**Key verified facts:** Sylvia Mendez born June 7, 1936, in Santa Ana, California. Father Gonzalo Mendez, Mexican immigrant, naturalized citizen. Mother Felicitas (born Felicita Gomez Martinez, February 5, 1916, Juncos, Puerto Rico). Aunt Soledad Vidaurri (some sources call her Sally Vidaurri) took children to enroll. The enrollment rejection was in 1943 per Wikipedia’s Sylvia Mendez article; some sources cite 1944. Lawsuit filed March 2, 1945, by attorney David Marcus. Five plaintiff families: Mendez, Estrada, Guzman, Palomino, Ramirez. Four districts named: Westminster, Garden Grove, Santa Ana, El Modena. Judge Paul J. McCormick ruled for plaintiffs February 18, 1946. Ninth Circuit affirmed April 14, 1947 (161 F.2d 774), on narrow grounds of lack of state authorization. Governor Earl Warren signed Anderson Bill (AB 1375) in 1947. Gonzalo Mendez died 1964, age 51. Felicitas Mendez died April 12, 1998, age 82. Sylvia Mendez received Presidential Medal of Freedom February 15, 2011, from President Obama. Mendez Historic Freedom Trail and Monument opened Westminster 2022.
**Discrepancy notes:** The date of the initial enrollment rejection varies across sources (1943 vs. 1944). The relationship between the Anderson Bill’s passage and the Ninth Circuit’s April 1947 decision is contested — some accounts treat the bill as responsive to the ruling, but the legislature acted before the appellate decision. The “blueprint for Brown” characterization is popular but oversimplified; Robert L. Carter characterized the Ninth Circuit’s narrow holding as “regressive” for NAACP purposes. The Ninth Circuit did not strike down “separate but equal” doctrine — it found the specific segregation impermissible because it lacked state authorization.