GROWN-ISH Star Francia Raisa Will Develop Mendez Desegregation Story

"Grown-ish" star Francia Raisa and "13 Reasons Why" executive producer Mandy Teefeyare will join forces on a feature surrounding the 1946 Mendez vs. Westminster school desegregation case, Variety reports.

The duo became convinced of the story's relevance today earlier this year, and were able to convince the Mendez family to support them.

"We are so honored that the Mendez Family has entrusted us with the opportunity to tell their story," Raisa and Teefey said. "Mendez vs Westminster deserves wide recognition for their fight against segregated schools and the equal treatment of Mexican-American students, and we are proud to help showcase this moment that has been bypassed in history."

The Mendez family said, "Although we have been approached in the past about doing a movie, after several conversations and a meeting with Francia and Mandy, we are confident that they are the right people to tell our story."

Gonzalo Mendez was one of five Mexican-American fathers who were plaintiffs in the case, which asserted that their children, along with 5000 other children of Mexican ancestry, were victims of unconstitutional discrimination by being forced to attend separate "schools for Mexicans" in the Westminster, Garden Grove, Santa Ana, and El Modena school districts of Orange County. Those districts would not enroll the students because they were dark-skinned and had Hispanic surnames, they argued.

A federal judge in Los Angeles presided at the trial and ruled in favor of Mendez and his co-plaintiffs in finding separate schools for Mexicans to be an unconstitutional denial of equal protection.

The case was the subject of Sandra Robbie's Emmy-winning documentary "Mendez vs. Westminster: For All the Children/Para Todos los Niños." Both Raisa and Teefey wants to ensure the case gets as much national attention as the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case, in which the U.S. Supreme Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional.

"It's a very personal story for me because I was turned away from kindergarten when I was five because I could not speak English," Raisa said. "Hardly anyone knows this story. I got a very strong reaction when I talked about it at the ALMA AWARDS last week."

Read the original story on Variety.

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