logical step for them was to ensure that they controlled every institution in their community that included the schools as well. so that sense of autonomy, one of the one of the takeaways, i think for for readers is just as you mentioned, the role that the schools played within the community as key anchors. so have you seen that in other research that you've conducted in in other writings and other manuscripts that you're developing have is this analogous or is this something that is is unique? it's a bit of both. i've seen i've seen examples of of what existed in san felipe and other schools. but i see it sort of at a sort of microcosmic level, not to the extent that it existed in this very unique independent school system, this school district demanded excellence in achievement among, the student

body. it expected that these to pass every grade to graduate from high school and to apply and enroll and accepted in an institution of higher learning. and this is telling. because if you look at what is happening to ethnic mexican mexican-american learners across the state of texas during the 1930s, forties and, fifties, most of them are not receiving an education. the eighth grade or, they maybe can get to the 10th and 11th grades and are allowed to graduate as seniors, or they would not be encouraged to apply to st mary's and to the ut austin's and places like that. they would be conditioned and programed and pushed into the service industry and those kinds of occupations tend to privilege the rich, underserved, the poor. but in san felipe that was not the case. a san felipe demand it. this was, you know, demanded this kind of success on the part of student expected on the part of students and provided a rigorous academic curriculum that that prepared him for to

prepare them to stand the rigors of higher education. and then perhaps more importantly survive beyond college education as many of them would go to live in other in san diego and dallas and austin and san antonio and places that and so they wanted to make sure that these students can learn and survive even in what would have been a hostile environment, this very insular or protective environment that they had generated and created since the 19 teens that most of the graduates don't come back to san felipe it they go elsewhere and they might not find themselves in an insular protective environment. so the school leaders and the parents and all made sure that students were equipped right academically. but socially, culturally, economically and so on and so on. what are what are some of the things that, you know, as you work with students, right? a texas southern and they go through this book are you discuss the process what are some of the learnings that you that you provide to them. yeah. so i teach at a texas southern

university in houston, texas, which is an hbcu historically black college and university. and i teach mexican-american history there. and so when i assigned this book, my students are mostly african-american. the response i get from them is, wow, i didn't know that that mexican-american students had a similar history to the african american. and so there are a lot of parallels. and that tells me that the students that's their aha moment for them that they're learning. they got and because we of consider the the educational experiences of mexican-american as i looked at it i alluded to it just a few moments ago, but if we sort of stand back and kind of take a bird's eye view, we know that it's tragic experience. we know that mexican-americans have a high illiteracy rates. we know that they are arbitrarily suspended or expelled. we know that they're viewed as intellectually, that they're viewed as being towards education. this is historically speaking right. we know that they're confronted by hostile teachers and

administrators and so on and so on. we know that certainly that they're segregated, that we know that their classrooms and and buildings are are properly or not properly managed or mismanaged. they're lacking the space. and sometimes they don't have running water electricity, those kinds of things. and so it's a tragic learning experience for mexican-american kids across the state. but the other thing, the students sort of walk away with is like, wow, this is kind of like this is going across against the grain here. this this is counter narrative towards typical mexican-american experience in the state of texas. and in many ways is it's a very unique experience here. what is happening to these students and these learners in in the san felipe community for sure. and that's what students walk away with. what do you there's several innovations that you mentioned that school district utilized right early on. so it was the nexus in the community provided provided meals, provided actually pre-k prior to head start lbj. right. did a lot of other things. are there some other innovations that perhaps you discovered that

aren't mentioned in the book? are there other things that you would have liked, have emphasized perhaps in your process? no, i think i got everything that i was able to find the time that the press needed me to find it. i did put it in the book, but yeah i think you mentioned something that's very important because. you know, this school district was in many ways, i mean, to be clear, just they were clear about it. this school district was teaching the curriculum that was assigned to them out of austin, just just like all accredited school districts across the state. but the teachers and the leaders of the school system, they i call it sort of steering curriculum. they steered the curriculum in a way to ensure that that it came to the benefit of their students. and so, for example, they toned down the assimilationist character of texas curriculum during period or they sure to include heroes and leaders of the mexican and mexican-american community so that learning would be relevant to students or. you know they didn't criminalize

speaking spanish the way you know, no no shades of san antonio. right. but way s.h.i.e.l.d. might have or the way houston is d might have or i'm hearing houston and so that you know these teachers spoke to parents spanish or spoke to parents in the language that they were most comfortable speaking and so it criminalize students and students see themselves as the bad guys or as the enemy or as newcomers in the curriculum. and so that it really resonated with them. and this the school system did those things academically, but beyond that, it also worked just hard to, you know, help with uplift of the entire i call it the holistic approach in the book because the school district also had all kinds of drives. i was really amazed to learn in the 1930s that the school district of all things was providing these vaccines and inoculation drives for the community. the community who wouldn't have had access to health care services in other parts of the city of del rio or outside of del rio, or perhaps in acuna. and many certainly went to acuna to get dental work done. and those kinds of things.

but in the city right, they would have limited access. but here the school is now serving as a critical site to provide health care services to the people in need of those things. and all of this was free of charge and it doesn't have to do those things. that's not the job of the school district, but the school district did that because it knew it needed to transformative not just to student learners, but it need to be transformed to to their families and to the entire community as well. because if we all uplift and none of us are going to uplift as with what the district and and studies and, graduate studies. now, what they tell you is that the community school. right so in a sense but we see that san felipe actually did that a ago so very very impactful yeah and but the way we you know, it's a good way to think about it is the way we sort of consider studies today a curriculum that is inclusive of culture, a curriculum that is inclusive of community parents. a community i mean, a curriculum

accurate and that's rigorous. those things in san felipe, in the 1930s, forties, fifties. so it's like a protocol, ethnic studies. so it's sort of this prototype, what eventually becomes ethnic studies, the term ethnic studies is even coined that already exists. this community. so i think based upon that discussion, right. i had asked if jesse would read a passage and he goes, oh, no, i did like several. so there's nothing better than actually hearing it from the author. so can we please be all right? okay. now, if you don't mind, maybe holding the markup course. so this passage here, it sort of. i tried explain the way san felipe existed both inside and outside the system of segregation because one of the

reasons that the school leaders are, you know, the leaders of this community founded this school district was so that their kids would not be segregated in what was traditionally a white, independent school district, a neighboring independent school district. also, there in the city of the real. we don't want our kids to be segregated, so we're going to make our own and we're going to educate them our own way. and we're going to do that. and so i sort of talk about this in doing so. san felipe sort of inadvertently or perhaps on purpose becomes the segregated school system because it was at least 95% mexican-american. and so it almost a segregated system that almost it does become a segregated school system. so i sort of try to deal with that, it's not an easy thing to deal with. here's my attempt to deal with it in the book. worth is the unique way san felipe operated both inside outside the system of segregation. mexican-americans have a long history of challenging, segregated schools in lawsuits such as in 1930. a year earlier, they formed a

separate school system and a school district to circumvent anglo dominated schools and segregationist policies. but more than separating themselves mexican-americans by developing independent school district, effectively shielded themselves from outside forms of harassment, creating an insular environment where students could develop cognitively, emotionally and socially that installation, in turn, entrenches students future and school persistence. the san felipe schools provided students with an education that made them competitive with whites in, an era when mexican-americans were typically viewed as nothing more than the servant class. moreover, students learn how to be resilient in a aimed to disenfranchize them economically, exploit them and discriminate discriminate against them in numerous ways with. this insulated environment as a result, mexican-americans were better to educate their children and prepare to thrive academically and intellectually

outside their community. despite the harsh jim crow policies that disadvantaged them in sense. san felipe isda as a segregated educational unit proved beneficial as helped mexican-american students learn in the classroom and perhaps more importantly, survive beyond. so what should what? what do we leave with with that with with that passage? well, i mean, listen, i mean, you know, segregation bedevils all kinds of communities and, you know, integration is something definitely to be celebrated. but i think that it sort it muddies the water in many ways. and i think that a good thing it's more complex the story is more complex than we might imagine. and if we allow ourselves to go

into these complex kind of spaces, i think that we become better learners and better understand of sort of the way history operates. and so i'm never one to uphold insist on segregation, but i understand the importance of autonomy. i understand the importance of self-sufficiency i understand the importance of self-reliance and i recognize the benefits that can come from that. and you know this school district doesn't exist anymore. it's now consolidated as many, you know, with a neighboring school district. and so they were integrated in 1971. these two separate as these were integrated 1971. and i addressed that in my chapter. and there opens up all kinds of worms, you know, cans of worms you will. but it creates problems. students struggled and teachers struggled, and parents struggled to adapt and adapt and find ways to navigate in new integrated school system. and so integration. while it should be celebrated, while it should exist, also comes with the poverty of

progress. because what you have the case of san felipe isd is you'll have the almost erasure of this community, you'll have memorabilia that will be destroyed on purpose. you'll have structures that will be removed on. you'll have things that are be sent to the incinerator on purpose as, a way to silence, censor and to erase. right? the intellect issue accomplishments of this, one of a kind school district in the borderlands community of, del rio, texas. the other thing that i hope that our listeners and our viewers can walk away with is that i think that this we should also shift the way we think about and shift the focus where these studies should exist. we tend to, for example, emphasize major urban centers when we look at civil rights movements. and i think that there's something to be told about the borderlands, there's something to be told about rural communities and urban communities who don't get enough attention. the attention that they deserve. and i think it's something to work. note here that we should focus,

refocus and reorient the way we try to explore these these pockets of communities for civil rights activism and those kinds things. so i have one final question, and then we're going to open it up for q&a. but are are you with your comments foreshadowing what's next for you? yeah. in fact i have sort of been told right. i've been violent by the descendants of teachers from this community that should, you know, sort of take up another project. and they're here in this room and they're watching me. so i'm very careful. but no, you know, one of the teachers that i talk about in this in this in this book, irene gardner's cardwell is and a longtime teacher in this district, played a crucial role in making sure that students, you know, got to the graduation. and so in some of my earliest talks and some of my earliest visits since the book came out to del rio and to san felipe i had met her sons and daughters and granddaughters and ah,

excuse and nephews and nieces and, and so they sort of collectively said, well, you know, you should write a biography on la maddalena around this card. well. and i was like, okay, i didn't have a title really, but, but i'll be happy to do it. i'm very proud to, to continue this, you know, i'm not san felipe, but i went and visited with them. they treated me like. i was born and raised there. they treated me like family. they brought me into their houses. they shared with me their most intimate private moments and histories, their their triumphs and their tragedies. they fed me. they took me to mexico. they taught me around the city. and i really learned more history from speaking to the of this community than i did searching all the archives that i searched through to to write this book. so i it's my privilege and my honor to say, yes, i will work on his biography. let's get it done for sure let's. so evokes a lot of memories

right and definitely i'm sure are some questions in the audience. dr. esparza so we have a microphone here in the center, and then i think there's a question in the back right on the other side of the camera camera. thank you. i'm just curious whether, in your getting to know the community in writing your book whether you've of something called the border or going to say center perhaps some of the folks from del are familiar with that. whether you see any connection or links or emotional or other of energy that created the school district kind of like manifest itself once again in these organizing efforts of recent vintage. so i have not heard of that organization.

but again, right, i think that goes back to what i mentioned earlier, is that one of the things that i learned as soon as i was done with this book is when i go on talks, people come and say, hey, wait a minute, you got this wrong. this is how it is. and i'm constantly learning and new information really, again, from the people who are there. i mean, i wrote the book, but i'm not the expert i'm not the expert on this. the people from this community are the experts on this community. and so really sort of take a page out of their playbook to fill up this book. but so i'm not familiar with that organization, but again, it goes back to what i said, this is just a tip, the iceberg because there's much, much, much more learn to learn from this and from the accomplishments of this community. and i hope also because one of the things that i argue in this book is that it's the only independent school district managed by mexican-americans. i hope and i hope this across as okay, but i hope that wrong because we want to make sure we

want hopefully find that there are other mexican-american communities throughout, texas throughout the nation who are also doing as those are san felipe did san felipe should not be the only one currently it is, but i hope that's not the case for two too long. yeah, we have another question in back. yes. did any of those same rigors that you describe in the for lack of a better word la raza school district transfer two to the consolidated school district, or were they lost? yes, that's a fantastic question. thank you it's a bit of both also because what happens in the immediate aftermath of consolidation, this is 1971. by 1971, federal courts are forcing independent school districts, the state, to integrate with neighboring school systems who are identified as single race school district, meaning san felipe, was 95% mexican-american.

so a single race school district, if you're over 60%, you are a single race school district. and this was happening with african, with anglo-americans. and so on and so on. this was happening everywhere. not just in in del rio, but into rio when consolidation takes effect, there are clashes among, teachers and administrators over the curriculum as. teachers from there realized don't care to implement the same that teachers from at isda were implementing to, you know, to their to their learners. so they clashed and they fought, for example, san felipe ise de was teaching bilingual education and after leaders from doe realized the move to strike it and so parents and teachers fought and they resisted and they kept it as part of the curriculum. and it will continue for years. this this fight, you'll have english only movements that sweep through the city. you'll have americanization movements that sweep the city. you'll have movements try to

remove these welfare, as they call it, a welfare programs. they try to do all these things. but the parents fought and the teachers fought to keep it, you know, as part of the curriculum. so, yes, it's a little bit of both in that it went away, but then it came back and then it went away and then it came back. and that's the ebb and flow of of sort of bilingual education and other of enrichment education programs like the migrant program, like the adult basic education program, like the night school program, and those kinds things was a great question. thank you. it was very good. yeah. all right. so the back is fairly active asking questions. so we're going to. yes, hi. sorry. do have a question. i'm just kind of interested in the timeline of your book because it's in the mid to late 1920s into 1930s, which is also the of the border violence with border patrol, which is what we know it as. right. but that inches i'm interested in knowing if this had any type of impact in the school becoming its own community that that is a

that is a great question. well, so the timeline the book really focuses on the periods between 1929 and 1971. now i begin study in the mid late 1800s when the first original families who would arrive into this community settle the place and they would come from sort of these northern and northwestern parts of mexico, these these intellectual families, these entrepreneur nerds who bring, you know, sort of their their entrepreneurship and intellect to this community. this is a literate of, you know, a community. and so i start there. it just kind of to give readers a sense of when this community was formed. and then i kind of fast forward to the 1920s to talk about the formation of the school district, which would have been in 1929. and then i sort of end in 1971 with consolidation. but then almost kind of, you know, and also in 1985. so i got like four different starting and stopping, but to

your question about you know, the violence happening in other parts of the borderlands against ethnic mexicans or by law enforcement who were behaving in sort of these extrajudicial manners, did that have an impact in why this community, the school system? i don't explored much in the book. my my answer would be yes, because it falls within that that that that that effort to create an insular protective environment and protection not just against segregation, not just against and bigotry, but certainly against violence. in the city of del rio, for example while police violence was not to the extent in this community like it would have been in south texas, there are instances of that and during the great depression, when there are massive deportation campaigns and efforts to remove people from the nation many of which would be citizen border persons from the nation, the people of

this community formed an organization to protect themselves from these forest removals, if you will. and so it falls in line with this to always protect the community. the community is first, we need to protect, secure, safeguard the people of this community to the best of our ability. but that is a fantastic question. and again, goes back to there is much more work that needs be done. the so the border violence actually, the bob bullock museum had, an exhibit and that's slated actually through perhaps that has poco to come to san antonio next year. you know one of the one of the things in reading and our schools is just that it's beginning to create dialog and expanding the arc right that the movimiento began earlier are there other things we should be mindful as as laypeople right we're not historians could be educators folks in other fields. how can we lend to to the discussion and creating a critical mass to actually give voice to these stories so for a

sense of affirmation and for future general for current and future. right. what what do you recommend and my recommendation is to get this book and yeah and and i know how that sounds right but i don't mean because i want sales. okay, the sales will come get this book, read this book, go and visit this community, go and visit this community. get recommend these books to your libraries. recommend these books to your cultural, recommend these books to your school, recommend these books. these are the that our children should be reading. this book is not on the approved reading list in the city of del rio. perhaps now, maybe it can be in it should on on the approved list of reading books but yeah i mean it's it's really to learn this story and get the story out there you it it was a shame that i did not know about this community until into two years of my master or the graduate the peers do program.

i should have learned about this school district in the third grade. in the third grade year and. so, you know, do what you can to get the story out. support your local historians, support local libraries. i give all praise to the librarians in this community, to the archivists in this community, to the to the expert historians live in resident houses, in community. it's because of them that this book was able to be written a lot of it is gleaned through oral history. i give a lot of credence and weight to oral histories. oral histories are fascinating ways to write stories. they're fascinating ways to challenge inaccurate frameworks. they are fascinating ways to fill in gaps in the archival record, the fascinating ways to recreate the archival record when there original record. oral histories do that. and you know, i encourage you maybe to wherever you go back to go do an oral history project, go talk to your family, go talk to your elders, we'll talk to

someone in the community. go talk the person who's been running that grocery store since the seventies, there's history there. there's rich history there. it's richer than. you might think it is. i when we have time and appropriately we'll we'll end with your question. but i think now many third graders and others will about the history of san felipe so my name is david cardwell and my mother was guardian unscarred. well and first of all, before anything i'd like to thank you, mr. flores, especially your and your dad. i moved to california. your son is in del rio. from 71 to 73, and i don't know who with whom what's going to

stay because i was going to go teach over there in california and your father opened the door to. me, so i could stay with. you or i could find a place. and i think it was my mother who called him and said then i learned what i'm your equal goes to goodness to. there was kind of people that we were shared to. there's hope, feelings. for a very close community. the teachers cared for us. they loved us. the community was a one. if you did anything wrong in our community were you home? your parents knew about it because. they loved us and they wanted us

to succeed. and i think we were the second poorest school district in the state, texas. but also had the highest number of doctorates in the state of texas for minority because the parents cared. the teachers as well and that's what does and that's what creates a winning once the consolidation took place it destroyed a lot of that. when i got there in 71 and that was a teacher i asked where are all the trophies or all the band uniforms? they were set fire. they destroyed them. you try to destroy our history. that is crime that should not happen openly. can learn those lessons and carry them into the future again. i'd like to thank your mother

for letting me sleep on your couch and opening up me. i taught in folsom cordova unified school district for 37 years and i returned to texas and i live wimberley, texas. but thank very much. appreciate it. thank you for that. you know, sir. you can hear it. you can hear it on his voice is every time that i sat down to interview somebody, that pain and that pride, that emotion, it just overwhelming. i have interviews where i have to just the recording to give this person some dignity and privacy to cry over things that happened years ago. but for them traumas them still as though it happened yesterday and but i recognize that that with that you know with those

come the courage and the strength to really push forward and you really educate the the next generation who come through this community. and so i really appreciate you sharing your words. thank you. you reminded of the interviews that i did down there. when i want to thank you, i want to thank you, mr. cardwell, for honoring the legacy of san felipe. i only knew that through stories my dad actually and from my mom and reading the book evoked many of those times that we were in the driving or that he, as we were going into rio, he would explain about the schools, about the golf team. right. the state state award winners, its opening weekend for the movie the long game. but i want to thank you for giving voice to a community to many individuals outside of san felipe in that region and the legacy that mr. cardwell mentioned. i want to thank you all for being here for a poit