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Famed scholar 'forgotten' in birthplace
Updated: Monday, 13 Feb 2012, 10:46 AM MST
Published : Monday, 13 Feb 2012, 10:46 AM MST
SANTA FE (AP) - The name George I. Sanchez has been celebrated for years among Mexican Americans in Texas and California.
A son of an Arizona miner, the Albuquerque-born Sanchez worked his way out of poverty as a rural public school teacher in New Mexico to become a pioneer scholar and education activist. His 1940 classic book "Forgotten People" brought attention to the plight of poor Mexican Americans in Taos.
His writings on racial segregation attracted the attention of Thurgood Marshall, the lead NAACP attorney in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case and later a U.S. Supreme Court justice.
But while a dozen or so schools in Texas and California are named in honor of Sanchez — including the School of Education building at the University of Texas where he taught for many years — not a single school in New Mexico bears his name. Few New Mexico educators or activists know much about him, according to historians and educators. No plaque exists to show his birthplace or the school where Sanchez taught. He is not listed among the state's notable figures in New Mexico Centennial guidebooks.
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