Thread: Dallas students plan protest for April 9

These "anchor babies gone wild" (as someone else so aptly called them) s are planning another Dallas protest, according to this report, on April 9.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 0e27b.html

Classrooms clear out
Hordes of students protest plan to crack down on illegal immigration
12:00 AM CST on Tuesday, March 28, 2006
By HOLLY YAN, TAWNELL D. HOBBS and PAUL MEYER / The Dallas Morning News

It started with a posting on MySpace.com. E-mail and text messages spread it like wildfire. And with the help of old-fashioned paper fliers, a mass student protest materialized in an instant.

Gustavo Jiminez, 16, conceived the rally Sunday morning while browsing the popular Web site.

He saw a California girl's posting about legislation to make it a felony to enter the country illegally or to help illegal immigrants.

"They're making my family – making immigrants – look like criminals," the Duncanville High School junior said. "They're putting us down as a statistic, as a number. We're not a number; we're here to help."

In what some Internet users are calling a "Net-roots" effort, a 24-hour blitz of activity by youthful organizers inspired as many as 4,000 Dallas-area students to walk out of school Monday and assemble at Kiest Park and City Hall, protesting the legislation that would crack down on illegal immigration.

Tens of thousands of students in California and other states also walked out of classes in protest.

Using the Internet for political organizing is nothing new, but doing that through MySpace.com – a site known more for social networking than for political activism – seems to be, said Barry Parr, a media analyst for Jupiter Research, a West Coast firm that studies information trends.

"I'm not aware of anyone doing this with MySpace," he said. "Typically, e-mail and other bulletin boards are common political tools."

The local turnout was more than what Gustavo and his friend Miguel Hernandez imagined possible.

"I thought 100, maybe 200 people would show up," 16-year-old Miguel said.

Instead, 4,000 students showed up, Dallas school Superintendent Michael Hinojosa said, though police estimated the crowds at City Hall and Kiest Park at 1,600 people.

A Dallas schools spokesman said the student protesters included about 2,000 from Skyline High School, 1,000 from Molina High School, 500 from Townview Center, and 150 to 200 from North Dallas, Spruce and Thomas Jefferson high schools.

Dallas police Senior Cpl. Max Geron said a smaller group left Thomas Jefferson High School in northwest Dallas and gathered at Bachman Lake Park.

Others were from surrounding districts, private schools and area colleges.

There were no reports of violence.

The protests caught both school officials and police by surprise. The Dallas Independent School District has had walkouts before, but none in recent memory as large as Monday's.

"They were more organized than any other group I've seen," said Dallas City Council member Steve Salazar, commending the show of conscience.

For many Dallas students, the decisive moment came about 10:30 a.m. Esperanza Gaona, 15, was in biology class at Townview Center. She got up and walked out of the classroom alone. Soon five or six classmates followed, and the crowd grew outside.

They walked to a second high school, where they yelled through windows for others to join. Then a third school. By the end of the day, Esperanza's hands were bruised from clapping.

She says she decided to protest in honor of her grandfather, who recently died, and for her parents, who are both illegal immigrants.

"As much as people think the youth don't listen to the news, we do," she said. "My parents are proud."

About 11 a.m., the crowds began streaming into Kiest Park to rally against legislation that would erect a 700-mile fence along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border. Some students later went to City Hall, where others had gathered.

Seventeen-year-old Eduardo Martinez said he walked to City Hall from Skyline High School in Pleasant Grove to participate in the protest. He held a sign that read, "Immigrants founded the U.S."

"The first people came here from the U.K. for a better life," said Eduardo, whose father is a U.S. citizen but whose mother is here illegally. "Immigrants are here to work, not to do bad stuff."

Students drove by waving Mexican flags out of windows. Some rode on the edges of pickup beds cheering other students. They held dozens of handwritten signs, with phrases such as "We're not criminals" and "Where would ya'll be w/o us?"

"We're the ones who work the most," said 19-year-old Julie Rodriguez, a freshman at Eastfield College in Mesquite. "We build them houses. Who would build their houses if we weren't here?"

As students boarded school buses to return to school, they shouted, "Mexico, Mexico!"

Not everyone agreed with the protest.

"They're here to bash on Americans and come here and take our jobs and properties," said Daniel Waters, who was visiting the downtown public library when he saw the commotion across the street.

The lunchtime call-in show on KRLD-AM (1080) featured a taped interview with student protesters who sounded more like they were on a mall outing, giggling as they followed their friends' lead. Some knew little about the issues.

After hosting a show on the issue Monday, Mark Davis of WBAP-AM (820) said he was left with the impression that the students' levels of political activism ran the gamut.

"This was a fantasy field trip so that they feel like their 1960s-era predecessors," said Mr. Davis, who's also a Dallas Morning News columnist. "This was an occasion to be seen protesting. It was as social as it was political."

What punishment the students may face from the schools remains undecided, said Dallas schools spokesman Donald Claxton.

Gustavo's father, Gus Jiminez, said he supported his son, regardless of the consequences. He attended the protest at Kiest Park with Gustavo.

"I knew he probably was going to get in trouble by the school, but he did it for a good cause," said Mr. Jiminez, who moved here illegally but now is a legal resident.

"MLK, Benito Juarez – they all did demonstrations peacefully, and they were all good leaders. Gustavo has the courage to be a good leader."

Monday night, inside the Oak Cliff restaurant Tejano, the students were joined by civil rights leaders, Dallas school trustee Jerome Garza, Mr. Salazar and others.

They began planning a march for April 9, a rally they hope will be the largest in Dallas' history.

As Gustavo spoke to the crowd, it was clear that in his mind, Monday was only the beginning.

"Imagine if I had the whole weekend" to plan, he said.

Staff writers Jason Trahan, Alan Melson and Crayton Harrison contributed to this report.

E-mail hyan@dallasnews.com,

tdhobbs@dallasnews.com

and pmeyer@dallasnews.com

Hey, you Dallas folks should try to counter protest this!!

ill be there to protest them and maybe bring a chunk of fence with me

If Tx school's have rules that students should not leave the school.....then why isn't their rules being enforced?

Maybe they just ought to lock the doors after they leave, on second thought.