Perspectives of staff and students
Many schools have been affected by the immigration walkouts including Animo Jefferson.
Students from Animo Jefferson walked out on Feb 7 during the first lunch and arrived at the city hall protest around 12:00. We interviewed our peers and staff to get their perspective on the walkout.
The questions we asked security guard Mr.Miles were: Were you worried about the kids that walked out? Would you have walked out with them? Did you give the students advice?
Miles said, “I was worried because my number one concern was them being safe. I wouldn’t had walked out because we still have kids here and our job is making sure our kids here are also safe but we all fully support y’all, and the only advice I did give kids was making sure they have a purpose and know what they are walking out for.”
Many staff members had the same response as Miles.
We then interviewed eighth grader Ashley Estrada. She stated her purpose of walking out was to support her mother’s rights and for her not get deported because she is an immigrant and has a purpose to be here and give her a better life. She also went to the protest to fight for other immigrants rights.
Impact of the walk-outs
Ashley also mentioned that many people’s safety were at risk at the protest because many people had weapons and people got hurt there.
Two guys were hurt at the protest from being stabbed, but one of the individuals was stabbed because he was throwing up his hood and making the protest about gangs, which doesn’t make immigrants look good and defeats the purpose of fighting for all immigrants rights. Many people were making this protest about gangs and tagging on properties, being immature about it. This behavior reflects poorly on immigrants and make everyone think that we are as bad as they say they are. There were kids that attended the protest and they could have been at risk of being hurt by the many people being inconsiderate of others and made the situation worse for immigrants.
We decided to interview Miles to see his perspective of this situation.
Miles’ perspective on it was, “My issue with the whole protesting for a purpose, do you see how bad that looks for the people you’re protesting… what do you think when they see that type of stuff, you’re not being peaceful and this gives a bad image on the whole movement for what you’re arguing for. This can give a reason to deport you and have your safety at risk.”
As Miles has mentioned, people that aren’t being peaceful protests are putting immigrants at risk.
Consequences students received for participating
We then interviewed Ashley Estrada to see her consequences that she received.
She said, “ We have detention for three weeks…we have lunch detention and then we have to sign contracts … we had to behave and if we don’t behave they can make the contract longer, and our parents had to come to the school and talk to Ms. Perez.”
Other students who also left campus received the same consequences as Ashley.
We decided to interview another student who walked out, Alia Contreras, a seventh grader that walked out with Ashley and others.
Alia stated, “We have after school, lunch detention, and my parents had to come talk to the school.”
Alia received the same consequences as every student, except some students did not sign the contract that Ashley had to sign.
Other schools and community members participated in the protests
Student from other local schools, such as Santee High School and Animo Ralph Bunche High School, also participated in the walk outs.
The groups all united and got many more high schools to follow them to protest. All the high schools met at City Hall and started to have a peaceful protest until problems started to occur.
According to an ABC7 News video, a 17-year-old was stabbed at the protest.
Prior to the downtown protest, there was also a day that affected our community called, “Day Without Immigrants.” On February 3, many immigrants stayed home and didn’t go to work, school, or spend any money. This demonstrated the impact immigrants have because if more immigrants were sent back to their countries of origin our population would go down, labor would go down, and spending would decrease.
Conclusion
In conclusion, The walk-out and “Day Without Immigrants” did impact our community in both positive and negative ways.
It helped many youth leaders speak out for their parents, stand for them, and defend their parents and the immigrant community. Adults and youth protested to show that immigrants have a purpose to be here and get a better life, as well as to show that they aren’t dangerous.
However, because of the actions of some of the people who went to the protest, people got hurt. Those actions made immigrants get more hate after the walkouts because it made them seem bad and dangerous.
Trump’s immigration policies spark third day of downtown protests – Los Angeles Times
