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  1. #1
    Senior Member reptile09's Avatar
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    San Diego paper portrays student mobs as civil, peaceful

    A protest unmatched in magnitude, civility


    By Maureen Magee,
    Helen Gao
    and Elizabeth Fitzsimons
    UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS

    Even the most seasoned activists were caught off guard yesterday by the numbers of young protesters who peacefully streamed into the streets of downtown San Diego to oppose immigration bills up for debate on Capitol Hill.

    The protest forced other activists to cancel an event here yesterday to plan for an April 9 march in Balboa Park.

    “I had no choice but to join them,” said Jesse Diaz, who helped coordinate the massive pro-immigrant march in Los Angeles last weekend.

    Organized well in advance by a tech-savvy generation of politically motivated youths, the march was the largest and most civil demonstration this week, after days of arrests, school closures and contentious rallies.

    Police expected that students would step up their protests on the 79th birthday of the late labor leader César Chávez. But the magnitude – and civility – of the uprising came as a surprise to many.

    Local student leaders said the protest had been in the works since Los Angeles students walked out of schools en masse about a week and a half ago. In both cases, students used the popular Web site myspace.com, e-mail and old-fashioned leaflets to spread the word.

    “We text-messaged friends from La Jolla, Hoover, Gompers, Mission Bay, Clairemont high schools, and then they told their friends,” said Alma Sanchez, 15, a student from the San Diego High School Educational Complex who was one of the main organizers.

    Perhaps the start of a new brand of activism brewing among young Mexican-Americans, the protests have prompted some to draw parallels to the politics that defined a previous generation.

    “The anti-war movement was started by people who were directly affected by the draft and by American over-involvement overseas,” said San Diego State University sociology professor Phillip Gay.

    “You have a similar situation here,” he said. “These are children of immigrants and probably a large number of undocumented immigrants, and so this is a very personal issue for them.”

    At the center of the debate is proposed changes to immigration laws, including a bill that would make it a felony for undocumented immigrants to be in this country.

    Empowered by the rush of social activism and undaunted by disapproving police and school officials, nearly 2,000 county students skipped classes yesterday for the cause they have championed since Monday.

    To avoid police confrontation and school lockdowns that overshadowed their efforts earlier in the week, many students gathered in the morning outside their campuses and headed to Chicano Park in Barrio Logan.

    The crowd was a sea of Mexican flags and all things red, white and green. Faces and T-shirts were painted, tri-color bandanas were wrapped around marching limbs and ribbons flapped from necks and wind-swept ponytails.

    Cesar Romo, a 16-year-old Crawford High School student, draped a large Mexican flag over his shoulders and marched to support his many friends who are undocumented and could be hurt by the immigration legislation.

    “They do nothing bad, but they are going to become criminals,” Romo said.

    Students began arriving at Chicano Park by 7:30 a.m. By 10 a.m., the crowd had swelled to 1,500 and eventually doubled in size.

    The students from throughout the city marched around Barrio Logan and then headed downtown, where they were joined by others. Police estimated that 3,500 to 4,000 protesters participated, while organizers counted as many as 5,000.

    Escorted by police in uniform and undercover, on foot, in patrol cars and on motorcycles and horses, the protesters stopped traffic and brought workers from their stores and offices to watch from their doorways and windows.

    On Market Street, construction workers several stories up waved their orange hard hats at the marchers, stirring a roar from the crowd.

    Demonstrators chanted “Mexico! Mexico!” and “We didn't cross the border. The border crossed us.” They snacked on junk food bought from convenience stores en route. Girls limped from unforgiving shoes.

    Some skipped school over their families' objections. Others, like 14-year-old Jamaysia Alvarez, marched with parents' permission, “because they're Mexican and they said we have the right to defend our race,” said the Mira Mesa High School freshman.

    Jamaysia and her niece, 12-year-old Clarissa Peña, knew they were marching to support immigrants, but they didn't know much about the congressional debate. Both are U.S. citizens, but some family members and friends aren't. They plan to continue their activism.

    “I feel proud of myself. It's defending our race,” Jamaysia said. Clarissa broke in: “And our country.”

    Human rights activist Christian Ramirez, who runs the local American Friends Service Committee office, said the march was the largest he had seen in San Diego.

    Ramirez said he was serving as a facilitator for the student protesters, helping to guide the crowd and working with police. He urged students to return to school and planned to work with educators to send student leaders to Washington, D.C.

    “There is a lot of passion and we're hoping to channel that passion into the legislative debate,” he said.

    Over the past week, Ramirez saw a transformation in the student protesters. Many may have started out exploiting the situation to avoid school, but he said a lot have learned about important issues along the way.

    About 100 San Diego police officers were assigned to the protests. The California Highway Patrol also monitored the crowd, several of them from the ramp to the San Diego-Coronado Bridge, which was closed for the event.

    Police arrested three juveniles for truancy when they broke from the march and started throwing up gang signs.

    San Diego police Capt. Chris Ball said the department takes a hands-off approach to dealing with crowds.

    “One thing we're very aware of is police can start a riot. When you have a lot of people fired up about things, we just guide and direct,” Ball said.

    Citywide, most schools were quiet yesterday, including Memorial Academy of Learning and Technology in Logan Heights, the scene of a tense standoff between police and students Thursday morning.

    The San Diego Unified School district had dispatched its human relations staff to schools to help them deal with walkouts and protests.

    Some classes were all but empty at the San Diego High Educational Complex, home to six themed-academies and nearly 3,000 students. Club activities that usually occur on Friday at the end of each month were canceled at one academy. Study hall was called off at another.

    Several students who did show up said it was a wasted day. Others said they had time to discuss the events unfolding outside.

    “It would have been better if we just stayed home,” said freshman Daisy Neri, who supports the march but came to school to turn in a project.

    “Without immigrants, nothing would run,” she said. “Life here each day would be different – economically more expensive.”

    Smaller protests sprang up elsewhere in the county.

    In Vista and San Marcos, a crowd of about 450 students walked for miles in the morning until converging at Cal State San Marcos for a rally on the steps in front of a César Chávez memorial statue.

    The only trouble reported by the Sheriff's Department occurred when several young white men holding U.S. flags out of the windows of their van drove past about 50 students near the campus. Plastered on the vehicle was a sign reading, “If you don't like American laws go back 2 Mexico!”

    The men in the van exchanged vulgarities with protesters and were ultimately pelted with rocks and plastic water bottles. Sheriff's deputies broke up the confrontation without making arrests.

    Vista schools interim Superintendent Darrel Taylor expects student protests to have abated by Monday, when high school classes resume, after the closure of all district schools yesterday because of safety concerns. Middle and elementary schools will be closed for spring break next week.

    In Carmel Valley, about 35 students protested in front of Torrey Pines High School while administrators and law enforcement officers watched.

    About 50 student demonstrators from Carlsbad schools marched along Pacific Coast Highway to Oceanside. Enrollment was slightly down at Oceanside elementaries yesterday. The district had closed middle and high schools because of safety concerns.

    Several schools throughout the county plan to structure lessons next week around the protests that unfolded here.

    Of course no where in this piece will you find the word 'illegal' or 'aliens', they are all undocumented. And they report that the ONLY trouble occured was when white men holding U.S. flags told some of the protesters to go back home to Mexico. So when illegals flood our country and destroy everything in sight and turn neighborhoods into barrios that's A-OK with them, but if any Americans dare oppose the invasion, that's where the trouble lies. Illegal aliens and anchor baby protesters mob the streets no problem. Illegal aliens and anchor baby protesters wave Mexican flags, chant in Spanish and delcare they built America, no problem. Illegal aliens and anchor baby protesters claim "we didn't cross the border, the border crossed us", no problem. Illegal aliens and anchor baby protesters claim to defend THEIR RACE as Mexicans, no problem. But opposing the illegals and anchor baby mobs, that's where the problem is
    [b][i][size=117]"Leave like beaten rats. You old white people. It is your duty to die. Through love of having children, we are going to take over.â€

  2. #2
    Senior Member Richard's Avatar
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    Either the reporters child is half illegal or she has an illegal male friend who has proficiency with more tongues than Spanish.
    I support enforcement and see its lack as bad for the 3rd World as well. Remittances are now mostly spent on consumption not production assets. Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

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