Jose Cisneros Collection Regarding a Court Case against C.C.I.S.D and Segregation of Mexican American Children

While this collection does not contain biographical information about Jose Cisneros, a little is known about his life. After hearing about the deplorable conditions of the school his children were attending and being ignored by Corpus Christi Independent School District when raising concerns, he filed a class action lawsuit that would change the racial makeup of the entire United States, making Hispanic Americans a class no longer blended with Caucasians and recognizing them as minorities. This blending had allowed subtle but unmistakable racism and classism to play a part in the funding of education facilities based on language deficiencies after separation by national origin was no longer allowed.

Furthermore, the success of this suit moved the education system further away from the “separate but equal” systemic problem that was supposed to have been overturned in Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas in 1954. In Corpus Christi, officials had bused white students away from minority dominated schools, and limited the hiring of minorities at white schools, instead shifting them to schools with predominantly minority students. The success of this case helped protect Hispanic Americans as a minority and tore down some of the major lingering remnants of segregation for both Hispanic and African American students.