"Busy tilling the fields, Mendez asked his sister Soledad Vidaurri to enroll his three children in
the nearby 17th Street School when she went to enroll her two children. The school authorities
told Mrs. Vidaurri that her two children (who were fair skinned and whose last name did not
sound Mexican) could be enrolled but that the Mendez children (who were dark skinned and who
had a very Mexican sounding last name) would have to go to the Mexican school a few blocks
away. Ironically, Mendez, who was born in Mexico but who had resided in California since he
was 6 years old, had attended integrated public school in the early 1920s. He had become a U. S.
citizen. His wife, Felicitas, was born in Puerto Rico and was there also as an American citizen.
Their three children were all born in the United States and were fluent in English."
In the preceding text associated with California's Mendez school segregation case in 1949. how
is the school district defining American-ness?
O
citizenship
O
language skills
residency
O
skin color