News > April 20, 2006

Walking Out and Standing Up

By Daffodil Altan

Students and supporters march to call for amnesty for illegal immigrants.

No one knows exactly how it started: fliers, text messages, MySpace bulletins and one code phrase—HR 4437—circulated throughout schools and cyberspaces over the course of a few days. But the massive student walkouts that occurred between March 24 and 30 were among the largest in California’s history.

Adults observing 40,000 students in Southern California spilling into the streets expressed skepticism. “These kids don’t know anything,” NPR’s Juan Williams told Bill O’Reilly on a March 29 episode of “The O’Reilly Factor.” Other commentators dismissed their actions as truancy.

But the spontaneous eruption of a massive, coordinated walkout was proof that these students, no matter how poor, deprived or English-limited, used technology and networking to make themselves heard. “You know how they say that you have to take action and show what you’re going for in order for them to pay attention to you?” says Brenda Rodriguez, a senior at Wilson High School in East Los Angeles. “That’s exactly what they did. And nationally, everyone did the same thing. I think we were on the right page.”

While traditional progressive organizers are scrambling to coordinate next steps, no formal leaders organized these protests. “I think everybody was a leader because they had to be. Because they stood up for themselves,” says Miguel Lopez, a senior at Garfield High School in East L.A. who walked out.

This newly politicized base is communicating with each other through an extensive and quickly-evolving social digital network.

“It’s like a game, you build up your strength with friends,” says Adrian Avila, a recent community college graduate in San Jose, explaining how word of the walkout spread on MySpace. “So, if you send a bulletin to 1,000 friends, 10 will repost it and then eventually thousands will see it.” Just after the April 10 nationwide immigrant marches, MySpace bulletins were already announcing the nationwide boycott scheduled for May 1. A bulletin called “accionprimerodemayo” (“May 1st day of action”) posted by a student at Silicon Valley Debug, a grassroots, youth-run publication, had been reposted 30 times by the next day.

These new tools are joined to a direct sense of political urgency. “It’s not just their parents that are at risk here,” says Lorena Rodriguez, a senior at Garfield High School. “It might be also them.” The Los Angeles Unified School District does not track how many students are immigrant or undocumented, but 43 percent of the district’s students are learning English.

These students’ sentiments do not drip with the politicized language of eager college activists. Their demand was pragmatic and immediate: putting a stop to bills like HR 4437—which passed in the House and which would make felons out of undocumented immigrants, their families and anyone else caught within arm’s reach.”We were just right there showing support for our parents,” says Jennifer Lopez, a senior at Manual Arts High School in South L.A., “and showing [that] they can’t try to just sneak up this stupid law on us,”

“I don’t think the moment has passed,” says Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. “I think these young people are undergoing a transformation.” A participant in the famous Chicano student walkouts in 1968 (celebrated in a recent HBO film, Walkout), the mayor told students that he supported their efforts, but stressed that it was equally important that they succeed in school. “We can’t have you fail,” he said to a group of student leaders he met with after the rally in front of City Hall.

Throughout California, there is an overwhelming sense that the point of this political moment for these students is not the advancement of a theme, but the redefinition of what it means to be an immigrant in the United States. There is genuine excitement about the legitimate force they represent in numbers—and the power that their collective voices have the capacity to wield.

“It was really, really great,” says Miguel Lopez, who dreams of going to University of California, Berkeley, and was born in the United States but has an undocumented sister. “It’s our own kind. It’s the youth actually speaking out and walking, doing this for a change.”

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• Reader Comments

  May 1st there will be walkouts everywhere.  People will skip work school and anything else.  They wont do shopping from what I’ve heard either, and I’m gona join them. How about you?

  Posted by Vanella on Apr 22, 2006 at 9:15 PM

  Public holiday here in frogland, but we’re going to USE it , too !

  It’ll make a change from taking a day off work or striking.

  Same problems as you guys, same globalization , rightwing politics, and same opposition to them.

  Posted by frog on Apr 23, 2006 at 8:03 PM

  “Adults observing 40,000 students in Southern California spilling into the streets expressed skepticism. “These kids don’t know anything,” NPR’s Juan Williams told Bill O’Reilly on a March 29 episode of “The O’Reilly Factor.” Other commentators dismissed their actions as truancy.”

  After a couple of decades working with youth, following years in the private business sector dealing only with adults, I say with confidence that the habitual underestimation of young adults’ grasp of complex issues, moral fiber, and perseverence at important tasks is as prejudicial as it is frequent. There is no counting the number of adults I’ve worked with (in business and in schooling) who revealed themselves to at least as unreliable, as much prone to narcissistic self-centeredness, and just as distractible by “hormones” as teens. We can debate the facets of the immigration issue, but I admit to feeling a bit of pride in the kids.

  Hell, they could have been cutting class to go get high. And though I was guilty of that myself on occasion, back in the day, the kids described in the article are more admirable by far in terms of their motivations.

  “’I don’t think the moment has passed,’ says Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. ‘I think these young people are undergoing a transformation.’ ... the mayor told students that he supported their efforts, but stressed that it was equally important that they succeed in school. ‘We can’t have you fail,’ he said to a group of student leaders he met with after the rally in front of City Hall.”

  Nothing to do with immigration, Mr. Mayor, but it’s the schools that are doing the failing. The kids learned more of value than they would have in their Law & Government classes. Or more precisely, the practicum of the marches will have substantiated the vocab salad they’d have had to partake of in those classes.

  Posted by Kuya on Apr 24, 2006 at 11:42 PM

  Please visit SourceCode - Free Speech TV’s weekly news magazine.
  This week, Daffodil Altan’s video report on the student protest.

  sourcecode.freespeech.org

  Thanks!

  Posted by archivegrl on May 1, 2006 at 9:33 AM

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• Walking Out and Standing Up