High School Students Walk Out for Immigrant Rights!

(Young Spartacus pages)

LOS ANGELES—In the lead-up to and following the million-strong March 25 immigrant rights demonstration in Los Angeles, high school and middle school students throughout California and in Arizona, Texas and other states organized walkouts and protests against proposed legislation that would criminalize “illegal” immigrants and extend the wall along the Mexican border. On March 27, over 36,000 students from two dozen school districts walked out in Los Angeles, demonstrating at City Hall and blocking two freeways. Democratic mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spoke at the rally, claiming sympathy while telling students to go back to school. In response, the mostly Latino students booed, sat down and chanted, “Hell no, we won’t go!” Villaraigosa then ordered his cops to crack down on subsequent protests, and city officials put all middle and high schools into “lockdown” mode. At an elementary school in Inglewood, students were barred from using the restrooms and forced to urinate in buckets in their classrooms.

Across the country, police arrested protesting students, issuing hundreds of truancy citations with fines of hundreds of dollars. Repression was particularly intense in the San Diego area, where thousands of students marched on successive days. Well over 100 students have been arrested there; some face felony charges. Notably, south of L.A. in Carson, where cops fired pepper balls at students, many black students joined the Latino protesters. One black youth said, “Normally, it’s Mexicans vs. the blacks. Today’s a different day. We’re here to prove a point” (Daily Breeze, 27 March). The L.A. Spartacus Youth Club, which has intervened into the walkouts to introduce students to a revolutionary Marxist perspective, demands: Drop all charges against student protesters!

Anthony Soltero, a 14-year-old Latino who helped organize a walkout at a middle school in Ontario, east of L.A., committed suicide after the vice principal told him he would be sent to jail for three years. To honor this youth, a citizen who took up the fight for immigrant rights, L.A. students dedicated an April 15 rally in his honor. Remember Anthony Soltero! Full citizenship rights for all immigrants!