Student Walk Outs: From Whittier to City Hall Students Lead the Way

cynthia and i went around thinking that wilson would blow and some did. but we didn't catch them. we wanted to interview them. later we got a call from my son-in law that about two thousand students that had come from Whittier, El Rancho, Pico Rivera, Pioneer, and several other high schools and elementaries. we picked up my grandson and angie and went to document and witness the march. some of them marched for eight hours all the way to city hall, where they joined up wit about another 6,000 students. it was amazing.

to her credit, gloria romero (state senator) joined this group at garfield and stayed with it until the end. we noticed she was walking barefooted and that she put her heeled shoes in one of the cars. then she came up to us and asked if anyone was willing to loan her some shoes and cynthia just happened to have an extra pair. but they were a little big and kept slipping off. so she walked barefooted most of the way--about 6 miles. the students asked her if she could be in charge of getting the cops off of their backs and that's what she did. on this ocassion she obeyed what the youth had organized, did not try to take it over or tell the students what to do. when we first got there they recognized us and started chanting "eastside cafe," "eastside cafe." then some of the students told us to put our car in front of the march to help pace the students, we obeyed. they knew what they were doing. the cops kept harrassing us and trying to get my car out of the march and gloria would quickly let them know that we were there because the students wanted us there to help pace and document the march. on several ocassions they were yelling at us telling us that they would arrest and ticket us. just like the students, we stayed focused on the marcher's lead and ignored the cops who looked at us like they wanted to kill us.

The students would stop every mile or so and "re-group" and "re-focus" and the word was that they would be peaceful, just like their parents had been on sat. a lot of "parents" were coming out of their houses giving water and pan dulce. we videoed the march from garfield on and interview many students. after garfield some of them started dropping but others then joined in.they are amazing testimonies that maybe someone can edit and can be a major part of the radiographia social. joseph, my grandson took the video and angie took the testimonies while cynthia and i manuevered the car and dealt with the cops. these are tiny reports for ourselves and for the world. let's put these reports up on the website. i have to learn how to paste the video, the testimonies and the reports.

this is the most learning that we have all done in a long time. many of the students said this is about them using us and now not wanting us here, this is about my parents, my grandparent, my whole family...i have been marching for 8 hours straight but thinking about my parents keeps me going....we will never give up!

all together about 30-50 thousand students walked out. if and when this happens again maybe we should have something like alternative learning sites set up to talk about what's going on.
r

ps: i hope that the other politicians act a humbly as gloria romero did on this occassion and get out there to the demonstrations in their districts and make sure that they pressure the cops to allow the students to exercise their first amendments rights.