Carlos Cardena

WORD OF THE DAY
PERSONAL CONTEXT
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
SUCCESS PRINCIPLE
CIVICS LESSON

MAKE YOUR BEST CASE

. . . the systematic exclusion of persons of Mexican origin from all types of jury duty in at least seventy counties in Texas.
What Carlos Cadena argued against in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case

On January 11, 1954, Carlos Cadena made history when he appeared in “Hernandez v. Texas” with his team of lawyers before the U.S. Supreme, the first time Mexican-American attorneys had done so.

Cardena had journeyed a rough road to make it to this historic moment. The impoverished circumstances in which he grew up was an ongoing challenge. When Cadena was a teenager, his father wanted a divorce so he could remarry; his mother agreed only on the condition that he pay for Cadena’s college education. This paved the way for him to attend the University of Texas at Austin, where he became the first Latino to serve as undergraduate editor of the Texas Law Review. He went on to law school there, the only Mexican American in his class and ended up ranking third out of 117 law school graduates.

After serving in the Air Force in World War II, he joined a San Antonio law firm and won a restrictive covenant case in the late 1940s, which created greater opportunities for Mexican Americans in the San Antonio real estate market. Cadena’s landmark case started in 1952, when he agreed to represent Pete Hernandez, who had been convicted of murder. Cadena and his legal team made the argument that countless Mexican Americans in Jackson County, Texas had been discriminated against: they were citizens and qualified for jury duty, but not one of them had been chosen to serve on a jury in the preceding 25 years. In the first and only Mexican American civil rights case to come before the U.S. Supreme Court during this era, Cadena asserted that his client’s constitutional rights had been violated. In an unanimous ruling written by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the court held that Mexican Americans as well as all other nationality groups in the U.S. are protected from discrimination under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The impact of the decision was far-reaching. Constitutional protections against discrimination now covered not just African Americans but any U.S. ethnic or nationality group for which discrimination could be proved. His career boosted by this landmark ruling, Cadena served as San Antonio City Attorney. Because of his leadership, especially his effective collaboration with law enforcement officials, San Antonio was a civil rights trailblazer, becoming the first Southern city to  to integrate its eating establishments. In 1965 Cadena was appointed to the Fourth Court of Civil Appeals, and in 1977 Governor Dolph Briscoe appointed him chief justice of that court, Cadena once again making history as the first Mexican American chief justice in Texas.

Cadena made winning arguments, which boosted him to rise higher and higher throughout his trailblazing legal career. His pathway to success is one you should emulate. You can make your best case as you:

FIND THE RIGHT EVIDENCE
It took Cadena years of research to build a breakthrough U.S. Supreme Court case. Be willing to do the hard work of digging for the most compelling information. Once you have it in hand, you will be in position to:

FORMULATE THE BEST STRATEGY
Your victory is in your strategy. Cadena was part of a team of lawyers, picking each other’s brain to come up with the optimal approach. Don’t strategize alone. Surround yourself with thoughtful collaborators to help you focus on the key issues, do the creative planning and to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s.

FIGHT THE RIGHTEOUS CAUSE
Fighting for equal rights, as Cadena did, is the right thing to do. You will be inspired to make winning arguments when you are seeking to win not just for yourself but others. Fight so that everyone can win!

WORD OF THE DAY
Emulate – match or surpass (a person or achievement), typically by imitation.

PERSONAL CONTEXT
Cadena’s family immigrated from Mexico in 1907, ten years before he was born in San Antonio. The youngest of seven children, Cadena and his siblings were raised by his mother Dolores because his father returned to Mexico early in his upbringing. Dolores, who spoke only Spanish, worked as a laundry woman and housekeeper to support her family. Growing up Cadena attended a Catholic school and worked hard at his studies.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
In 1848 the United States annexed Northern Mexico and approximately 80,000 Mexican  became U.S. citizens, residing in southwestern and western states. During the early 20th century when Cadena’s family came to Texas, immigration of Mexicans to the U.S. was increasing because of the violence and economic turmoil caused by Mexico’s civil war. The majority of Mexican immigrants have historically lived in Texas and California, though starting in the 1950s, around the time of Cadena’s groundbreaking legal work, Mexican American population began to diffuse beyond the Southwest and West to the Midwest and Southeast. Cadena’s activism was the predecessor of the Chicano movement, which in the 1960s and 1970s mobilized masses of Mexican Americans to affirm their rights for the first time.

SUCCESS PRINCIPLE
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CIVICS LESSON
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