http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/fashi ... TINOS.html

June 11, 2006
Children of Immigrants Take to the Streets for Their Parents' Sake
By MIREYA NAVARRO
LOS ANGELES

Even after nine years, she has not forgotten the paranoia, the sleepless nights and the tearful phone calls after immigration agents picked up her father at work and deported him to Mexico.

It all came back to the teenager, Monserrat Í., when she heard about proposals in Congress to criminalize people who are in the country illegally. So in March, when Monserrat took to the streets in one of the walkouts staged by tens of thousands of high school students around the country, she said she had her family, and others like hers, in mind.

"My father's deportation tore everyone up," said Monserrat, who was born in the United States but whose last name is being withheld to protect her family, some of whom are undocumented immigrants. "The idea that that horror could be inflicted on hundreds of thousands of families was not pleasant," she said. "I didn't care about the consequences."

If the stereotypical student protester of the 1960's in the United States listened to Bob Dylan, fought the establishment and rebelled against their parents, the newly minted 21st-century version listens to Mexican rap, salsa or Spanish rock, seeks acceptance from the establishment and is often acting on behalf of their parents.

The immigration issue hits so close to home that many teenagers defied school officials and their families by taking part in the walkouts. And that taste for political activism seems to have ignited a fire.

Having discovered almost by accident their ability to make themselves heard, many are now taking that energy to join student unions, register to vote, learn about political organizing and in general broaden their political awareness of other social justice issues, according to teachers, school officials and youth organizations.

The movement around the immigration issue builds on previous student movements in the 1960's and 70's in which Latinos fought for better treatment and conditions in schools as well as multiculturalism in curriculums, said Mary F. Corey, a lecturer in history at the University of California, Los Angeles, who specializes in protest movements and the Vietnam era. The recent HBO movie "Walkout" depicts one struggle.

But while the movement in favor of immigration is different in that it touches on family and identity — "What's an American, who are we?" she noted — it also mirrors movements for free speech and civil rights.

"They're basically asking Americans to make good on their promises, to live up to the American credo — the belief that all men, and now women, are created equal and that we believe in giving people freedom," Ms. Corey said.

Political movements come in waves and often spawn other movements, Ms. Corey said, but what endures is the idea of dissent. For many Latino students, the portrayal of immigrants as job-stealers and worse in the immigration debate sparked anger and deep pain.

"They took it personally," said Al Mijares, superintendent of the Santa Ana Unified School District in Orange County, Calif., where about 3,000 high school and middle school students walked out to protest. "A lot of them are going to major in law and political science. They realize they need to do things like get elected to change laws," he said.

Students like Ivette Gonzalez, 16, a junior, had no direct stake in the immigration issue. She and her twin sister are native Angelenos and her father, a supervisor in a laundry business, is a naturalized American citizen while her mother, a housekeeper, is a legal resident.

But her parents, too, once crossed illegally from Mexico, just like many of Ms. Gonzalez's relatives and classmates at Belmont High School, which is near downtown Los Angeles. So she did not hesitate to lead a sit-in with about 300 classmates in front of Los Angeles City Hall.

"I see how hard they work," she said of Latino students who don't have their legal papers. "They barely speak English. It's not fair that people are criticizing someone who's getting an education."

Ms. Gonzalez said the experience of the concerted action opened her eyes and sensitized her to other problems, like school overcrowding.

"Our parents don't know that they can go in and complain about 'Why does my kid have such ugly lockers and books. Why do students have to sit on the floor during class?' " she said.

Having caught the activism bug, she plans to join the student union next year. And disappointed in the way the walkouts were covered on television, she's also more determined to become a television anchorwoman "to make a change."

"None of them showed the good, they only showed the bad," she said. "They just showed kids running like idiots on the freeway."

There were, to be sure, students who took advantage of the commotion to skip school and misbehave. But teachers, parents and others say they had never seen such passion in so many of the teenagers, many of whom lack legal status themselves.

Monserrat, who plans to study advertising in college, had dabbled in political action — attending an antiwar march this year, for example — but she said the immigration debate shook her to the core. Now, she said, she has become a volunteer with a civil rights group that advocates for improvements in public transit.

"I was really shocked by the whole approach," she said of the immigration bills in Congress. "The proposal was presented as an attack rather than reform."

In taking part in the walkout at her school, Monserrat said she defied warnings by school officials and the apprehensions of her parents, who she noted, do not have "that revolutionary spirit." Her father frowns upon her activism. So much so that the daughter did not allow a reporter to talk to either parent.

But just like they took risks coming to this country for a better life, she said, she had to take a stand.

"I'm proud of them," she said of her parents. They came "and they raised a family and I can't comprehend how hard that was."

The students were criticized in many quarters for ditching school to make their statement, and the immigration issue has caused fighting and scuffles in some schools between Latino and other students. In Los Angeles, where more than 30,000 walked out over several days of demonstrations in March, about 5,000 students in Los Angeles also faced citations for violating daytime curfews, said the National Lawyers Guild, which is representing them in court.

Some are settling their cases with hours of community service while schools also required many to make up any lost time with Saturday classes. Monserrat said her school's punishment was two days of "campus beautification" gardening.

Although some parents opposed their children's participation in walkouts, others said they were of two minds — proud of their children's determination but more than a bit worried that they were damaging their education.

And some, like Ms. Gonzalez's mother, Maria, 38, encouraged their children to protest. "My daughter called me and I told her, 'Get out!' " she said of the day her daughter's school staged their walkout. "At least now people know that we're here."

But some students have come to their cause more fearful than others.

One student in Orange County who joined several siblings in the United States from Mexico barely five years ago, said he initially hesitated to get involved in any demonstrations because as an undocumented immigrant he felt vulnerable.

"I knew that if I got in trouble in school I would get in trouble at home," said Israel O., 16, whose last name was withheld because he is a minor. "I was scared.'

But more than half of the 25 friends on his MySpace.com account urged him to join, bombarding him with messages about where and when to meet for their school walkout.

In the end, he did not walk out but participated in the pro-immigration march in May and also filmed footage for a student documentary, "I Am Orange County."

"It was exciting," said Israel, who wants to pursue a career as a film editor, of his participation in that march and an earlier one in Los Angeles that drew over half a million people. "I can tell my children I was there."

Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change, an organization in Washington that does grass-roots organizing around poverty issues, said he expects an surge of voting by the children of immigrant parents who are turning 18 and that he has already seen increased interest in the training camps his organization holds around the country to teach students how to organize rallies and turn out voters. The last training camp, in Nashville last month, drew about 300 16- to 22-year-olds, about five times more than usual, he said.

"The immigrant young people are key influencers in their families because so many of them have had to act as translators between mainstream America and their families," he said. "Many of them have developed extraordinary maturity beyond their age. They bring a set of experiences that make them uniquely able to be organizers."

Still, he said, those students who are not here legally face a bumpier road enrolling in college and finding jobs in professional fields after graduation.

One shy ninth grader at Van Nuys High School in Los Angeles who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect his family, said he is the one who comes to parent-teacher meetings on behalf of his two younger brothers to help his mother, who does not speak English.

And now he also defends his parents from the taunting of some non-Latino classmates, who resented the walkouts and met them with obscene gestures and shouts to "get out of this country."

He said he has met the backlash with his own "bad words and stuff" but worries that if his parents are deported back to Mexico, he and his brothers will have to follow.

Now as schools let out for the summer, many of the young protesters say they are waiting and watching the news, following the goings-on in Congress. The Senate has already done away with provisions critics had considered extreme, such as classifying illegal immigrants as felons, and over the summer will try to reconcile its version of the immigration bill with the more stringent House version.

Some immigration advocates say the students should take a good chunk of credit for steering the Senate toward a compromise bill.

"The young people have humanized the immigration debate," Mr. Bhargava said.

As the debate continues, Monserrat keeps finding other causes. She planned to march in the Los Angeles gay pride parade today along with her history teacher and classmates.

"I definitely believe in human and civil rights," she said.