The case successfully ended de jure segregation in California[1] and paved the way for integration and the American civil rights movement.

Mendez was denied enrollment to a "Whites" only school, an event which prompted her parents to take action and together organized various sectors of the Hispanic community who filed a lawsuit in the local federal court.

After appeals to Westminster’s principal and the county school board were unsuccessful, Gonzalo Mendez decided to take legal action.

[5] In 1943, when Sylvia Mendez was only eight years old, she accompanied her aunt Sally Vidaurri, her brothers and cousins to enroll at the 17th Street Elementary School.

Her aunt was told by school officials, that her children, who had light skin would be permitted to enroll, but that neither Sylvia Mendez nor her brothers would be allowed because they were dark-skinned and had a Hispanic surname.

[6] Mendez's father Gonzalo and his wife Felicitas took on the task of leading a community battle that changed California, and set an important legal precedent for ending segregation in the United States.

Felicitas attended the family's agricultural business, giving Gonzalo time to meet with community leaders to discuss the injustices of the segregated school system.

Initially, Gonzalo received little support from the local Latino organizations, but finally, on March 2, 1945, he hired civil rights attorney David Marcus, who filed a federal lawsuit with four other Mexican-American fathers from the Gomez, Palomino, Estrada, and Ramirez families in Los Angeles against four Orange County school districts, Westminster, Santa Ana, Garden Grove, and El Modena (now eastern Orange), on behalf of about 5,000 Hispanic-American schoolchildren.

[7] During the trial, the Westminster school board countered that the segregation was based on the fact that Hispanic students were deficient in the English language and thus needed special instruction.

The testimony proved that most of the children spoke English and showed that Hispanic-American students had the same capacity for learning as their white counterparts.

She travels and gives lectures to educate others on the historic contributions made by her parents and the co-plaintiffs to the desegregation effort in the United States.

Sandra Robbie wrote and produced the documentary Mendez v. Westminster: For all the Children / Para Todos los Niños, which debuted on KOCE-TV in Orange County on September 24, 2002, as part of their National Hispanic Heritage Month celebration.

[13][14] The unveiling took take place during an event at Chapman University School of Education, Orange County, California commemorating the 60th anniversary of the landmark case.

[15] On September 9, 2009 a second school opened in the Los Angeles community of Boyle Heights bearing the name "Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez Learning Center."

At the bottom of the statue it reads “1947: Toward equality in our schools.” The park also features a giant book monument that introduces the historical civil rights case.