Subscribe to our KZfaq channel: bit.ly/3zeF6Ch
It was 1912, and 10-year-old Miguel Maestas wished to attend the Alamosa elementary school closest to his home.
The North Side School was just a few blocks away, near the route Miguel traveled each morning and afternoon to the Mexican Preparatory School he attended on the South side of town.
Twice a day, Miguel walked seven blocks to the “Mexican school,” crossing the noisy, busy, dust-filled tracks of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad.
“The town was very much divided by the railroad tracks,” said local resident Katie Dokson of the Maestas Case Committee. “The North side of the town was Anglo. The South side of the town was Hispano.”
Miguel’s father, Mr. Francisco Maestas, was the only head of household with a Spanish surname listed on the North side of Alamosa in the 1911 U.S. Census.
An employee of the railroad, Francisco Maestas knew the dangers of the rail yard first hand. He approached the superintendent and asked to enroll his son at the North Side School.
The request was denied. Francisco Maestas told his son had to stay enrolled in the "Mexican school,” a stout, four-classroom brick building staffed by three teachers with about 140 students. The school was built in 1909 to serve what were presumed to be non-English-speaking children from Spanish-surnamed families.
The case of Francisco and Miguel Maestas would lead to a legal challenge that experts believe was the first Hispanic desegregation case in the United States in which Hispanics won. The case was largely lost to history, but now a team of historians, community members and descendants of the Maestas family are working to ensure more Coloradans know about this important chapter of the state's history.
------------------------------------------------------
Follow Rocky Mountain PBS on our other platforms, too.
• Facebook: / rmpbs
• Twitter: / rmpbs
• Instagram: / rmpbs
• LinkedIn: / rocky-mountain-pbs