In March 1945, five Latino families filed a lawsuit challenging a school policy in Orange County, California that prevented Mexican American students from attending white schools. The case, now known as Mendez v Westminster, helped set the stage for another landmark case: Brown v. Board of Education.

In this story we’ll hear from two members of the Mendez family--Sylvia Mendez, who was 8 years old when her parents filed the lawsuit on her behalf, and her sister, Sandra, who hadn’t been born at the time of the suit and didn't heard about the case growing up.