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In March 1931, a San Diego judge ruled in the case of Roberto Alvarez v. the Board of Trustees of the Lemon Grove School District that Mexican American schoolchildren in Lemon Grove must be admitted to regular classes equally with all other children. The case has been called the first successful school desegregation court decision in U.S. history.
It was during the Great Depression, when anti-immigrant sentiment was strong.
On Jan. 5, 1931, Lemon Grove Grammar School’s students were returning to classes after the winter break when the principal of the Lemon Grove Grammar School, acting under instructions from the school district trustees, barred the school’s 75 Mexican American children from entering the five-room building and ordered them instead to go to a two-room building across the railroad tracks in a largely Mexican section of town.