Student Protests Echo the '60s, but With a High-Tech Buzz

[Peter Farruggio <pfarr@cal.berkeley.edu>]

> <http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-students31mar31,0,2965460,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines>http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-students31mar31,0,2965460,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines
> From the Los Angeles Times
> Student Protests Echo the '60s, but With a High-Tech Buzz
> Youths used a popular website to organize their 
> walkouts. And some did know what a 'sit-in' was.
> By Scott Gold
> Times Staff Writer
>
> March 31, 2006
>
> Shuffling her feet in her Garden Grove home last 
> weekend, Mariela Muniz stared into the carpet 
> and suffered, as teenagers do, the silent 
> deliberation of her parents. Soon, her father 
> nodded and her mother uttered the words she'd 
> been waiting to hear: "Lo puedes hacer."
>
> "You can do it."
>
> The next morning, the 15-year-old sophomore at 
> Garden Grove High School ­ with the permission 
> of her parents, both of whom are factory workers 
> and Mexican immigrants who became U.S. citizens 
> after entering the country illegally ­ skipped 
> school for the first time in her life.
>
> Following in the footsteps of those who led the 
> first of the student walkouts March 24 and the 
> adults who organized last Saturday's massive 
> protest against proposed immigration 
> legislation, Muniz became one of a few dozen 
> students in Southern California who helped 
> spearhead a national exhibition of civil unrest, 
> one of the largest and most boisterous since the 
> civil rights movement four decades ago. By the 
> end of today ­ in Fresno, in Monterey Park, in 
> San Diego ­ more than 40,000 students in 
> California will have walked out of their schools 
> to protest the proposed reforms.
>
> There is little question that some students took 
> advantage of the protests to ditch school. Some 
> acknowledged they had little idea what all the 
> fuss was about. Others took the opportunity to 
> throw bottles at police and to shut down 
> freeways. Law enforcement officials criticized 
> them for diverting resources from more pressing 
> needs, and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio 
> Villaraigosa told them to go back to school.
>
> But for the small group of students who 
> instigated the walkouts, most of whom hadn't 
> been politically active but were well-connected 
> on campus and online, it was a transformative week.
>
> Using modern technology ­ mostly their communal 
> pages on the enormously popular MySpace website 
> ­ they pulled off an event with surprising speed 
> and dexterity. Planned in mere hours on little 
> sleep, lacking any formal organization, the 
> protests were chaotic and decentralized and organic.
>
> They were also a reminder that there are more 
> than 35 million Latinos in the United States, 
> about 40% of them in California. At least 8 
> million are in the country illegally. But many 
> of their children ­ including many of the 
> student leaders ­ are citizens by birth. And 
> they represent a voting bloc that could help 
> shape the politics of the West for years to come.
>
> "I think it is the beginning of something," said 
> Louis DeSipio, a professor of political science 
> at UC Irvine. "You have the foundation for a new kind of Hispanic politics."
>
> Many of the student leaders attended last 
> weekend's Gran Marcha ­ which brought 500,000 
> demonstrators to downtown Los Angeles, stunning 
> even the event's organizers ­ and said they were awed by the event.
>
> "I've always been proud to say that I'm 
> Hispanic," said Rafael "Ralph" Tabares, 17, a 
> Marshall High School student and an organizer of 
> his school's walkout. "But on Saturday, I 
> thought: Whoa. We can do something. And we can do it right."
>
> Others said they were inspired by the recent 
> airing of the HBO film "Walkout," which 
> re-created the Chicano-era school walkout by 
> 20,000 Los Angeles students in 1968.
>
> Since that tumultuous time, many Latinos in 
> California had come to favor quiet, somber 
> assimilation over loud, showy rebellion. To 
> many, the student protests ­ and the Gran Marcha ­ represented a reawakening.
>
> "It hearkens back to 1968," said Andres Jimenez, 
> director of the California Policy Research 
> Center at the University of California. "There 
> was a sense of frustration that they saw with 
> their parents in terms of the tenor of the 
> immigration debate. This group is being singled 
> out as a 'problem group.' And they wanted to 
> seek an avenue to respond to that, to show that 
> on the contrary, this group is very much a part of the broader society."
>
> To be sure, students revealed both their youth 
> and their naivete at times. When thousands of 
> Los Angeles students descended on City Hall on 
> Monday, for example, one student said she 
> remembered something about civil rights 
> protesters in the 1960s sitting down during 
> demonstrations. It was a reference to the 
> "sit-in," but it wasn't entirely clear whether 
> the students recognized the pedigree of their 
> decision to plop down on the steps.
>
> "That was the idea of a girl from Belmont" High 
> School, said Tabares. "In the '60s, the way they 
> did it was sitting down. So we told everybody to sit down."
>
> Just as often, however, students evidenced a 
> surprising amount of savvy. They carried trash 
> bags in their backpacks so they could not be 
> accused of littering. They corralled students 
> who tried to stray into stores and restaurants 
> so they would not be seen as marauders.
>
> Tabares even ordered classmates to put away 
> Mexican flags they had brought to the 
> demonstration ­ predicting, correctly, that the 
> flags would be shown on the news and that the 
> demonstrators would be criticized as 
> nationalists for other countries, not residents seeking rights at home.
>
> Stephanie Cisneros, a senior at Los Angeles 
> Downtown Business Magnet, had to contend with 
> the fact that many of her classmates were 
> concerned about the police in squad cars following the marchers.
>
> "Living in a low-income neighborhood, you just 
> don't have a really good image of the police," 
> said Cisneros, who became one of six students 
> invited into City Hall to meet privately with 
> Villaraigosa. "People thought we were going to 
> get arrested. But I told them: 'No. We are 
> exercising our right to free speech. As long as 
> we don't do anything wrong, we won't be arrested.' "
>
> Cisneros and a few others directed demonstrators 
> to cross the street with the light and to remain 
> on the sidewalk so they couldn't be accused of 
> trespassing. "We were respectful. But we fought for something," she said.
>
>
>
> The protest staged by Muniz and two friends in 
> Orange County was typical of the student leaders' efforts.
>
> They had heard about the March 24 walkouts at 
> several high schools in Los Angeles, and decided 
> to launch a protest of their own. On Sunday 
> afternoon, they posted a bulletin on MySpace ­ 
> since discovered by school administrators, who 
> were not pleased ­ announcing that anyone 
> wishing to participate should stand up at the 8 
> a.m. tardy bell Monday and "meet in front of the school."
>
> In the scattered, rapid-fire text typical of 
> students' MySpace missives, the bulletin 
> continued: "dOnt b scared?. All these politic 
> officials are trying to make their dreams come 
> true by destroying ours, AND THEY WILL, unless we do something about it!!"
>
> On the Internet site, which serves as a 
> free-of-charge, virtual gathering place, users 
> can send bulletins to all of their MySpace 
> "friends." The lists can include dozens of 
> people and the bulletins can be passed along in seconds.
>
> It didn't take long before most of Garden Grove 
> High's roughly 2,200 students knew what was 
> coming, without the knowledge or involvement of teachers or parents.
>
> Soon, the bulletin crossed over an invisible but 
> critical line between teens who were friends but 
> attended different schools. Students began 
> posting their telephone numbers, and soon dozens 
> more pledges to participate were obtained 
> through phone calls and instant text messages.
>
> Still, when the tardy bell rang Monday morning, 
> Muniz had no idea what to expect. Teenagers can 
> talk a big game. But would they follow through?
>
> She waited in front of the school. Soon, the 
> doors opened, and scores of students ­ most of 
> them Latino, but a handful of whites, African 
> Americans and Asian Americans too ­ joined her. 
> They marched through Garden Grove and Anaheim, 
> picking up students at several other schools as 
> planned through MySpace bulletins. By 1 p.m., 
> they had covered 10 miles. An estimated 1,500 
> students had walked out. Muniz was a truant ­ and, to her friends, a hero.
>
> School administrators have since informed her 
> that she'll have to perform community service as 
> penance. Back at her home, a humble ranch-style 
> house with family photographs on the wall and 
> avocados on the dining room table, she said it was worth it.
>
> "Sometimes you have to stand up for what you 
> believe in," she said. "We did. And it worked."
>
> If you want other stories on this topic, search 
> the Archives at latimes.com/archives.
>
>
> FOR THE RECORD:
> Immigration protest: An article and photo 
> caption in Friday's Section A referred to 1,500 
> students who walked out of Garden Grove High and 
> other Orange County schools during immigration 
> protests Monday. The 1,500 was the countywide 
> total. Fewer than 200 walked out of Garden Grove 
> High, said Garden Grove Unified School District spokesman Alan Trudell. ­