Big Day for LA

If you are living in a cave, you may not know that there were massive walkouts today all over Southern California, LA Unified, and my school specifically. These walkouts were inprotest of HR 4437 (to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to strengthen enforcement of the immigration laws, to enhance border security, and for other purposes) which tightens restrictions on illegal immigrants and those that help them.

First, if you are not familiar with this bill, it does a lot to criminalize illegal immigrants in the United States by making their "presence" an "aggravated felony." It also makes it a crime to aid illegal immigrants and increases the penalties for hiring them. Although this provision also meant that churches and other charities would be effected, this part was amended today to give exception to churches and charities.

Now, my view of what happened today, at least at my school. Shortly after 1st period, some students began gathering and others simply began leaving campus. We went into lockdown, which means all students that were not in a classroom were herded quickly into their homeroom or into the nearest classroom. Those that were not in classrooms were considered part of the walkout. We remained in lockdown from about 9:00 until 11:15. During this time, there were PA announcements stating that students that participated in the walkout would face every possible consequence for truancy. Some were taken to the multi-purpose room and others just stood around, which I know since I could hear their chanting coming from the main quad. Now the rest has been pieced together from accounts that I got from other teachers. At some point, students were allowed to leave campus to head for a park, where the protest would continue. One teacher said that a good number of students headed away from campus in the opposite direction from the park. In any case, students that did not leave went to lunch. After lunch we resumed a regular class schedule. At the end of school, many people were brought back to the school on busses.

Now, my classes were about 1/2 empty or more. And let me say this. Most of the students that were not in class were not the type of kids that had any clue about this bill and were likely looking to get out of class. If this protest were to happen after school hours, I'm sure they would not have gone. In fact, one of my students was at the massive protest Saturday and was angry at the students that left, saying that they discredited the real protest.

My view on the walkout: What did this accomplish? The only good thing to come from this was most of my students are now aware of the issue, which clearly effects a good number of their families. Since the end of school I have been switching around the conservative talk stations and the word "truants" has been thrown around and there are plenty of jokes about how many of these kids were just taking the day off. So now the people that are actually trying to do something to stop this ridiculous law have to deal with being connected to a bunch of idiot students. One teacher said that about 1/2 of the kids that were in the quad did not seem to really even know why they were not in class. Many of my students said that they had friends that just went home or to another person's house to "kick back." All in all, this type of protest accomplishes very little.

Things about this protest and all of the others that bothers me:

1. Why do you chant "Viva Mexico" and other pro-Mexico chants if you are trying to get the ear of the U.S. government?

2. I ran into a former student who asked me if she looked sunburned. Let me translate freshmanese for you. What she really said was "Look at me, Mr. Austin, I was part of the walkout today - aren't I cool?" I asked her what she thought that she accomplished today. "Nothing" So I asked "Why did you go?" "I don't know." I continued "so you lost a day of education to not accomplish anything?" Her genius response? "You don't understand because you're not Mexican." I told her that I probably understood the law better than her and had probably done more to try and stop it than she did and suggested that if she really cared that she should write a letter or call her Senator or even President Bush. She wanted no part of that.

3. Why do people who have no clue about what they are protesting always talk on the radio and TV? One radio show played interviews with students that had walked out.

Interviewer: So you think that immigrants should have equal rights?
Student: Hell Yeah!
Interviewer: What rights should they have?
Student: Martin Luther King Jr. gave us free speech.
Interviewer: What do you think this law would do?
Student: its racist against immigrants

Way to represent the movement. You know that conservative media hunts these people down and uses them as the example of why these protests are pointless.

4. I know that this protest was started by an older non-student that simply wanted to use them as pawns for the movement. Way to take advantage of kids. It certainly helped the movement.

Finally, let me share my view on immigration. I think our country needs to do a lot more to keep people from just crossing the border without regulation. Who should they stop? Terrorists, drug dealers, gang members, other criminals. Who should they not stop? People looking for an opportunity that simply want to work and make a better life for themselves. Look, we need these people to keep our economy moving. They do all of the shit jobs that we don't because it pays 10 times as much as any job they could get working for an American factory in Mexico. And don't say that they are stealing jobs from Americans. Americans are stealing jobs from Americans. Rich people are moving their companies all over the world so they can pay those people miniscule wages and so they can get a huge profit. If you don't believe me call Dell Tech Support and try to find somebody who can speak good English. If a person comes here, legally or not, and keep a job and contribute to society, why not let them stay? Because they don't pay taxes? A) Corporations weasel their way out of taxes all of the time B) have you ever looked at the tax rates for people earning immigrant job wages? Its pretty low. C) They do pay taxes. Its called sales tax.

The United States is a country founded by immigrants. We have tons of people here, of many different ethnic, religious and economic backgrounds. The white majority has long taken advantage of the poor immigrants to build their railroads, wash their dishes, pick their fruit, and mow their lawns. Why not help them out? Many of them are hard-working people, family people, spiritual people, kind people, intelligent people, and most of all - THEY ARE PEOPLE! When has our country stood for treating people like crap? Every example is a case that most of us are ashamed of: slavery, Indians/Native-Americans, Japanese, segregation, etc.