So how is the team this year, pretty good? Yes? No hablas Ingles.
(LAUGHTER)
Eliseo is from El Salvador. Marco, que pais? Bolivia. Amado is from Honduras. Bienvenidos. Good luck in the season.
I want to thank members of the Hispanic Organization who are here today.
I do want to make special mention of the fact that Judge Reynaldo Garza, Brownsville, Texas, passed away this week. He's 89 years old. In 1961, President Kennedy appointed Judge Garza to the district court in Texas. Judge Garza was one of the first Hispanic federal judges in America. He's a great Texan. Those of us who are from Texas were proud to say we're both Texans. He was the son of Mexican immigrants. He was a shining example of the American Dream. He was a good man and he made this country a better place. And we honor his memory today.
People often talk about the Latino culture. Here's how I like to describe it: faith in God, commitment to family, and love of country. In this moment in our history, America is defending -- depending on the unselfish dedication of patriots. Today there are almost 200,000 Hispanic Americans serving in the Armed Forces. Eight of these incredibly brave men and women are with us today. I want to thank you all for coming. Thank you for wearing the uniform.
(APPLAUSE)
Latinos have contributed to defense of freedom abroad and to the advance of freedom inside our own country. This afternoon, Laura and I were honored to meet members of an Hispanic-American family who struggled against discrimination and won a victory for all in this country. We welcome Sylvia and Gonzalo and Jerome and Sandra Mendez with us. Bienvenidos. Let me tell you their story. I think you'll find it so incredibly American and so uplifting.
Sixty years ago, their parents, Gonzalo y Felicitas Mendez, tried to enroll their children as students in a mostly white elementary school closest to their house in Westminister, California. That was 60 years ago. Unfortunately, in those days, America had a -- our vision wasn't as clear as it should be. They were turned away from that school and they went to an older barrio school. I'm told it was a rickety, wooden building bordered by an electric cattle fence. The mom and dad didn't like it, they didn't like their children being treated that way. They love their children. And so they -- and so the dad saved his money, 1945, and he went into a federal court to sue with four other families for equality and fairness. That's 1945.
He said, "I'm just doing this for my children." What he really meant to say was, I'm just doing this for every child. He was fighting so that everyone in this country has a chance to realize the American Dream.
A lawyer named Thurgood Marshall filed a friend of the court brief in the lawsuit, and the Mendez family won their case. Their effects reached far beyond a single neighborhood school. Inspired by the Mendez decision, Governor Earl Warren signed an order desegregating all the schools of California. Five years later, Thurgood Marshall would use the same arguments against segregation when he argued Brown versus Board of Education. And Earl Warren, who had become Chief Justice, would write the Supreme Court opinion that ended segregation in schools across America.
Today we honor your family, and your mom and dad.
(APPLAUSE)
When Laura and I were taking our picture, one of the beautiful girls said -- women said -- the No Child Left Behind Act is great. It's in the spirit of the Mendez family that the No Child Left Behind Act is flourishing, because we're fighting against another kind of discrimination in that act. It's called the soft bigotry of low expectations. We should never allow a system to exist in where they walk into a classroom and say, this child can't read because of the color of their skin. You can't condemn somebody to failure because their parents don't speak English as a first language. That's not what we stand for her in America.
