Roberto Alvarez
In 1931, Roberto Alvarez was a 12-year-old student at Lemon Grove Elementary School in California when he sued the school district for attempting to send him and his 74 Mexican-American classmates to a "new" school, one without insulation or plumbing, that the parents of the students referred to as la caballeriza, because it resembled horse stables. As the students boycotted the new school, Robert sued the school district for violating a state law that prohibited school segregation for all groups except African-, Asian-, and Native-American children. At the time, Mexican Americans were considered both white and Native American, but were ultimately declared white by the judge and therefore protected from segregation. Roberto won the lawsuit and, along with his classmates, was re-admitted to Lemon Grove Elementary. The Lemon Grove case served as a precedent for later school desegregation cases, including the famous Brown v. Board of Education.