Without Separation

Roberto Alvarez’s world changed the day he could no longer attend Lemon Grove Grammar School in the small, rural community where he lived near San Diego, California. He and the other Mexican American students were told they had to go

to a new, separate school on Olive Street. A school just for them. A school where they would not hold back the other students.

But Roberto and the Mexican American students and their families believed the new school’s real purpose was to segregate, to separate. They didn’t think that was right, or just, or legal. Would they win their fight to continue attending the

five-room school Roberto and the others loved, or would the court order them to attend the new school?

Acclaimed nonfiction author Larry Dane Brimner follows Roberto and the other Mexican American families on their journey in 1931 as they battle against separation and prejudice in one of America’s landmark segregation cases.