Editor’s Note: Lupe Mendez, poetry editor of the Texas Observer, is author of the new book We Exist in the Whisper: Huelga School Verses (Arte Público Press, 2026)–one of the first works to tackle Houston’s 1970s huelga school movement. Mendez’s moving mélange of poetry, interviews, and journal entries describes a citywide strike, during which Mexican-American students and parents protested the district’s attempt to skirt integration by classifying them as white. Mendez calls this book an attempt to “sit with the movement.” Excerpts reprinted by permission of Arte Público Press.
Introduction
On August 31, 1970, more than 3,000 children were withdrawn from Houston Independent School District classrooms. The district’s desegregation plan, designed to comply with federal mandates, rezoned and bused Black and brown—Mexican and Mexican-American—students in ways that many Mexican families experienced not as justice, but as displacement and disregard. In response, families organized boycotts. They formed the Mexican-American Education Council (MAEC). They established Huelga Schools—strike schools—so that their children could continue learning with dignity.
Hell No, No Vamos [excerpt]
I.
The shiny yellow stage empty
at home protesting
the pairing of Chicanos and Blacks
Mothers march up and down
at home protesting
in signs “hell no, no vamos” and
Mothers march up and down
“Education Sí, Mickey Mouse Games, No” …
Loco Boundaries [excerpt]
Es imposible
leer the new school maps
El PAPEL CHICANO
made every possible effort
de traerles los mapas
en esta edición
actual photographs, en dibujos
the maps showing boundaries
of the new school zones
We had a professional
photographer, nos ayudó
at the school district offices
for hours trying to
find a way to bring you these
An engineer
accompanied our reporter to
draw the maps onto drawing
or tracing paper
so we could write in the street boundaries
Both were shocked
at the complexities of the maps …
Research Site Visit Log #2
Date: July 1, 2019
Site Type: Residential,
Address: 1146 Gazin St.
This is another house on a corner lot. There is overgrown grass
along the sidewalk around the house, and it looks abandoned
or neglected, then abandoned. There is a
“no trespassing” sign on the outside of the chain-link fence
and no breeze to speak of.
There is one wooden chair on the cement porch—
not a shotgun house, but a manufactured-siding house.
It sits on blocks. It was once a mobile home.
The grass has been recently cut. The outside is dirty—
there is a film over the house. The windows on the inside
carry ripped-up black trash bags as drapery, the water meter
cover is broken and rusted, and on the left corner
there’s a sycamore tree, tall enough for shade,
the one grace it holds. Did this place hold students as well?
Was the line of Huelga School kids out of the yard
and around the corner? Across the street are the warehouse
structures for a shipping company. There is a steady
stream of eighteen wheelers coming and going;
at least twelve have come in and out as I write this.
Did I count that right?
Interview with “Tía Belinda” Belinda Miller
Student, Resurrection Church Huelga School, High School campus
Belinda Romo (now Belinda Miller) is a current resident of San Antonio, Texas. She is one of ten kids, who at the time of the Huelga School Movement were in the 1st through 10th grades.
Belinda’s family lived in Denver Harbor, close to the Houston Ship Channel, on the Eastern side of the city. All six sisters attended a Huelga School. Belinda should have gone to Furr High School for 10th grade year, but received notification that she was re-zoned to Wheatley High School for the 1970–71 school year. Her younger sister, Laura, was the only other sister to attend Wheatley with her. Their younger sisters were assigned to McReynolds Jr. High.
Belinda said her parents were not very involved in school: “They weren’t no PTA parents.” They nevertheless were upset with their children being zoned to Wheatley instead of Furr because their girls would have to walk to get to Wheatley. They were aware of talk in the neighborhood and worried about the violent acts between Brown/Black communities. “Everybody was fighting for jobs and space.”
Belinda’s mom had heard from locals in the neighborhood that you could go to Furr and demand spots be given back. So, she called the school and was given the run-around. Then, she physically went to the school to ask about what could be done for her daughters and was told that the “spots” were given to other kids. Furr was already half white. The school was mostly a “50/50 split.” In fact, in the 1970-71 academic year, there were more white students at Furr High.
Her mother learned about the ongoing protests and knew of the Huelga School at Resurrection Church. Belinda would be a student there for six months. She remembered students took classes in the bingo hall or in the classrooms after regular Catholic school let out. She recalled there being partitions in the bingo hall to divide out the classes.
“I just remember being grateful we had some place to go,” she told me.
As we are talking, I map out the distance between Furr HS and Wheatley HS. It is 5.2 miles. I locate the house address for Belinda’s family residence.* The house sits on the “border” of Denver Harbor and 5th Ward, closer to Wheatley High School.
“It was all just a lot for us to handle,” Belinda says.
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