 Welcome everyone to the National Archives Virtual Pajama Party. I'm so glad you're here with us tonight. We are joining from many different places tonight, and I wanted you to take a look at this map and the things in green are the states that we are all joining from. We'll get to that in just a minute. Check out the green things when you see them. Those are all our participants. And so, I want you to take a minute now and put in your city and state. You don't need to put your name at all, but put in your city and state where you're coming from. We're so glad you're here joining us tonight. To give us our first official introduction tonight and a special welcome, I want to play a video from the Archivist of the United States who wants to welcome you all as well. Good evening. Welcome to the National Archives Virtual Pajama Party. I'm told we have families from all across the country who are signed up to participate this evening, and many of our participants are first-time National Archives program attendees. I'm so glad you could join us. Tonight's topics include fairness, friendship, civil rights, and persisting through adversity. I hope you enjoyed seeing and learning about National Archives documents related to the Mendes versus Westminster court case and participating in our educational activities. I look forward to seeing some of your creativity featured later on in the program. Tonight we will get a chance to meet our featured guests, Ms. Wendiford Conkling and Ms. Sylvia Mendes. Ms. Conkling is the author of Sylvia and Aki, as well as four other books for young readers and many books for adults. Ms. Mendes is a civil rights activist and presidential middle of freedom winner. Thank you to Ms. Conkling and Ms. Mendes for taking time to talk with us this evening about the inspiring story of Sylvia and Aki. One great book or program can lead to others. I encourage you to keep reading and learning about any of the topics covered tonight. And I invite all of you to continue to participate in our Virtual Pajama Party Program series or other National Archives family programs. Thanks again to everyone for participating in our Virtual Pajama Party. I hope to see you and your family here at the National Archives soon. Enjoy your evening. Okay, great. Thanks again to Archivist of the United States, David Ferriero, for that special welcome. And I see we're getting some things in the chat of where people are from. So I'll do some shout outs here. Looks like we have people on the chat from Ohio, Iowa, Myrtle Creek, Oregon, Philadelphia. That's where I'm joining from, too. Plainville, Massachusetts, Staten Island, New York, Walfam, Massachusetts, and Lancaster, California. I hope I said that right. I used to live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. And that's how you say that. So all across the country, thanks so much. My name is Ms. Rydell. And as you probably guessed, I'm going to be your host tonight. I wanted to tell you a couple of things, and then we can get started or dive right in. So first of all, what the National Archives is. Some of you might have seen information about the program and thought, well, I wonder what that is. So we are a place that takes care of and makes important federal government documents accessible to people. So you've seen some of the historical sources that I've shared with you in the educational activities we've done. So we have lots of different types of documents in the National Archives all related to the federal government. And we will see some of those tonight. And I hope that you explore some of our other documents at some point. So here's our schedule for the night, front and center. We're going to talk first about what our theme is for tonight and the archivist of the United States mentioned that a little bit. And then we're going to look at our historical sources for tonight. Now, we've seen some really interesting sources in our first two activities that we did. And we'll see some more tonight that are connected to Sylvia and Aki, the book we've all read. Then during my section, when I'm going to be reading a document from the Mendes case, we're going to do a turn and talk with the people that are with us and then we'll put more things in the chat. Then one of my favorite, I love the virtual pajama party overall, but I especially love the point where I get to share your work and you get to see each other's work as well. It's been so fun getting them this week. And then that's when we'll do a special welcome to Ms. Conkling and Ms. Mendes. Ms. Conkling is going to do a short reading from the book and then we'll do questions and answers with both Ms. Conkling and Ms. Mendes. Oh, and I wanted to, I see there's some more things in the chat. We've got people here from New York City, Virginia and Brandywine, Maryland. So thanks for giving shout outs to where you are. Oh, and I wanted to let you know, I have this at the bottom of the slide, my tip. If you already have a question in mind that you want to ask Ms. Conkling or Ms. Mendes, you can put it in the chat at any time. You don't need to wait until they're up on screen because we'll get them all recorded where you're going to get to as many questions as possible. But you don't have to wait. You can put it in now if you want to. All right. Oh, and I wanted to say a special thanks for the colleagues of mine who are joining us tonight. Nothing good ever happens with just one person. To make something really great, you have to have a team. And I want to say thank you to the people who are helping me tonight. So we've got people across the country too, just like you all are joining us from across the country. So I'd like to say thank you to my colleague Kimberly in Kansas City, my colleague Stephanie in Virginia, and my two colleagues who are in Washington, D.C., which is where our headquarters building is. One is Susan and one is Jamie. And Jamie is doing all our tech work tonight. So special shout out to Jamie. So thanks team. And I'm ready for the next slide, Jamie. So the theme tonight is fairness and civil rights. And if you remember from our first two educational activities, we've also looked at fairness, excuse me, family and friendship and persistence. That's what we looked at in our first two. And tonight we're going to be learning more about Sylvia and Aki and the real challenges they and other children like them face during that time in history. So tonight we're focusing on fairness and civil rights. And I want us to think about how those ideas were important for Sylvia and Aki and their families. And also how those ideas are important for us and our families today. Next slide, please. Our sources tonight, as I said, relate to both girls' stories and you see them here. And if you can't see them very well, that's OK. We're going to look at them a little more closely and we're going to be reading from some of it. So if you can't read it, don't worry. So first, we have the judgment and injunction, basically the decision from the Mendes v. Westminster case. And I'm going to share a part of that document with you all. Then a colleague of mine will share the second source, the one on the left here, a notice from one of the people who had to live at Poston, who signed the document, The Voice of the Nisei. Next slide, please. All right, now I have some boxes on here because I want you to be listening for things as I'm reading this part of the primary document, the historical document. This document was issued by US District Court Judge Paul J. McCormick in March 1946. So quite a while ago, but very important case, very important document. Sometimes we'd call a case like this a landmark case, which means it changes things moving forward. So this is the court case that Sylvia's parents, Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendes and others brought to try to stop schools in that part of California from treating Mexican and Mexican American children unfairly. Judge McCormick ruled that schools in Orange County, California could not segregate or separate, that's another word for it, students on the basis of race or family heritage. Like I said, very important case. Now here are some of the sections of the document I'm going to read to you. And I want you to listen for the key words the judge used. I have them up here for you. So I want you to listen for the words Constitution, Equal and Equality. How many times do you hear him use those words and what I'm going to read? Keep track as you're listening. When I'm done reading, we'll take a few minutes to do a turn and talk. You've probably done this before, but just in case not, let me tell you what that's going to be about. So turn to the people you're watching the program with and talk about how often you heard those words Constitution, Equal and Equality. Talk about why you think those words are important in the Mendes court case and why they're important to us today, too. All right, so here we go. In this first section I'm going to read to you, he used the word petitioner, which means the people who brought the lawsuit, like the Mendes family. Segregating public schoolchildren of Mexican descent is discriminatory and is illegal and is in violation of petitioners' rights and privileges as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws of the state of California. Petitioners are entitled to equal accommodations, advantages, and privileges in the public schools in the state of California and to equal rights and treatment with other persons as citizens of the United States. Now, in this last section I'm going to read you, Judge McCormick used the words paramount requisite. How's that for some big words? Paramount requisite. It means something that is very important to be included and that can't be left out. So he wrote, a paramount requisite in the American system of public education is social equality. It must be open to all children regardless of lineage. All right, some very interesting word choices there. Now let's do the turn and talk. So as I said, turn to the people that are around you. Talk about how often you heard the words Constitution equal equality. Spend a few minutes answering the questions you see on the screen. Why are those words important? Now, why were they important then? I'm going to give you a couple of minutes. Don't feel like you have to put something in the chat in the next 15 seconds. So we'll take a couple of minutes, talk about those words, think about those words, and then put some of your thoughts in the chat. And I will let them gather for a little bit and then I'll read them. OK, and as people are starting to put their comments into the chat, I just wanted to let you know we do have some more shout outs of particular places where people are participating from. So we have Princeton, New Jersey, Bloomfield, Connecticut, Washington, DC, Pocatello, Idaho, and Minnesota. And I used to live in Minnesota and I lived in Washington State right next to Idaho. So I've been in those places. Do we have anybody on here from Washington State tonight? I thought I saw some people sign up. All right, so looks like we're getting some in. All right. So and you can keep putting them in. I just wanted to let you know we do have some coming in and I'll read them out. OK, from Morgan and Rain. The judge used the key words many times. And that's true. There he talked a lot about equality, people being equal and related it to the Constitution, didn't he? Those words were important because the case was about equal rights for all students. Those words are still important today because it is important to treat everyone equally because everyone has the right to go to school together and learn. Thank you, Morgan and Rain. Sounds like you were really having a good discussion. All right. And then I see another one. I'm not sure who's this is yet. But if it's yours, you can put your name in the chat. Equality means that everyone has the same rights regardless of their skin, gender or age. Thank you very much for that comment. From Sebastian, Tyler and Dila, it looks like. Equality is important today because all humans should have the right to resources. It sounds like there's some really good conversations going on. I'm so glad to see that. All right. So Danny from Phoenix, it looks like, says, the court made it fair for everybody, not just Sylvia's family. And that's true. There were several families involved in the case and it was those families, but it was other families as well. And then as we know from the book, right later on in the 1950s, there was another case that came that was about school segregation, right? But the Mendes case was the first and helped pave the way for it. All right. And another comment somebody has is to be equal is to get the same thing as everyone else. Right. Very good. That's an important definition for us to remember. All right. And I think those are all our things. Oh, we have another another someone telling us where they're from. Gainesville, Georgia, Caroline from Gainesville, Georgia. Welcome to you. OK. And all right. All right. So if there's time at the end, I will return to some of these questions. We'll go back to the chat. I really appreciate you all taking the time to put it in and to be thinking about this stuff because as we as you've been saying, it's really important to do. But for I think right now what I want to have us do and want to make sure we have time for all the things you want to do tonight is to learn about the second document. And to learn about the second document, we're going to see a video from a colleague of mine, Victoria. And Victoria is going to be reading something called that was signed from someone called the voice of the Nisei. If you don't know what Nisei means, that's OK. You just need to listen carefully to Victoria because she's going to tell you what it means during her video. And like I said, once we're done with her video, we'll spend a few more minutes on the chat because I still see things coming in. All right. So let's hear what Victoria has to say about this document. Hello, my name is Victoria. I am a writer and editor in the Communications and Marketing Division at the National Archives. I get to talk to people from all over the agency and share their stories with each other and with the public. Today, I am here with you to read a section from an important historical document here at the National Archives. This document is from Boston, the internment camp for Japanese and Japanese American people that Aki and her family were sent to in Arizona. The document is an English translation of a notice that someone posted at one of the camps. The person who posted it signed it as the voice of the Nisei. Nisei were people born in the U.S. or Canada whose parents were immigrants from Japan. The writer did not believe that families being imprisoned in the camps was fair. So he suggested changes to make things better. Some of the ideas the writer used in this document are very similar to the ones Judge McCormick used in the Mendes decision. The words relate to important civil rights for Japanese Americans. Here is a section from the document. The first part talks about being drafted or recruited to be in the military. As you know, fellow Americans, at last they did recognize and realize that we are Americans. We are going to be drafted soon, just like an American outside enjoying the freedom and liberty. But don't you think they should reconsider the steps they had taken? We are demanding the following as an American citizen. Freedom, rights and privilege should not be denied in California militarily, economically, politically. Open the barbed wire and withdraw the guard duty. No discrimination upon the Japanese securing occupations. Do you agree with the writer's points that these changes would have made things more fair? Do you think they happened based on what we read about in Aki's experiences? Like the person who wrote that document, there are many other people who fought against the unfair treatment of Japanese American people before, during and after World War II. And like the Mendes family and others who have fought for equality in many different places, many people have spoken out against treating anyone unfairly based on what they looked like or their cultural heritage. They helped make important changes in our laws and in society. Okay, thank you very much to Victoria, one of my colleagues for making that video, telling us a little bit about that particular document. And it's because Sylvia and Aki are the stories of both girls and their families, I wanted to make sure we had documents from both of them as well. All right, so back to the chat for a minute. It looks like, oh, one of the people who's here from Washington State did put something in there, Linwood, Washington. Palmdale, California has also checked in. Thank you very much for that. And let's see if we have anything else here. All right, back to our question about equal and equality and why that's important. Tori said equality is as important now as it was then. And that's very true. So thank you for that comment. All right, now we're going to go into your work. Remember I said this is one of my favorite parts? Jamie, if you could do the next slide, thank you very much. Okay, so we had the two educational activities that we shared in advance. And the first one, you were invited to think about an object that was something special to you based on it coming from family or friends. Because we read a lot in the book about the importance of friendship and family. And so I wondered what special things you had related to that. And you can see that Caroline in Georgia is one of the people who shared their work. And in case you can't see it clearly enough, I'll read her caption. Because that was an important part too. Put a caption in. So you're making like a mini exhibit. This is my doll, Caroline writes. Her name is Anna. She was a gift from my friend Lily. I can't sleep without Anna. I really love Anna. I know exactly how you feel, Caroline. I had things like that too. And maybe some of you noticed that I do have a special object with me tonight. I hope you can see him in the background behind me. All right. And then Tyler from Massachusetts. Her work is on the right. This is Snuffles. Is a teddy bear. He was my mom's teddy bear when she was a baby. She slept with him every night. He is so old that his smile fell off. Oh, that's awesome. That sounds like a very, very loved bear. And it's great to have that special object be something that was special to your mom and special to you. So thank you for sharing that with us, Tyler. Next slide, please. All right. And then we also had an activity in which you could look at some historical pictures and write a six-word story. And six-word stories are just like they sound. When you look at something, think of how you would describe it in six words. So I have the picture that the people who wrote these six-word stories picked. So, and that was from Post-It. And so you can see what people thought when they looked at the picture. So we have Owen from Virginia here. And he says they are putting hay in mattresses. Exactly. Sam from Georgia in the middle here says disregarded families stuffing mattresses with straw. Thank you to Sam for those six words. And PT from Oregon, who also did a drawing as well. That's great. Those six words are making a hay mattress to sleep. All right. Thank you. Next slide, please. Okay. And we have two more things left. And if you didn't get a chance to share your work this time, I hope you enjoyed doing the activities. And maybe you could send your work in next time. We do these programs twice a year. So you might be able to do it next time. The two that are here, the one on the left is SS from PA. That's Pennsylvania. And it says this is a toy Snoopy phone. My grandma loved Snoopy and we would play. All right. Thank you, SS. And then Aiden from Texas wrote a six word story. And Aiden wrote, stand up for what is right. Great thinking, Aiden. Thank you so much for that. And thank you to all of you for sharing your work with us. Next slide, please. And now it's the moment you've probably all been waiting for, because this stuff has been good, right? But now it's time to meet our featured guests for tonight. And I'd like to welcome to our program Ms. Winifred Conkling and Ms. Sylvia Mendez. And it looks like Ms. Conkling has her camera on and we'll get Miss, yay, now we're all here. Great. Thank you so much for joining me tonight and welcome. I hope you've been enjoying the program up to this point too. And you probably won't be surprised that we already have some questions for you. So people have been putting their questions in and we'll, maybe I'll go back and forth so that people don't have to answer question after question. So we'll start for one with Ms. Mendez. And this question is, what was it like attending the Hoover school, knowing it wasn't as good as the school you should have been attending? It was very sad to be attending that school. We didn't have a playground. It was all dirt where we would go out and play. We didn't have any swings, anything to play with. We would just sit there and talk to each other. It was very sad when we were at Hoover school. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Conkling. Oh, here's an interesting question. Um, what have you been doing during the COVID pandemic to keep writing? And now that sounds like somebody who might want to be a writer and something we were just talking about to before. So, uh, sounds like we might have some budding writers. So give us, give us your tips of what you've been doing. Well, one thing is you don't have to make writing a really big project. And if you, it's really important to write every day if you can. And since we've gone into the COVID and the quarantine, I have made a practice every day of trying to write one, just one Haiku poem, which is a Japanese form of poetry that has five, seven, and then five syllables on each line. So I take one photograph of an image of something and I have had it attempted and I have so far done it every day of writing one Haiku. And so anyone who's interested in writing, there's a lot, just like you did that six, the story with six words. It really teaches you how to communicate a lot of ideas in just a few words. So that's something I've enjoyed doing. And maybe some of you guys might too. Great. Thank you. All right. So back to Ms. Mendes, somebody asks, how did you feel when you first met Aki? Oh, it was so exciting because she was around my age and it was so much fun to meet her. And she was so friendly, so friendly and lovable. And did it really happen, as it was described in the story, that you visited at Poston? I visited Poston, but I really did not get out of the car and I did not get to see Aki. Okay. Okay. So you knew about her at that point, you need to take the trip with your dad. Okay. So when did you actually get to meet her then? I got to meet Aki when they came home, when they all came home. Okay. And her sister, she's a twin, Aki's a twin. So I got to meet both of them. And it was so much fun because we played and played and played and played together all the time. That sounds great. It's always fun meeting new friends like that. Yeah. Okay. All right. Great. Thank you. Can I jump in there? Absolutely. Yes. One thing I think it's really important to mention is that Aki was a twin and people who have read the book are saying, I'm confused, where did this twin come from? And I reached out to both Aki and her sister. And when I talked to her sister, her sister did not want to talk about what had happened in the internment camp. And as a writer and just as a person, I think it's very important that people have the right to tell their own stories and to not tell their own stories. So we talked about it and decided that it would be good to go ahead. And that is one of the reasons why Sylvia and Aki is a story that's told as historical fiction. Even though the events are historically true, we changed some things in the book and one of the things we changed is we wanted to respect her sister and therefore we didn't talk about her in the text. So that's why it's both historical fiction and that's also really I think an important fact just to remember that we always want to respect other people's right to tell their own story their own way. Absolutely. That's a great point. And that's something I had mentioned in one of the educational activities that it takes a special kind of bravery. And that doesn't mean that someone who doesn't want to tell their story isn't brave, but just it's always good for us to recognize that people sometimes don't want to talk about bad things and that's okay too because that's their right. Those are their stories to share or not to share. So we're so grateful though that we got to Ms. Mendez. And did you say I should be pronouncing it a key? Is that the correct way to say it, Ms. Conkling? So you can probably speak better than that. I was caller Aki, but I really know how to pronounce Japanese as well. Okay. All right. I just wanted to make sure if there was a particular way I was like to get that for people. All right. Thank you for jumping in with that important point. And someone also wanted to know, let me see. How long did it take you to write the book, Ms. Conkling? Books always take a lot longer than you think they're going to take. I first learned about Sylvia's story when I was listening to the radio. And I was learning about the 50th anniversary of the Brown versus Board of Education story. And when I heard that on the radio, I heard Sylvia being interviewed. So right after that, I went home and I called her. I found her phone number and called her and said how important I thought her story was. And then I would be honored to work with her and trying to write a book. And we had started our process of interviewing by phone. And then I actually went to California and met Sylvia. And I also had a chance to meet Aki. And so that took some time. And I also honestly wasn't sure how to write it. It took a little bit of, should it be written as a nonfiction story where everything is factually true? Should it be written as a fully fictionalized account? We kind of settled for something a little bit in between. But it took a couple of different drafts because I know everybody out there has writing assignments at school and you have to write it. And then you go through that revision process. And even if you are a professional writer, there's even more revision. And it goes on for a really long time. So between the time I first heard about the story and the book then, which was in the 50th anniversary, was 2005, I guess? Oh, four. And then the book didn't come out until 2011. Oh, okay. That's five or six years of going back and forth. Wow. Wow. What a great thing, though, that you heard that on the radio and then you were able to reach out. Because I am a big fan of stories that are, stories that are fiction, historic fiction like that, where you learn a little bit about it, but it's also a really fun way to learn. So thank you so much for that. All right. Oh, boy. Okay. So there's a question for you, Ms. Mendes. Are you still friends with Aki? Yes, we are. I am. And especially with her niece, her niece, Janice, meaning itself, who is also trying to write a book right now on their family. Oh, wow. Okay. Complete. Telling it all like it was. And so I'm still other friends. Oh, that's great. Okay. Let's see. It looks like there's some more for you. So I'll go ahead and go stick with you for a moment. Let's see. Did you live close to Aki after you left their farm? And where did you go afterwards after you moved from that farm? We went back to Saniana. That's where we were, where my father had his business there. We went back to Santana. And when we went back, it was during the time when the appeal had not been confirmed yet. So my father takes us from the vario that we used to live in Santana, because Latinos could only live in certain districts. We weren't allowed to live anywhere we wanted to. So he tells the superintendent of schools, even though you have not said, because Santana had not decided not to segregate. Not to integrate. But he takes us to a white school across town and that's what happened. Wow. Okay. So you didn't have like, when we were near the end of the story, we could kind of jump ahead a little bit and find out what happened. But it sounds like there was quite a time between when the case first went before the judge, and then when you found out the final after that appeal. Correct. Yeah. Okay. All right. And like I said, they just keep coming in here. So Tori wanted to know, Ms. Sylvia, how did you feel when you first read the book? So when, yeah, when that first came out. Because maybe I'll be on the phone all the time speaking. At first I kept saying to whenever the doll snap, there was no doll, but the children love the story about the doll. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I wanted to get saved with the doll there. So that was exciting to get the doll in there. All right. And that does answer part of the question. Yeah. So that was a question here if you really traded dolls. But I think Ms. Conkling, you were saying the other day that that didn't happen, but it was a great way to connect in the book, connect the girls in the book. Well, and I think it did two things, both most children have some kind of, it's not always a doll, but some kind of object, just like the things that we saw in the drawings that came in earlier, that means a lot to you. And it was also a way both of having kids connect with the story. But it's also a way of showing what did happen, which was that the Japanese American families, when they went to the internment camp, it's 100% true. They were told they could care, they could have with them only what they could carry. And that was all their clothes, all their necessities. So even beloved objects weren't able to come with them. And I think it's important for children today to imagine how agonizing that must have been. And frankly, it still is today with immigrant children who are traveling and coming to the United States or to other countries. They have to leave so much behind. And it's just a very heartbreaking and difficult thing for people to do. And by talking about the doll, it was really an attempt to help kids imagine just what a difficult time that must be for kids. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that leads right into a question someone had for Ms. Mendez. Since you were just a child, you talked a little bit about how you were sad, someone wants to know, how did you persevere and deal with the adversity that you faced? At the time when the case was going on, I didn't see any adversity because my parents were protecting me. They just kicked me under their wings all through the court. I didn't even, I thought they were fighting because they wanted, my assumption was that they were fighting because they wanted me to go to that beautiful school with a playground. Never realizing, I was in court every single day in front, front row, never realizing what they were really fighting for. I thought, I know I'm going to get to that school and I'm going to play in that playground. I was eight, nine years old by that time. And that's what I was thinking about. Okay, all right. So that's good to know too. Sometimes when kids are too young, they need the support of their families to help them and then be teaching them about how to persevere and how to move forward and do the right thing. So all right, thank you so much for that. And let's see, Ms. Conkling, have you written books in other genres? And are there, have you written other types of books? If so, what is your favorite style to write in? And is it historical fiction? Do you like historical fiction the best? I do love historical fiction. Most of the books that I have written for kids have been nonfiction. I did a book about a year and a half ago on, called Votes for Women. And that was about the centennial or the 100-year anniversary of women getting the right to vote. And a story like that, the history is so fascinating. Sometimes there are great stories within the broader historical narrative. And that's where great source material like they have at the National Archives of the actual documents. It's just wonderful to be able to look back at those materials and tell the story using the actual words and the actual documents that happened in history. I do love, there's more playfulness in historical fiction. And I love that too. So I can't really, which child do you like? I like them all. And it really, I think, depends on the project. So what is in the best service to the story itself? Is it best told nonfiction or is it best told in a way that can engage the reader in a different way? Oh, great. All right. Thanks. All right. Now, here's a big question for you, Ms. Mendes. As a civil rights activist, what are you most proud of accomplishing? This could be one of those difficult questions to answer too, to pick just one thing. But what are some of the things you're most proud of accomplishing throughout your life? It was that my mother, I was a registered nurse for 33 years and I retired early to take care of her. And when my mother was on hospice care already, she didn't have very long to live that she asked me to go make sure that the whole country, the United States knew about Mendes versus Westminster. And that's what I'm most proud about, that I get letters from students from all over the United States. And I have been to, I think, every state now. I have been invited to universities and colleges and to speak about Mendes versus Westminster all over the United States. And I'm proud that I have completed my legacy, that was my legacy. She left me that to do. And I feel that I have fulfilled my legacy. Absolutely, absolutely. And to have that connection, have that be something she wanted. And for you to be able to do that, that is just, that's amazing. Thank you. Especially since I was a registered nurse, I was so scared to go out there. It was students and I love students. And that's why I always tell everybody, I'm an advocate for education because it was students that encouraged me to keep on talking. I was so scared. The first class I walked in, my legs felt like rubber. I thought I was just going to fall in front of them. And it was ninth graders. And I said, I'm here. I'm Sylvia Mendes. I'm so scared to tell you the story. They were so nice. I said, Miss Mendes, just tell us a story. Don't be scared of us. Nice, Mendes. I said, okay, you tell me exactly what I have to do. And I write it in a piece of paper and they wrote it. And I have those pieces of paper right now. And I said, Miss Mendes, at least bring us some pictures about the old school you're talking about, the new school you wanted to, your mother and father. And there were students that have always encouraged me because I always said, shall I continue? And they would always say, yes, continue. Yes, sorry. Yes, that's great. But I think it's important for everybody who's listening tonight to know that too, that it's okay to be scared when you're going into things for the first time. And you just work with the people who are there. And they're going to be supportive of you nine times out of 10. And so I'm glad that that first group of students were so that you can continue sharing your stories. All right, so let's go back to the questions here. Still lots of questions. Here's kind of a bigger question for you, Miss Conkling. Someone wants to know what you're working on next in terms of books. I have a proposal out to do a book on Jeanette Rankin. Oh, yeah. And a lot of people don't know that Jeanette Rankin is fascinating because she was the first woman who was elected to Congress from Montana. And she also is unique in all of history because she was elected to Congress right before they took the vote on whether or not the United States should enter World War I. And she voted against it. She was a pacifist. She had actually grown up living with Native Americans in Montana because when she was born, Montana wasn't even a state yet. It was a territory. And so she had a lot of friends who were Native Americans. And she learned tribal dances. And her father saw what was happening to a lot of the Native Americans and taught her, too, that it was not fair and that the violence that was done to them wasn't right. And she became a pacifist, meaning she believed in peace. And so her vote was with her conscience. But she knew it was going to get her kicked out of Congress. And it did. And then she worked for peace. And then when she saw the start of World War II happening, the trouble in Europe, she ended up going back to Montana and running for Congress again. And she was elected. And the first thing she had to do all over again was the vote for World War II. Just like we learned in this book, the bombing of Pearl Harbor had happened. And she was actually the only person at all to have voted against the United States entering World War II. She is the only person who voted against World War II and the only person to have voted for against World War I and World War II. And that also was a woman who has a lot of bravery to have voted her conscience rather than doing what would have been the easier thing to do. But what there's a quote, it's not going to be exact, but she basically said, I don't care about what people think of me today. I care what the people will think of me 50 years from now. So great. All right. Well, we'll look forward to that. And I'm sure you're using National Archives documents there too as your, yeah. So there's, yeah. Again, you go back to the original source material. When you've got great source material, frankly, the stories tell themselves. They're all right there. They're just waiting for a skilled storyteller like you to be able to put them together. You just want to introduce them to the world. All right. Our next question is back to Ms. Mendez. Can you tell us what happened when you finally walked into an integrated class, you know, when you were in a classroom that wasn't segregated anymore, but had students of different backgrounds together. How, what was that like? Well, it happened. What happened in Westminster when Judge McCormick said separate is not equal. Westminster, we were living in Westminster and they went ahead and integrated us, placed us in the Westminster school. But I knew the students because we will ride the bus every day from the farm with them and then we would walk from the school to the Mexican school. And then we would walk back to the white school and meet with all my friends there and then go back to the farm. So that was really, it was really nice to go to that school. It wasn't until the minumizos come back during the appeal and we moved back to Santana. And my father tells the superintendent of schools that he's going to take us to a white school even though it has not been affirmed. And he takes us to this little school called Jefferson in Santa Ana, across town. And the teacher knew we were coming and she says to everybody say hi to Sylvia. And everybody said, hi Sylvia. And I was all excited because I had been in the integrated school in Westminster. And this little boy comes up and he looks at me and he says, who said you could come to our school? And then he starts telling me about you don't belong here. Don't you know Mexicans aren't supposed to? You can't believe what happened. I started crying and crying all this time. I didn't realize what they were fighting exactly what they were fighting for. And I started crying and crying and he just kept on saying, well don't come back to the school. And I'm crying and crying. I go home and I tell my mother, mother, they don't want me in that school. I'm not going back. And my mother says, Sylvia, don't you know what we were fighting? You were in court every single day in the front row. He has to get to that beautiful school in Westminster with a monkey bars and so she says no Sylvia. That's not what we were fighting. We were fighting because under God we're all equal and we all deserve the same equal opportunity. And yes, you're going back to school. And yes, I went back to school the next day. And what did I discover? I was already eight years old when I was turned away, nine years old when we went to court, 10 years when I ended up in Santa Ana in that school. I discovered very young and through life, I have held this through my life. And that's what kept me so strong that everybody's not prejudiced. Everybody's not evil. Everybody does not like to discriminate because in that school, even though there was a few that didn't want us there, there was so many beautiful students there that invited me to their home and to their house and to their party. And before you know it, I was just friends with everybody and I grew up in an integrated system there in Santa Ana going to school in an integrated school. Okay, all right, great. So keeping in mind that even though you might face that name calling or mean comments or whatever, that's not going to be everyone. Yeah, just persevere. I know you like to talk about persevering. Yeah. All right, well, here's a question and I'm happy to say that we have a lot of Latino families joining us tonight. And here's a specific question. How did you deal? This is for Ms. Mendez. How did you deal with adversity? And what advice do you have for me, a Latino boy in America? Oh my gosh, I learned very young that are, like I said, everybody's not, does not like to bully like the little boy that was bullying our Earth's prejudice. And I learned very young that my parents have fought for education and that is what's going to give you the American dream. In the United States, I am so, so happy that I was born in the United States. It's the best country in the world. And for this young boy that's coming in, that you have to go to school and get an education. And it's here in the United States free for everybody. And that will give them that American dream and give them success in life. So that's why I learned very young about the, my parents fought for education. And I remember, I don't know how much time we have, I remember going, graduating from high school. I wanted to be a telephone operator. And my mother says, no, how about a registered nurse? I says, no, no, I can't take physiology. I can't take chemistry. She says, yes, you can. So yeah. And I'm telling this young boy, this young gentleman, yes, you can, you can do it. You just have to, my favorite person here and that nobody's standing your way. And there's nobody that can stop you because in America, the American dream is possible, but you have to work very hard for it. All right. Thank you. And we can take probably one or two more questions and then we're going to have to wrap up already. So this is similar to the question that that boy just asked and you answered. But it's one that I think a lot of parents tonight would like you to address even a little bit more. Ms. Mendez, what advice do you have for Brown and Black children growing up in America today? Well, the most important part is for them to get educated and for the parents that are listening today, that for them to help the children to get to school and finish their education. I know it's very hard, especially for Latino parents because some of them don't even speak English so they can't even help the students with their homework. And it's so hard that some of them don't even know how to read and write some of the parents, but the students have to find somebody to help them in school and there's counselors in school. So I want the parents to get involved with the school to try and get their children help to make them succeed because the most important part is for them to finish that high school and go on to college and get a career maybe be an author like my friend there. Or could be a nurse like you. Thank you so much for all those years of helping people through your career as well. And here's a comment someone has. Ms. Sylvia, Aki's family was very lucky to have such wonderful caretakers for their farm while they were away. Well, we were lucky to have them too because my father's dream was to be a farmer and he got to be able to have a farm at that time. And then later when my father spent all the money that he had made by selling the cafe and Santana selling his business, he had brought so much money with him to the farm. And then growing the Sfergas, they would make a lot of money. He lost everything during the time with the court case. And we ended up without a penny too when we left. But my father was really happy for what he had done. He felt well about what he had done. I tell the students, I ended up having to work in a cannery from three to 11 to go to nursing school. So they cannot tell me, I can't go to school because I don't have any money or I can't do this. There's nothing they can stop you if you want to succeed. And that's so important for our students today to know that if they want to succeed, they have to persevere and they have to study hard and they're going to have roadblocks all waiting. But you just have to just keep on going. All right. Thank you. And with that, I think we're going to have to wrap up. It's 8.59 already. I want to thank you both. It's been wonderful talking with you. And I know our families, there's still some comments. Sorry, we couldn't get to all the questions and comments. But I'm so glad we had our conversation tonight. And parents, I just wanted to remind you to fill out that survey. I sent you a link to fill out the survey. It's open from right after the program through Monday. So feel free to tell us what you thought of this program. This is a new program for the National Archives and we're trying to make it better all the time. As I mentioned earlier, our next program will be in the spring. We're thinking April or May at this point. And if you're on the mailing list, if you had signed up for that, when you first registered for the program, you'll get a notice once we have a date for that and once we have speakers. Thank you again so much to Ms. Winifred Conkling. Thank you for your great book and for being here tonight. And thank you, Ms. Sylvia Mendez, for being here and being such an inspiration and fulfilling that dream that your mom asked you to do. Thank you very much, all. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Thank you. Winifred.