Latinos opened the door for gay marriage

I have to admit, I only read the headlines in California's Supreme Court gay marriage decision this week.

So I did not notice the revealing tidbit that Gary Dauphin footnoted a couple of days ago: the Supremes' decision was largely based on the 1948 case Perez v. Sharp, which challenged interracial marriage bans way before Loving v. Virgina (1967) and involved a Mexican American woman and a Black man.

The reason the couple was denied a wedding license and the case went to court was that Andrea Perez was considered "white." Gary posted her picture. I'm re-posting it here. If she's white, I'm downright Aryan.

Like Mendez v. Westminster, the school desegregation case that predated Brown v. Board of Ed by almost a decade, Perez v. Sharp was also a key precedent-setter with Latino plaintiffs that crowbarred the door open to extend fundamental civil rights to others.

Gary argues that it's no coincidence that this case (I would argue both cases) took place in the other state I consider home, California. This supports Roberto Lovato's theory that California is ground zero for Latino-led radical social change in this country.

Yet another instance in which we are erased from the history of fighting for American civil rights, human rights. Been here all along, time to make sure others notice.

Comments

[richard]

This is a fabulous post, Caro!

I think what's interesting in this, too, is the way in which Latinos as neither black or white are activated or put to rest to score legal or judicial points for different ideological positions.

[Caro]

Thx, Richard. All credit goes to Dauphin for pulling the tidbit from the news bog. I've taught Mendez v. Westminster and it's amazing how few people, even well-informed Latinos, know about it. In his gloss on my post,

http://brownstate.typepad.com/ken_burns_hates_mexicans/2008/05/another-secret.html

Jim Mendiola mentions also Hernandez v. Texas, where the SCOTUS decided that the 14th Amendment also applied to Latinos.

It's exactly bc of Latinos' "nonwhite/nonblack" status that these cases end up setting precedent.