into its third fourth day, with students abandoning their classes to protest immigration reform proposed by the Republicans:
Thousands of students walked out of high schools in Los Angeles and across Southern California this morning as protests against restrictions on immigration spread across the city for a fourth day.
School walkouts were reported at schools in San Diego and Orange counties, and in the Santa Clarita Valley in northern Los Angeles County. There were also immigrant rights marches nationwide.
This is getting to be the big, unexpected political story of the year. Indeed, you might call it the mother of all protest movements, at least in terms of how rapidly it arose and how large it has become. Republican demonization of immigrants, especially those from Mexico and other Central American countries has awakened a sleeping giant, and I don’t think either party has any clue yet on how to address the blowback. It should be an opportunity for the Democrats, but so far they’ve been silent. Let’s hope that changes — and soon.
More after the break . . .
In Los Angeles, dozens of schools experienced walkouts, with the major events downtown, where several thousand students converged on City Hall, and on the Westside and in the San Fernando Valley.
At midafternoon, student marchers descended onto the heavily-traveled 101 Freeway near downtown, snarling traffic and creating safety hazards, according to televised reports. The northbound freeway was restricted to one lane. The freeway later reopened after students exited on an off-ramp in Echo Park.
At noon, aides to Antonio Villaraigosa escorted representatives of half a dozen high schools to meet with the Los Angeles mayor, and California Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante addressed the crowd, telling the demonstrators they are sending an important message to Washington.
Gotta love all that youthful energy directed in such a positive manner. The kids are all right.
Many of these students are citizens but have parents or family members who are not, this is a show of familia and pride. Today is Cesar Chavez Day in California, how fitting. Thanks for writing this up, Steven.
young people taking up the struggle, and their civic responsibility, at such a young age.
Looking at those images, of those thousands of kids with their flags and their signs, and not taking no stuff from the mayor or anybody else, the future for my own descendants looks just a little less bleak. 🙂
I held my nose and watched most of Lou Dobbs tonight and boy was he foaming at the mouth. He was indignant that protesters were carrying flags other than the US flag, and I’m almost positive I heard him call the protests “riots” at the beginning of his show. I’ll have to see if I heart that right when they release the transcripts. What an angry, hateful man.
Immigrant groups with flags — as old as the US. Italians and Irish, Poles and Swedes still proudly display their flags, so why not Mexicans?
Nativist bigotry. Also as old as the US itself.
there was a movie on HBO last night about the walk-outs in East LA in the late 60’s. Does anyone know the name of the movie? Is was pretty good.
Walkout, I think.
OK, so can you translate for the Spanish impaired among us? I’m guessing, from what little I know, that it says “Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees” or something like that — am I close?
You are correct. 🙂
Walkout tells the story of the Brown Berets. Here’s another link about it, with an interview from lat August with BB founder & advisor for the movie, David Sanchez.
The Watsonville Brown Beret group I posted about below (organizer arrested for Sat march w/ out permit), formed in 1994, were inspired by the group in the movie.
heh!
(2000 people marched today to Feinstein’s office . . .
StevenD writes:
Do not hold your breath, Steven.
I will keep saying this until someone pays attention.
The “Democrats”…those in positions of national power, anyway…are now the Republican Lite party. With a VERY few exceptions.
Republican Lite on the War in Iraq.
Republican Lite on censure and impeachment.
Republican Lite on “Homeland Security”…what a joke THOSE words have become.
On bankruptcy, on who gets into the Supreme Court, on Blood For Oil and economic imperialism in general…on everything that their owners damned well TELL them to be Republican Lite.
Whatever is in the interests of the Corporate PermaGov is OK.
And rebellious Chicanos are NOT in those interests,
Thus their shameful silence.
Thus the qualm before the storm.
I have been saying this on these blogs for nearly a year now.
There is going to have to be some kind of real shock to the system to get us out of the one party doldrums, and it is going to have to come from people who for one reason or another…and language is a GREAT reason…have not been put in as deep or as universal a trance state by the media as have been the majority of Americans.
I personally think that the Central, South and Caribbean American nations…and their immigrants here in the United States, legal or otherwise…show promise of being the saviors of democracy in the world. (And by the way…what right does THIS administration have to even USE the word “legal” about ANYTHING? Really. It out to burn their mouths to even think the word.)
VAYA!!!
César Chavez was a prophet.
VAYA!!!
AG
From the heartland of CA’s coastal fields where Cesar Chavez once organzied farmworkers, police charged one of the organizers of Sat’s march for various traffic violations, incl. marching w/out a permit, and is also charging the organizers with the “costs” of police overtime.
Protect & serve . . .
Time to write the newspapers and mount pressure for their release.
At least they aren’t apathetic and waiting for some politician to make it all better or for voters to vote it all away.
To me, that Patriotic
I say we have money to kill – let’s use it to heal. For all the people. Not just some but all.
War should be ILLEGAL – not humans
Senate committee votes 12 -6. Link here.
H-Town is representing too.
Houston area students protest immigration reform proposal
Senior Jesse Quintero, 18, said:
“I challenge all Latino and hispanic-descent people to come out with us tomorrow, to miss one day of work, because that will show the city of Houston, and everyone in the nation will see how badly this (proposed immigration restriction) will affect the country.”
Other students said they walked past Aldine High School which was locked down so others could not leave.
The people united will never be divided!
VIVA LA RAZA!!!!
…why the fuck are idiots like Dobbs afraid of seeing the Mexican flag? Other than the bog-standard bedwetting racism, I mean. Xenophobic nationalism is so goddam stupid.
Of course, if I marched anywhere here in California carrying the French flag, it wouldn’t really have the same effect. The tricolor hasn’t worked that way since the 1790s, and Francophobia is soooo 2002.
It was great to see the kids from Ventura High march down Main St. today. Honks galore from sympathetic drivers.
They did it here in Ventura too. A horde of kids was on the corner outside Ventura High around 9, and they marched west shortly after.
I was driving home from a job interview in the San Fernando Valley and inexplicably found myself tied up in traffic by a flock of cop cars escorting about 200 kids marching down the sidewalk flocked by elegant arrangements of red white and green balloons.
To me, since I had no idea what was going on, the balloons confused me, since (as I later learned) a bunch of kids spontaneously walking out of school would most probably not have the resources or the forethought to prepare elegant balloon arrangements celebrating the Mexican flag to take along with them.
As a former student protester par excellence, I want to feel hopeful about this unexpected manifestation of civil disobedience. I’m just concerned that it may play out as the hero Bush (AKA President Rove) vetoing anti-immigrant legislation. It will be interesting to see how these events play out.
Steven, It may have been unexpected to you, but it wasn’t unexpected to immigration advocates like me and 100,000 or more other advocates across the country. The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is brought to us by Richard Mellon Scaife, the same asshole who bankrolled the Clinton investigations and impeachment. They have HUGE resources. They get HUGE play on the coopted national media. Their frontline current spokesman is Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, who is just the next in line after guys like Lamar Smith of Texas. They’ve been building this incredibly punitive anti-foreigner law for a long time.
You know the way the Republicans are running the Congress now, right? House and Senate pass different versions of a bill and it goes to conference. Under this unholy government of the evil undead Frist and Hastert, there is no opennness to the conferences at all. No Democrats are allowed. No information is provided at all as to what transpires. The “lawyers” from FAIR are allowed to sit with Republican staffers and write what is reported as the final bill.
In other words, these hearings today, and the debates the rest of the week, are a FUCKING SHAM! We went through a similar process, at a lower temperature, in 1996, and we got the IIRAIRA bill, to date the most punitive ant-immigrant law in history. That was written by FAIR lawyers in the conference. The final bill, which became LAW after Clinton signed it, didn’t look anything at all like what passed the houses of Congress.
Congress this time will be restrained a little bit by the huge demonstrations. But the final bill may be a lot worse than what is reported today.
putting people’s backs to the wall before they wake up and start marching. Most of the people here shun marches and demonstrations, but there is nothing like the image of half a million people spontaneously moving out into the streets that makes a point. True, those people have to do more than march on one day. We see the so-called orange revolution devolving. But there is energy not found in any other activity in a protest march.
“over” half a million here, “over” three hundred thousand there, is a very promising beginning.
I am cautiously optimistic.