanish-speaking students, but Mendoza chose not to. “It was left up to the discretion of the teacher,” he said.

Alfredo Zuniga remembers how he and his schoolmates--many of whom worked alongside their parents in Orange County citrus groves picking oranges and lemons--were required to shower before entering the classroom. “We were dirty Mexicans to them (white teachers and administrators) and had to take showers whether we had lice or not.”

He vividly recalls being slapped, paddled and whipped for speaking Spanish and often being told to go to the store to buy treats for teachers or milk for the school.

“I always thought I was stupid because I never learned anything in that school,” he said. “I missed classes because I was sent to the store.”

But years later, Zuniga, who still lives in La Habra, opened a barber shop and gave himself an education by reading. He went to college and received a master’s degree in library science. Today, he works as a librarian in Los Angeles County.

Zuniga compiled the history of La Habra on audiotapes, which are available at Cal State Fullerton, and presently is writing a book about the city’s beginnings so Latinos “will know that Mexicans contributed to the development of Orange County and to promote pride in the Mexican culture.”

Like the Zunigas, Ray Molina, 55, has similar bittersweet memories of Wilson that, he said, moved him to do something for Latinos.

Molina and his cousin, Dave Martinez, began teaching boxing to neighborhood youths in Molina’s garage 13 years ago. In 1992, they persuaded the La Habra City Council to let them open the city’s only boxing club in the former site of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on Hillcrest Avenue. They continue to operate the club to instill self-esteem and to offer an alternative to gangs, Molina said.

“I don’t remember learning anything at Wilson,” said Molina, 55. “I do remember getting slapped and hit with a ruler for speaking Spanish and feeling like a second-class citizen. That’s not right.”

Segregation officially was phased out with a victorious court case against several Orange County school districts, paving the way for integration in schools throughout the county, retired teacher Mendoza said.

Though Wilson alumni now laugh about some of their experiences, they said they don’t want other children ever to go through them.

“It was very aggravating and depressing at Wilson,” Enrique Zuniga said. “Our English was very limited and the only way we could communicate was in Spanish and if we did, we would get punished. So we seldom spoke in class.”

Speaking up is what another Wilson graduate, Sally Flores, now teaches teen-age girls who drop out of school.

Flores, 65, works with troubled youths and their parents in an effort to get them to value education by counseling them at her home. She also sits in on bilingual classes in the city of Buena Park to make sure students are encouraged to prosper.

Other Wilson alumni also are involved with their communities. John and Janet DiFranco, for example, feed homeless people in La Habra on weekends while others have organized sports leagues. Some offer to help people find housing, legal services and health care.

“Back in the Wilson years, no one did anything for us,” Flores said. “So we want to be there for young Latinos who need help and encouragement.”

Alumni still boast about former Wilson students who became well-known successes. They include Cruz Reynoso, who became a state Supreme Court justice, Luis H. Zuniga (an older brother of the Zunigas), who became the first Mexican American elected to the La Habra City Council, and Jesse Flores, the first Mexican American pitcher in the major leagues.

City officials are considering renaming a portion of Portola Park after Flores (who died in 1991) because he spent his off-season time at that park developing baseball programs for local youths and adults.

The Wilson School reunion will be celebrated from 1 to 6 p.m. today at the Scout Hut, with mariachi music, motivational speakers, Mexican food and poetry readings. About 300 people are expected. The public is invited and the cost is $7.50. All proceeds will fund scholarships for college-bound students.

“Adversity forced these kids to overcome all kinds of obstacles,” Mendoza said of his former students. “Now they’re helping others. That’s very admirable.”