By Félix Gutiérrez, Guest Author
Thirteen years after the Monrovia Municipal Plunge opened in 1925 with segregated swimming days, that segregation was challenged by a group led by my teenage father Félix Gutiérrez, President of the Monrovia Latin-American Youth Club and Pasadena Junior College student.
In the summer of 1938 club members presented a letter and speech urging the Monrovia City Council to end their pool segregation. This challenge and other Mexican Americans equal rights efforts are now displayed on a colorful monument on the sidewalk in front of the Monrovia Historical Museum, once the entrance to the Monrovia Municipal Plunge.
In the summer of 1938 club members presented a letter and speech urging the Monrovia City Council to end their pool segregation. This challenge and other Mexican Americans equal rights efforts are now displayed on a colorful monument on the sidewalk in front of the Monrovia Historical Museum, once the entrance to the Monrovia Municipal Plunge.
The Monrovia Neighborhood Treasure public art created by international artist José Antonio Aguirre honors the role modeling and advocacy of integration in a time of segregation by Francisco and Félix Gutiérrez, my grandfather and father.
“Monrovia Mexicans resent alleged discrimination which permits them to use the municipal plunge only on Mondays when set aside for members of the colored race and want to be allowed to swim there during the week with other members of the Caucasian race,” the Monrovia News-Post reported. “No action was taken, the request being referred to the administrative department of the council for consideration.”
The Monrovia Historical Museum today displays the reality of the newspaper’s “alleged discrimination” in a glass case showing the plunge’s daily log designating Monday as “Colored” day. Negroes and Mexicans both faced segregation. Both fought back.
“A colored friend spoke of segregation, how those of Mexican descent and Negroes were reserved a day to swim in the swimming pool,” Félix wrote in The Mexican Voice, a Monrovia-based inspirational educational youth magazine he founded in 1938. “The colored friend advocated that those of Mexican descent and Negroes get together and fight segregation.”
But Monrovia city officials took no action on pool segregation for over a year, my dad reported in 1939 in the YMCA-sponsored The Mexican Voice, circulated across the Southwest. He wrote that people should look at “What Americans are doing to Americans in America.”
City plunge segregation was only one of many places where people of Mexican descent faced less-than-equal treatment as they advocated for equal rights in Monrovia and elsewhere in the early 20th century. But the discrimination they faced at home did not dampen their eagerness to face their country’s wartime enemies and fight for freedom overseas.
Shortly after the U.S. entered World War II, Félix reported in The Mexican Voice that, despite being denied the same rights as those living “north of the tracks,” many Mexican-origin Monrovians volunteered for military service without being drafted. My dad wrote they were surprised to be classified White, something they had never experienced.
“In schools by attending ‘their own,’ they could not feel American. In the municipal plunge a day was reserved for ‘Mexicans.’ In the theater the right side was reserved for ‘them.’ Certain restaurants would not cater to ‘Mexicans’ ” he wrote in a 1942 issue of The Mexican Voice, describing his own Monrovia experiences. As Monrovia’s women and men of all colors joined war efforts the city added Thursday as a second Colored swimming day. But plunge segregation continued until a 1949 post-war challenge.
After a Second Baptist Church meeting that year, members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) “demanded that segregation at the pool be eliminated” the Monrovia News-Post reported. Los Angeles NAACP leader Thomas L. Griffith Jr., told the Monrovia City Council colored children looking to swim were denied entry and told to return on a Monday or Thursday.
In a veiled legal threat, attorney Griffith said, “There have been many court decisions regarding swimming pools and we hope that this matter will not have to go beyond the City Council.” Two White men also called for plunge segregation to end. The council then voted for unrestricted pool use and ended 24 years of city plunge segregated swimming. The vote came 11 years to the day after the 1938 Monrovia City Council sidelined the Monrovia Latin-American Youth Club’s call to end plunge segregation.
“Monrovia Mexicans resent alleged discrimination which permits them to use the municipal plunge only on Mondays when set aside for members of the colored race and want to be allowed to swim there during the week with other members of the Caucasian race,” the Monrovia News-Post reported. “No action was taken, the request being referred to the administrative department of the council for consideration.”
The Monrovia Historical Museum today displays the reality of the newspaper’s “alleged discrimination” in a glass case showing the plunge’s daily log designating Monday as “Colored” day. Negroes and Mexicans both faced segregation. Both fought back.
“A colored friend spoke of segregation, how those of Mexican descent and Negroes were reserved a day to swim in the swimming pool,” Félix wrote in The Mexican Voice, a Monrovia-based inspirational educational youth magazine he founded in 1938. “The colored friend advocated that those of Mexican descent and Negroes get together and fight segregation.”
But Monrovia city officials took no action on pool segregation for over a year, my dad reported in 1939 in the YMCA-sponsored The Mexican Voice, circulated across the Southwest. He wrote that people should look at “What Americans are doing to Americans in America.”
City plunge segregation was only one of many places where people of Mexican descent faced less-than-equal treatment as they advocated for equal rights in Monrovia and elsewhere in the early 20th century. But the discrimination they faced at home did not dampen their eagerness to face their country’s wartime enemies and fight for freedom overseas.
Shortly after the U.S. entered World War II, Félix reported in The Mexican Voice that, despite being denied the same rights as those living “north of the tracks,” many Mexican-origin Monrovians volunteered for military service without being drafted. My dad wrote they were surprised to be classified White, something they had never experienced.
“In schools by attending ‘their own,’ they could not feel American. In the municipal plunge a day was reserved for ‘Mexicans.’ In the theater the right side was reserved for ‘them.’ Certain restaurants would not cater to ‘Mexicans’ ” he wrote in a 1942 issue of The Mexican Voice, describing his own Monrovia experiences. As Monrovia’s women and men of all colors joined war efforts the city added Thursday as a second Colored swimming day. But plunge segregation continued until a 1949 post-war challenge.
After a Second Baptist Church meeting that year, members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) “demanded that segregation at the pool be eliminated” the Monrovia News-Post reported. Los Angeles NAACP leader Thomas L. Griffith Jr., told the Monrovia City Council colored children looking to swim were denied entry and told to return on a Monday or Thursday.
In a veiled legal threat, attorney Griffith said, “There have been many court decisions regarding swimming pools and we hope that this matter will not have to go beyond the City Council.” Two White men also called for plunge segregation to end. The council then voted for unrestricted pool use and ended 24 years of city plunge segregated swimming. The vote came 11 years to the day after the 1938 Monrovia City Council sidelined the Monrovia Latin-American Youth Club’s call to end plunge segregation.
RSS Feed