In the San Domingo cemetery in Normanna, Texas, the people are dead, but segregation is not. In April, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund filed a lawsuit (MALDEF) in federal court against the Normanna Cemetery Association in response to the organization’s refusal to allow Pedro Barrera, a Mexican American, to be buried there.
“Post-mortem racial segregation in the 21st century is astounding,” said Thomas A. Saenz, MALDEF President and General Counsel. “This case demonstrates how regrettably deep the roots of anti-Latino prejudice are in this country and in Texas.”
MALDEF is bringing the lawsuit on behalf of the American G.I. Forum of Texas, a nonprofit organization that advocates on behalf of Latino military veterans. One of the earliest cases taken up by the American G.I. Forum involved discrimination for a burial.
In 1948, the organization intervened for the widow of Pvt. Felix Longoria who was killed in action. In a town just 30 miles from Normanna, the funeral home would not allow the funeral for Pvt. Longoria to take place there. Eventually Longoria was buried in a cemetery designated for Mexican Americans, but with the help of the American G.I. Forum, he was reinterred at Arlington National Cemetery.
“This is morally wrong,” said John Martinez, Commander of the American G.I. Forum of Texas, Inc. “It happened in the 1940s and 1950s and, in today’s time and age, I can’t believe this is still happening to Hispanics and Hispanic veterans.”
Dorothy Barerra, widow of Pedro, is white. When she met with the caretaker of San Domingo cemetery, Jimmy Bradford, to inquire about burial for her husband of 40 years, she was told by him the board had already heard of her desire to have her husband buried there and they had already voted not to allow him.
The formal complaint describes the exchange as follows:
“When Mrs. Barrera asked why “the board” wanted to exclude her husband’s remains from the San Domingo Cemetery, Mr. Barrera responded “because he’s a Mexican,” and that she could “go up the road and bury him with the niggers and Mexicans.”
MALDEF is asking for a a permanent injunction to prohibit the cemetery from continuing to deny burial for anyone based on race or national origin and for a judgement that the Normanna Cemetery Association’s refusal to bury Normanna’s Latino residents in the San Domingo Cemetery is discriminatory and violates the rights of non-whites under federal law.
Featured Image by Stockarch, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License
