Community Hispanic Heritage event to be held in Melvin this Saturday
Anyone with family ties to, or an interest in, the historical community of Melvin will want to fly home for the big event slated for Saturday.
The community welcomes Angelo State University professor emeritus Dr. Arnoldo De Leon, who will be the keynote speaker at what is being billed as once-in-a-lifetime history gathering.
Melvin is a community located south of U.S. Highway 87 in McCulloch County, just west of Brady and about 61 miles east of San Angelo.
A Time to Recall, Value, and Reunite with our Roots” event comes on the final day of National Hispanic Heritage Month. Organizers say the event will "commemorate the roles that Mexican-descent residents of Melvin played in the development of the area, particularly as it relates to the desegregation of schools from the 1930s through the 1950s."
According to a news release, De Leon will address the essence and highlights of "La Colonia Mexicana de Melvin: The Rise, Heyday, and Decline of a Mexican American Community in West Texas," a monograph and potential book that chronicles the origins, development, successes and disappearance of the town of Melvin from the early 1900s to today.
"(De Leon) will highlight the uniqueness of this community, within the broader socio-political context of Texas during this era, and the families that led its impact on the culture, economy, and education of the times," the release stated. "It is a call for those who lived in this town and its environs to remember our history and visionary forefathers who enabled the formation of many local, regional, national, and international influential sons and daughters."
The event is organized by Junta Patriótica, a community-based organization instrumental in the development of the Melvin community since the 1920s. It serves as a nonprofit for the benefit of McCulloch County and nearby areas.
According to organizers, Junta Patriótica's vision includes reforming the plataforma and making it available to the area for things as dances, weddings, family reunions, birthdays and more
The Platforma Jimenez is located north of the St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, 107 Savage Ave., on the corner of Live Oak and Savage Avenue.
Proceeds from all activities will go to scholarships for local youth to help them attend college or trades schools, and maintenance of the facility.
A Zoom link has been created for anyone who can not attend in person: https://tamu.zoom.us/j/93558207927.
Bring your mementos
According to the news release, "invitees are asked to bring artifacts from this era and share the stories of the challenges and successes of their families and how their personal and professional trajectories were launched from this isolated rural community in west Texas during some of the most difficult times in terms of outright and overt discrimination."
Organizers are hoping attendees will bring pictures, school yearbooks (annuals), awards, diplomas, news clippings, letter jackets, pep squad regalia, letters and graduation invitations. They also are asked to bring a table or poster with a stand to showcase their offerings, which will be set up inside the plataforma, with each family given time to tell about their history.
"This will be an opportunity for De Leon to identify more information for his research, perhaps for a subsequent book or documentary. Copies of artifacts will be scanned or photographed for historical purposes and/or illustrating future works from this event."
The event schedule is:
9-10 a.m. – Registration
10-11 a.m. – Introductions, recognitions and business report
11-noon – Keynote speaker, Dr. Arnoldo De Leon
12-1 p.m. – Catered lunch ($15) and on-going genealogy projects.
1-2:30 p.m. – Family stories and artifacts sharing
2:30-3 p.m. – Wrapup
History of Melvin and Hispanics
Several things led to Saturday's event.
First, several current and former residents of Melvin, and the surrounding farming and ranching area, showed an interest in restoring Plataforma Jimenez and offering it for the benefit of the broader community.
The second catalyst was De Leon's discovery of a file in the West Texas Collection at Angelo State. The file is titled “Melvin, Texas, Collection” and it highlighted an effort by the rural community to desegregate the Melvin schools during the 1940s.
De Leon said that while similar actions were taking place in large metropolitan areas of the United States, to see this happening in Melvin was "unusual and likely one of very few such efforts in rural Texas at that time."
According to the news release, the Texas Constitution of 1876 sanctioned separating blacks and whites in schools, and manyschool districts across the state separated “Mexican” children accordingly.
Up through 1946, in Melvin, there was a “Latin American School” for “Mexicans” in first through eighth grades. Many Hispanic students dropped out after eighth grade; those who didn't leave school integrated with white students at the high school.
"Starting in the early 1940s, Mexican community leaders embarked on a letter writing campaign to civil rights attorneys and the Texas Department of Education, among others, to address the inequality of education being offered to their children," the news release said.
In 1946, sixth and seventh grades were integrated and moved to the main school building that included the high school. In 1948, the fourth and fifth grades were integrated, and by 1948 only the first grade was segregated, but remained at the Latin American School until 1950 when it was moved into a separate building on the campus of the main school.
"There, students who did well, advanced to “high first” for another school year before integrating into the integrated second grade in the main Melvin school building," the release stated. "Some Mexican first-graders were able to advance to the desegregated second grade without spending another year in “high first"."
De Leon will speak of the essence and key points of the paper, which is a chronicle of key events and individuals who played important parts in contributing to the economic development of the Melvin area and to the desegregation of the school.
"The impact of this happening pervades to this day and still resonates among many of the families and their descendants who have made significant contributions to the state, country, and international contexts."
This article originally appeared on San Angelo Standard-Times: Community Hispanic Heritage event to be held in Melvin this Saturday
