A Class Apart

In the tiny town of Edna, Texas, in 1951, a field hand named Pete Hernandez murdered his employer after exchanging words in a gritty cantina. From this unremarkable small-town murder emerged a landmark civil rights case that would forever change the lives and legal standing of tens of millions of Americans. A Class Apart tells the little-known story of a band of underdog Mexican-American lawyers who took their case, Hernandez v. Texas, all the way to the Supreme Court, where they successfully challenged Jim Crow-style discrimination against Mexican-Americans.

In the landmark legal case, prosecution lawyers forged a daring legal strategy, arguing that Mexican-Americans were “a class apart” and did not neatly fit into a legal structure that recognized only blacks and whites. As legal skirmishes unfolded, the lawyers emerged as brilliant, dedicated, humorous and at times terribly flawed men. This film dramatically interweaves the story of its central characters — activists and lawyers, returning veterans and ordinary citizens, murderer, and victim — within the broader history of Latinos in America during a time of extraordinary change.

Carlos Sandoval was co-producer/director of the documentary Farmingville, which won numerous awards and honors including the Sundance Special Jury Prize and the Council on Foundations’ Henry Hampton Award. A lawyer and writer, Sandoval has published work in The New York Times and other publications. Sandoval worked on immigration and refugee affairs as a member of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations, and as a program officer for The Century Foundation. Of Mexican-American and Puerto Rican descent, Sandoval grew up in Southern California and is a graduate of Harvard College and of the University of Chicago Law School.

Web site launch: January 22, 2009

Air date: February 23, 2009