Endless summer in San Diego.
viernes, abril 21, 2006
Pedregal del Lago - Council In Session
Buenos vecinos. Good neighbors. This is a universal principle and concept.
Vero and Nicolas pictured here at the Good Luck Bar in Silverlake were in LA for a weekend this past March.
I met Vero at the Festival Internacional del Cervantino in Guanajuato, Mexico in October of 2004. I was in Mexico on my Fulbright, and ended up taking off to the world-famous Cervantino Festival.
While there, my friends and I decided to party at the Why Not bar off some colonial plaza and narrow alley. While there, my friends and I ended up partying with Vero and her friends.
It turned out that we lived in the same gated community in Mexico City - very small world. I lived in Tower 4 and she and Nicolas lived in Tower 5. Ridiculous - that you can meet someone that lives so close to you - hundreds of miles from your mutual residence. Only on this Terra Firma we call Earth.
Vero is a designer for Pepe Jeans in Mexico City, and Nicolas is an aspiring filmmaker currently in Australia.
Viva los Chilangos! Mexico City rocks, especially when you can see your chilango friends on your home turf - in my case, LA.
I don't care what the neighborhood council bylaws say, in my book, Vero, Nicolas and I had a quorum at the Good Luck bar back in March. Meeting adjourned.
Performance Etiquette
Performance etiquette takes many forms and interpretations. The guidelines are especially stretched when the act is spontaneus and the host basically takes over her own space. Here, Mare took the lead, but our surprise guest from Wyoming did not just step into place. She had her own strand of movement to unleash. Ready, set, go.
Espacio - The Euro Way
Here, Mare and her friend retake and reclaim their space. Movement takes its own backseat to these two femmes jumping and moving around. Your initial reaction may be that it is expected from the euro crowd. And if you answered that in a multiple choice question, you would get partial credit. Mare is from Croatia, but her friend in black is from Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Ceramic Beetlejuice
At one of my friend Mare's parties in Santa Monica, I met her friend pictured here. She is a grad student dropout from the dance program at Cal Arts in Valencia. She moves around like a character straight out of the Corpse Bride or a Nightmare Before Christmas movies. She claims that the faculty at the Cal Arts dance program did not know how to categorize her interests. She found herself not fitting the classical dance mold. So she has created her own shell, burst through it, and is now stomping on the ceramic pieces.
Census Update - Whittier
The census in Whittier needs to be updated soon, especially after my friend Elsy's little girl is born on Cinco de Mayo. Plenty of UCSB Gauchos were on hand to wish our friend Elsy the best of 'suerte' as she prepares to give birth to her first child.
She's Having a Baby
She's Having a baby. Yup, the picture should help you narrow it down to who we are talking about here. Elsy is about 38 weeks in this picture, and she was still able to host over 60 people at her baby shower in Whittier. It rained in LA the day before, but the day of the shower, the temperature was as perfect as Southern California gets. Viva So Cal. And congrats to Elsy and Jose - future parents in LA.
Ernie and the Union Jack Chicks
I was in San Diego last weekend, and my friend Ernesto had flown in from La Gran Tenochtitlan - Mexico City. Little did he know that we would end up running into a bachelorette troupe from the UK in the downtown Gaslamp District of SD. Those Brits are everywhere! Actually, to be fair, some of the girls were from Scotland and Wales. So the whole Union Jack was represented!
Single-Digit Degrees of Separacion
My friend Mare Milin from Croatia had an art show last weekend in Santa Monica. I know Mare through my friend Josh from New York. They are both working on a Croatian documentary about Tesla. Paolo is an Italian Fulbrighter studying film at USC, and he is making a documentary film about a Croatian war veteran with post-traumatic stress syndrome. Of course, I thought it would be great for Mare and Paolo to meet each other. To add to the Croatian mix, the Croatian consulate woman that Paolo invited to the event, brought the girl on the far left - who coincidentally has a best friend that Paolo teaches in his T.A. led discussion at USC.
Very small mundo.
Only on Earth do we experience these single-digit degrees of "separacion."
Oh yeah, and I almost forgot the clincher. The girl on the far left, turned out to be one of Mare's second cousins - long lost in Los Angeles via Belgrade and the Croatian coast.
jueves, abril 20, 2006
Tribal Workers in the 21st Century
I got this article from my friend Jorge in DC. Check it out. In some ways, we have all become tribal workers. How did it happen? Did we "let" it happen? Or did "it" happen to us?
"Tribal workers"
Today's generation of high-earning professionals maintain that their
personal fulfillment comes from their jobs and the hours they work. They
should grow up says Thomas Barlow.
- The Financial Times
A friend of mine recently met a young American woman who was studying on
a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford. She already had two degrees from top US
universities, had worked as a lawyer and as a social worker in the US,
and somewhere along the way had acquired a black belt in kung fu.
Now, however, her course at Oxford was coming to an end and she was
thoroughly angst-ridden about what to do next.
Her problem was no ordinary one. She couldn't decide whether she should
make a lot of money as a corporate lawyer/management consultant, devote
herself to charity work helping battered wives in disadvantaged
communities, or go to Hollywood to work as a stunt double in kung fu
films. What most struck my friend was not the disparity of this woman's
choices, but the earnestness and bad grace with which she ruminated on
them. It was almost as though she begrudged her own talents,
opportunities and freedom - as though the world had treated her unkindly
by forcing her to make such a hard choice.
Her case is symptomatic of our times. In recent years, there has grown
up a culture of discontent among the highly educated young, something
that seems to flare up, especially, when people reach their late 20s and
early 30s. It arises not from frustration caused by lack of opportunity,
as may have been true in the past, but from an excess of possibilities.
Most theories of adult developmental psychology have a special category
for those in their late 20s and early 30s. Whereas the early to mid-20s
are seen as a time to establish one's mode of living, the late 20s to
early 30s are often considered a period of reappraisal.
In a society where people marry and have children young, where financial
burdens accumulate early, and where job markets are inflexible, such
reappraisals may not last long. But when people manage to remain free of
financial or family burdens, and where the perceived opportunities for
alternative careers are many, the reappraisal is likely to be
angst-ridden and long lasting.
Among no social group is this more true than the modern, international,
professional elite: that tribe of young bankers, lawyers, consultants
and managers for whom financial, familial, personal, corporate and
(increasingly) national ties have become irrelevant. Often they grew up
in one country, were educated in another, and are now working in a
third. They are independent, well paid, and enriched by experiences that
many of their parents could only dream of.
Yet, by their late 20s, many carry a sense of disappointment: that for
all their opportunities, freedoms and achievements, life has not
delivered quite what they had hoped.
At the heart of this disillusionment lies a new attitude towards work.
The idea has grown up, in recent years, that work should not be just a
means to an end a way to make money, support a family, or gain social
prestige - but should provide a rich and fulfilling experience in and of
itself. Jobs are no longer just jobs; they are lifestyle options.
Recruiters at financial companies, consultancies and law firms have
promoted this conception of work. Job advertisements promise challenge,
wide experiences, opportunities for travel and relentless personal
development.
Michael is a 33-year-old management consultant who has bought into this
vision of late-20th century work. Intelligent and well-educated - with
three degrees, including a doctorate - he works in Munich, and has a
"stable, long-distance relationship" with a woman living in California.
He takes 140 flights a year and works an average of 80 hours a week.
Some weeks he works more than 100 hours. When asked if he likes his job,
he will say: "I enjoy what I'm doing in terms of the intellectual
challenges." Although he earns a lot, he doesn't spend much. He rents a
small apartment, though he is rarely there, and has accumulated very few
possessions. He justifies the long hours not in terms of
wealth-acquisition, but solely as part of a "learning experience".
This attitude to work has several interesting implications, mostly to do
with the shifting balance between work and non-work, employment and
leisure. Because fulfilling and engrossing work - the sort that is
thought to provide the most intense learning experience - often requires
long hours or captivates the imagination for long periods of time, it is
easy to slip into the idea that the converse is also true: that just by
working long hours, one is also engaging in fulfilling and engrossing
work.
This leads to the popular fallacy that you can measure the value of your
job and, therefore, the amount you are learning from it) by the amount
of time you spend on it. And, incidentally, when a premium is placed on
learning rather than earning, people are particularly susceptible to
this form of self-deceit.
Thus, whereas in the past, when people in their 20s or 30s spoke
disparagingly about nine-to-five jobs it was invariably because they
were seen as too routine, too unimaginative, or too bourgeois. Now, it
is simply because they don't contain enough hours. Young professionals
have not suddenly developed a distaste for leisure, but they have
solidly bought into the belief that a 45-hour week necessarily signifies
an unfulfilling job.
Jane, a 29-year-old corporate lawyer who works in the City of London,
tells a story about working on a deal with another lawyer, a young man
in his early 30s. At about 3am, he leant over the boardroom desk and
said: Isn't this great? This is when I really love my job." What most
struck her about the remark was that the work was irrelevant (she says
it was actually rather boring); her colleague simply liked the idea of
working late. "It's as though he was validated, or making his life
important by this," she says.
Unfortunately, when people can convince themselves that all they need do
in order to lead fulfilled and happy lives is to work long hours, they
can quickly start to lose reasons for their existence. As they start to
think of their employment as a lifestyle, fulfilling and rewarding of
itself - and in which the reward is proportional to hours worked -
people rapidly begin to substitute work for other aspects of their
lives.
Michael, the management consultant, is a good example of this
phenomenon. He is prepared to trade (his word) not just goods and time
for the experience afforded by his work, but also a substantial measure
of commitment in his personal relationships. In a few months, he is
being transferred to San Francisco, where he will move in with his
girlfriend. But he's not sure that living in the same house is actually
going to change the amount of time he spends on his relationship. "Once
I move over, my time involvement on my relationship will not change
significantly. My job takes up most of my time and pretty much dominates
what I do, when, where and how I do it," he says.
Moreover, the reluctance to commit time to a relationship because they
are learning so much, and having such an intense and fulfilling time at
work is compounded, for some young professionals, by a reluctance to
have a long-term relationship at all. Today, by the time someone reaches
30, they could easily have had three or four jobs in as many different
cities - which is not, as it is often portrayed, a function of an
insecure global job-market, but of choice.
Robert is 30 years old. He has three degrees and has worked on three
continents. He is currently working for the United Nations in Geneva.
For him, the most significant deterrent when deciding whether to enter
into a relationship is the likely transient nature of the rest of his
life. "What is the point in investing all this emotional energy and
exposing myself in a relationship, if I am leaving in two months, or if
I do not know what I am doing next year?" he says.
Such is the character of the modern, international professional, at
least throughout his or her 20s. Spare time, goods and relationships,
these are all willingly traded for the exigencies of work. Nothing is
valued so highly as accumulated experience. Nothing is neglected so much
as commitment. With this work ethic - or perhaps one should call it a
"professional development ethic" - becoming so powerful, the globally
mobile generation now in its late 20s and early 30s has garnered
considerable professional success.
At what point, though, does the experience-seeking end? Kathryn is a
successful American academic, 29, who bucked the trend of her
generation: she recently turned her life round for someone else. She
moved to the UK, specifically, to be with a man, a decision that she
says few of her contemporaries understood. "We're not meant to say: 'I
made this decision for this person. Today, you're meant to do things for
yourself. If you're willing to make sacrifices for others - especially
if you're a woman - that's seen as a kind of weakness. I wonder,
though, is doing things for yourself really empowerment, or is liberty a
kind of trap?" she says.
For many, it is a trap that is difficult to break out of, not least
because they are so caught up in a culture of professional development.
And spoilt for choice, some like the American Rhodes Scholar no doubt
become paralysed by their opportunities, unable to do much else in their
lives, because they are so determined not to let a single one of their
chances slip.
If that means minimal personal commitments well into their 30s, so be
it. "Loneliness is better than boredom" is Jane's philosophy. And,
although she knows "a lot of professional single women who would give it
all up if they met a "rich man to marry", she remains far more concerned
herself about finding fulfillment at work.
"I am constantly questioning whether I am doing the right thing here,"
she says. "There's an eternal search for a more challenging and
satisfying option, a better lifestyle. You always feel you're not doing
the right thing, always feel as if you should be striving for another
goal," she says.
Jane, Michael, Robert and Kathryn grew up as part of a generation with
fewer social constraints determining their futures than has been true
for probably any other generation in history. They were taught at school
that when they grew up they could "do anything", "be anything". It was
an idea that was reinforced by popular culture, in films, books and
television.
The notion that one can do anything is clearly liberating. But life
without constraints has also proved a recipe for endless searching,
endless questioning of aspirations. It has made this generation obsessed
with self-development and determined, for as long as possible, to
minimise personal commitments in order to maximise the options open to
them. One might see this as a sign of extended adolescence. Eventually,
they will be forced to realise that living is as much about closing
possibilities as it is about creating them.
"Tribal workers"
Today's generation of high-earning professionals maintain that their
personal fulfillment comes from their jobs and the hours they work. They
should grow up says Thomas Barlow.
- The Financial Times
A friend of mine recently met a young American woman who was studying on
a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford. She already had two degrees from top US
universities, had worked as a lawyer and as a social worker in the US,
and somewhere along the way had acquired a black belt in kung fu.
Now, however, her course at Oxford was coming to an end and she was
thoroughly angst-ridden about what to do next.
Her problem was no ordinary one. She couldn't decide whether she should
make a lot of money as a corporate lawyer/management consultant, devote
herself to charity work helping battered wives in disadvantaged
communities, or go to Hollywood to work as a stunt double in kung fu
films. What most struck my friend was not the disparity of this woman's
choices, but the earnestness and bad grace with which she ruminated on
them. It was almost as though she begrudged her own talents,
opportunities and freedom - as though the world had treated her unkindly
by forcing her to make such a hard choice.
Her case is symptomatic of our times. In recent years, there has grown
up a culture of discontent among the highly educated young, something
that seems to flare up, especially, when people reach their late 20s and
early 30s. It arises not from frustration caused by lack of opportunity,
as may have been true in the past, but from an excess of possibilities.
Most theories of adult developmental psychology have a special category
for those in their late 20s and early 30s. Whereas the early to mid-20s
are seen as a time to establish one's mode of living, the late 20s to
early 30s are often considered a period of reappraisal.
In a society where people marry and have children young, where financial
burdens accumulate early, and where job markets are inflexible, such
reappraisals may not last long. But when people manage to remain free of
financial or family burdens, and where the perceived opportunities for
alternative careers are many, the reappraisal is likely to be
angst-ridden and long lasting.
Among no social group is this more true than the modern, international,
professional elite: that tribe of young bankers, lawyers, consultants
and managers for whom financial, familial, personal, corporate and
(increasingly) national ties have become irrelevant. Often they grew up
in one country, were educated in another, and are now working in a
third. They are independent, well paid, and enriched by experiences that
many of their parents could only dream of.
Yet, by their late 20s, many carry a sense of disappointment: that for
all their opportunities, freedoms and achievements, life has not
delivered quite what they had hoped.
At the heart of this disillusionment lies a new attitude towards work.
The idea has grown up, in recent years, that work should not be just a
means to an end a way to make money, support a family, or gain social
prestige - but should provide a rich and fulfilling experience in and of
itself. Jobs are no longer just jobs; they are lifestyle options.
Recruiters at financial companies, consultancies and law firms have
promoted this conception of work. Job advertisements promise challenge,
wide experiences, opportunities for travel and relentless personal
development.
Michael is a 33-year-old management consultant who has bought into this
vision of late-20th century work. Intelligent and well-educated - with
three degrees, including a doctorate - he works in Munich, and has a
"stable, long-distance relationship" with a woman living in California.
He takes 140 flights a year and works an average of 80 hours a week.
Some weeks he works more than 100 hours. When asked if he likes his job,
he will say: "I enjoy what I'm doing in terms of the intellectual
challenges." Although he earns a lot, he doesn't spend much. He rents a
small apartment, though he is rarely there, and has accumulated very few
possessions. He justifies the long hours not in terms of
wealth-acquisition, but solely as part of a "learning experience".
This attitude to work has several interesting implications, mostly to do
with the shifting balance between work and non-work, employment and
leisure. Because fulfilling and engrossing work - the sort that is
thought to provide the most intense learning experience - often requires
long hours or captivates the imagination for long periods of time, it is
easy to slip into the idea that the converse is also true: that just by
working long hours, one is also engaging in fulfilling and engrossing
work.
This leads to the popular fallacy that you can measure the value of your
job and, therefore, the amount you are learning from it) by the amount
of time you spend on it. And, incidentally, when a premium is placed on
learning rather than earning, people are particularly susceptible to
this form of self-deceit.
Thus, whereas in the past, when people in their 20s or 30s spoke
disparagingly about nine-to-five jobs it was invariably because they
were seen as too routine, too unimaginative, or too bourgeois. Now, it
is simply because they don't contain enough hours. Young professionals
have not suddenly developed a distaste for leisure, but they have
solidly bought into the belief that a 45-hour week necessarily signifies
an unfulfilling job.
Jane, a 29-year-old corporate lawyer who works in the City of London,
tells a story about working on a deal with another lawyer, a young man
in his early 30s. At about 3am, he leant over the boardroom desk and
said: Isn't this great? This is when I really love my job." What most
struck her about the remark was that the work was irrelevant (she says
it was actually rather boring); her colleague simply liked the idea of
working late. "It's as though he was validated, or making his life
important by this," she says.
Unfortunately, when people can convince themselves that all they need do
in order to lead fulfilled and happy lives is to work long hours, they
can quickly start to lose reasons for their existence. As they start to
think of their employment as a lifestyle, fulfilling and rewarding of
itself - and in which the reward is proportional to hours worked -
people rapidly begin to substitute work for other aspects of their
lives.
Michael, the management consultant, is a good example of this
phenomenon. He is prepared to trade (his word) not just goods and time
for the experience afforded by his work, but also a substantial measure
of commitment in his personal relationships. In a few months, he is
being transferred to San Francisco, where he will move in with his
girlfriend. But he's not sure that living in the same house is actually
going to change the amount of time he spends on his relationship. "Once
I move over, my time involvement on my relationship will not change
significantly. My job takes up most of my time and pretty much dominates
what I do, when, where and how I do it," he says.
Moreover, the reluctance to commit time to a relationship because they
are learning so much, and having such an intense and fulfilling time at
work is compounded, for some young professionals, by a reluctance to
have a long-term relationship at all. Today, by the time someone reaches
30, they could easily have had three or four jobs in as many different
cities - which is not, as it is often portrayed, a function of an
insecure global job-market, but of choice.
Robert is 30 years old. He has three degrees and has worked on three
continents. He is currently working for the United Nations in Geneva.
For him, the most significant deterrent when deciding whether to enter
into a relationship is the likely transient nature of the rest of his
life. "What is the point in investing all this emotional energy and
exposing myself in a relationship, if I am leaving in two months, or if
I do not know what I am doing next year?" he says.
Such is the character of the modern, international professional, at
least throughout his or her 20s. Spare time, goods and relationships,
these are all willingly traded for the exigencies of work. Nothing is
valued so highly as accumulated experience. Nothing is neglected so much
as commitment. With this work ethic - or perhaps one should call it a
"professional development ethic" - becoming so powerful, the globally
mobile generation now in its late 20s and early 30s has garnered
considerable professional success.
At what point, though, does the experience-seeking end? Kathryn is a
successful American academic, 29, who bucked the trend of her
generation: she recently turned her life round for someone else. She
moved to the UK, specifically, to be with a man, a decision that she
says few of her contemporaries understood. "We're not meant to say: 'I
made this decision for this person. Today, you're meant to do things for
yourself. If you're willing to make sacrifices for others - especially
if you're a woman - that's seen as a kind of weakness. I wonder,
though, is doing things for yourself really empowerment, or is liberty a
kind of trap?" she says.
For many, it is a trap that is difficult to break out of, not least
because they are so caught up in a culture of professional development.
And spoilt for choice, some like the American Rhodes Scholar no doubt
become paralysed by their opportunities, unable to do much else in their
lives, because they are so determined not to let a single one of their
chances slip.
If that means minimal personal commitments well into their 30s, so be
it. "Loneliness is better than boredom" is Jane's philosophy. And,
although she knows "a lot of professional single women who would give it
all up if they met a "rich man to marry", she remains far more concerned
herself about finding fulfillment at work.
"I am constantly questioning whether I am doing the right thing here,"
she says. "There's an eternal search for a more challenging and
satisfying option, a better lifestyle. You always feel you're not doing
the right thing, always feel as if you should be striving for another
goal," she says.
Jane, Michael, Robert and Kathryn grew up as part of a generation with
fewer social constraints determining their futures than has been true
for probably any other generation in history. They were taught at school
that when they grew up they could "do anything", "be anything". It was
an idea that was reinforced by popular culture, in films, books and
television.
The notion that one can do anything is clearly liberating. But life
without constraints has also proved a recipe for endless searching,
endless questioning of aspirations. It has made this generation obsessed
with self-development and determined, for as long as possible, to
minimise personal commitments in order to maximise the options open to
them. One might see this as a sign of extended adolescence. Eventually,
they will be forced to realise that living is as much about closing
possibilities as it is about creating them.
domingo, abril 02, 2006
Hey, There's Bruins in my SOPA!
Bruins in South Pasadena kept it real with the UCLA NCAA basketball games...I am now officially enjoying my own space in the historic Arroyo Seco district of Los Angeles. For those of you not familiar with the Arroyo, this canyon-like area in northeast Los Angeles is lush with vegetation, a temperate climate and lots of fresh air. There's something nice about rolling out on the 110 south, and leaving the protection of the Arroyo canyon into the great valley of the Los Angeles basin.
sábado, abril 01, 2006
Latino Students Echo the '60s
THE STATE
Student Protests Echo the '60s, but With a High-Tech Buzz
Youths used a popular website to organize their walkouts. And some did know what a 'sit-in' was.
By Scott Gold, Times Staff Writer
March 31, 2006
Shuffling her feet in her Garden Grove home last weekend, Mariela Muniz stared into the carpet and suffered, as teenagers do, the silent deliberation of her parents. Soon, her father nodded and her mother uttered the words she'd been waiting to hear: "Lo puedes hacer."
"You can do it."
The next morning, the 15-year-old sophomore at Garden Grove High School — with the permission of her parents, both of whom are factory workers and Mexican immigrants who became U.S. citizens after entering the country illegally — skipped school for the first time in her life.
Following in the footsteps of those who led the first of the student walkouts March 24 and the adults who organized last Saturday's massive protest against proposed immigration legislation, Muniz became one of a few dozen students in Southern California who helped spearhead a national exhibition of civil unrest, one of the largest and most boisterous since the civil rights movement four decades ago. By the end of today — in Fresno, in Monterey Park, in San Diego — more than 40,000 students in California will have walked out of their schools to protest the proposed reforms.
There is little question that some students took advantage of the protests to ditch school. Some acknowledged they had little idea what all the fuss was about. Others took the opportunity to throw bottles at police and to shut down freeways. Law enforcement officials criticized them for diverting resources from more pressing needs, and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told them to go back to school.
But for the small group of students who instigated the walkouts, most of whom hadn't been politically active but were well-connected on campus and online, it was a transformative week.
Using modern technology — mostly their communal pages on the enormously popular MySpace website — they pulled off an event with surprising speed and dexterity. Planned in mere hours on little sleep, lacking any formal organization, the protests were chaotic and decentralized and organic.
They were also a reminder that there are more than 35 million Latinos in the United States, about 40% of them in California. At least 8 million are in the country illegally. But many of their children — including many of the student leaders — are citizens by birth. And they represent a voting bloc that could help shape the politics of the West for years to come.
"I think it is the beginning of something," said Louis DeSipio, a professor of political science at UC Irvine. "You have the foundation for a new kind of Hispanic politics."
Many of the student leaders attended last weekend's Gran Marcha — which brought 500,000 demonstrators to downtown Los Angeles, stunning even the event's organizers — and said they were awed by the event.
"I've always been proud to say that I'm Hispanic," said Rafael "Ralph" Tabares, 17, a Marshall High School student and an organizer of his school's walkout. "But on Saturday, I thought: Whoa. We can do something. And we can do it right."
Others said they were inspired by the recent airing of the HBO film "Walkout," which re-created the Chicano-era school walkout by 20,000 Los Angeles students in 1968.
Since that tumultuous time, many Latinos in California had come to favor quiet, somber assimilation over loud, showy rebellion. To many, the student protests — and the Gran Marcha — represented a reawakening.
"It hearkens back to 1968," said Andres Jimenez, director of the California Policy Research Center at the University of California. "There was a sense of frustration that they saw with their parents in terms of the tenor of the immigration debate. This group is being singled out as a 'problem group.' And they wanted to seek an avenue to respond to that, to show that on the contrary, this group is very much a part of the broader society."
To be sure, students revealed both their youth and their naivete at times. When thousands of Los Angeles students descended on City Hall on Monday, for example, one student said she remembered something about civil rights protesters in the 1960s sitting down during demonstrations. It was a reference to the "sit-in," but it wasn't entirely clear whether the students recognized the pedigree of their decision to plop down on the steps.
"That was the idea of a girl from Belmont" High School, said Tabares. "In the '60s, the way they did it was sitting down. So we told everybody to sit down."
Just as often, however, students evidenced a surprising amount of savvy. They carried trash bags in their backpacks so they could not be accused of littering. They corralled students who tried to stray into stores and restaurants so they would not be seen as marauders.
Tabares even ordered classmates to put away Mexican flags they had brought to the demonstration — predicting, correctly, that the flags would be shown on the news and that the demonstrators would be criticized as nationalists for other countries, not residents seeking rights at home.
Stephanie Cisneros, a senior at Los Angeles Downtown Business Magnet, had to contend with the fact that many of her classmates were concerned about the police in squad cars following the marchers.
"Living in a low-income neighborhood, you just don't have a really good image of the police," said Cisneros, who became one of six students invited into City Hall to meet privately with Villaraigosa. "People thought we were going to get arrested. But I told them: 'No. We are exercising our right to free speech. As long as we don't do anything wrong, we won't be arrested.' "
Cisneros and a few others directed demonstrators to cross the street with the light and to remain on the sidewalk so they couldn't be accused of trespassing. "We were respectful. But we fought for something," she said.
The protest staged by Muniz and two friends in Orange County was typical of the student leaders' efforts.
They had heard about the March 24 walkouts at several high schools in Los Angeles, and decided to launch a protest of their own. On Sunday afternoon, they posted a bulletin on MySpace — since discovered by school administrators, who were not pleased — announcing that anyone wishing to participate should stand up at the 8 a.m. tardy bell Monday and "meet in front of the school."
In the scattered, rapid-fire text typical of students' MySpace missives, the bulletin continued: "dOnt b scared…. All these politic officials are trying to make their dreams come true by destroying ours, AND THEY WILL, unless we do something about it!!"
On the Internet site, which serves as a free-of-charge, virtual gathering place, users can send bulletins to all of their MySpace "friends." The lists can include dozens of people and the bulletins can be passed along in seconds.
It didn't take long before most of Garden Grove High's roughly 2,200 students knew what was coming, without the knowledge or involvement of teachers or parents.
Soon, the bulletin crossed over an invisible but critical line between teens who were friends but attended different schools. Students began posting their telephone numbers, and soon dozens more pledges to participate were obtained through phone calls and instant text messages.
Still, when the tardy bell rang Monday morning, Muniz had no idea what to expect. Teenagers can talk a big game. But would they follow through?
She waited in front of the school. Soon, the doors opened, and scores of students — most of them Latino, but a handful of whites, African Americans and Asian Americans too — joined her. They marched through Garden Grove and Anaheim, picking up students at several other schools as planned through MySpace bulletins. By 1 p.m., they had covered 10 miles. An estimated 1,500 students had walked out. Muniz was a truant — and, to her friends, a hero.
School administrators have since informed her that she'll have to perform community service as penance. Back at her home, a humble ranch-style house with family photographs on the wall and avocados on the dining room table, she said it was worth it.
"Sometimes you have to stand up for what you believe in," she said. "We did. And it worked."
Student Protests Echo the '60s, but With a High-Tech Buzz
Youths used a popular website to organize their walkouts. And some did know what a 'sit-in' was.
By Scott Gold, Times Staff Writer
March 31, 2006
Shuffling her feet in her Garden Grove home last weekend, Mariela Muniz stared into the carpet and suffered, as teenagers do, the silent deliberation of her parents. Soon, her father nodded and her mother uttered the words she'd been waiting to hear: "Lo puedes hacer."
"You can do it."
The next morning, the 15-year-old sophomore at Garden Grove High School — with the permission of her parents, both of whom are factory workers and Mexican immigrants who became U.S. citizens after entering the country illegally — skipped school for the first time in her life.
Following in the footsteps of those who led the first of the student walkouts March 24 and the adults who organized last Saturday's massive protest against proposed immigration legislation, Muniz became one of a few dozen students in Southern California who helped spearhead a national exhibition of civil unrest, one of the largest and most boisterous since the civil rights movement four decades ago. By the end of today — in Fresno, in Monterey Park, in San Diego — more than 40,000 students in California will have walked out of their schools to protest the proposed reforms.
There is little question that some students took advantage of the protests to ditch school. Some acknowledged they had little idea what all the fuss was about. Others took the opportunity to throw bottles at police and to shut down freeways. Law enforcement officials criticized them for diverting resources from more pressing needs, and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told them to go back to school.
But for the small group of students who instigated the walkouts, most of whom hadn't been politically active but were well-connected on campus and online, it was a transformative week.
Using modern technology — mostly their communal pages on the enormously popular MySpace website — they pulled off an event with surprising speed and dexterity. Planned in mere hours on little sleep, lacking any formal organization, the protests were chaotic and decentralized and organic.
They were also a reminder that there are more than 35 million Latinos in the United States, about 40% of them in California. At least 8 million are in the country illegally. But many of their children — including many of the student leaders — are citizens by birth. And they represent a voting bloc that could help shape the politics of the West for years to come.
"I think it is the beginning of something," said Louis DeSipio, a professor of political science at UC Irvine. "You have the foundation for a new kind of Hispanic politics."
Many of the student leaders attended last weekend's Gran Marcha — which brought 500,000 demonstrators to downtown Los Angeles, stunning even the event's organizers — and said they were awed by the event.
"I've always been proud to say that I'm Hispanic," said Rafael "Ralph" Tabares, 17, a Marshall High School student and an organizer of his school's walkout. "But on Saturday, I thought: Whoa. We can do something. And we can do it right."
Others said they were inspired by the recent airing of the HBO film "Walkout," which re-created the Chicano-era school walkout by 20,000 Los Angeles students in 1968.
Since that tumultuous time, many Latinos in California had come to favor quiet, somber assimilation over loud, showy rebellion. To many, the student protests — and the Gran Marcha — represented a reawakening.
"It hearkens back to 1968," said Andres Jimenez, director of the California Policy Research Center at the University of California. "There was a sense of frustration that they saw with their parents in terms of the tenor of the immigration debate. This group is being singled out as a 'problem group.' And they wanted to seek an avenue to respond to that, to show that on the contrary, this group is very much a part of the broader society."
To be sure, students revealed both their youth and their naivete at times. When thousands of Los Angeles students descended on City Hall on Monday, for example, one student said she remembered something about civil rights protesters in the 1960s sitting down during demonstrations. It was a reference to the "sit-in," but it wasn't entirely clear whether the students recognized the pedigree of their decision to plop down on the steps.
"That was the idea of a girl from Belmont" High School, said Tabares. "In the '60s, the way they did it was sitting down. So we told everybody to sit down."
Just as often, however, students evidenced a surprising amount of savvy. They carried trash bags in their backpacks so they could not be accused of littering. They corralled students who tried to stray into stores and restaurants so they would not be seen as marauders.
Tabares even ordered classmates to put away Mexican flags they had brought to the demonstration — predicting, correctly, that the flags would be shown on the news and that the demonstrators would be criticized as nationalists for other countries, not residents seeking rights at home.
Stephanie Cisneros, a senior at Los Angeles Downtown Business Magnet, had to contend with the fact that many of her classmates were concerned about the police in squad cars following the marchers.
"Living in a low-income neighborhood, you just don't have a really good image of the police," said Cisneros, who became one of six students invited into City Hall to meet privately with Villaraigosa. "People thought we were going to get arrested. But I told them: 'No. We are exercising our right to free speech. As long as we don't do anything wrong, we won't be arrested.' "
Cisneros and a few others directed demonstrators to cross the street with the light and to remain on the sidewalk so they couldn't be accused of trespassing. "We were respectful. But we fought for something," she said.
The protest staged by Muniz and two friends in Orange County was typical of the student leaders' efforts.
They had heard about the March 24 walkouts at several high schools in Los Angeles, and decided to launch a protest of their own. On Sunday afternoon, they posted a bulletin on MySpace — since discovered by school administrators, who were not pleased — announcing that anyone wishing to participate should stand up at the 8 a.m. tardy bell Monday and "meet in front of the school."
In the scattered, rapid-fire text typical of students' MySpace missives, the bulletin continued: "dOnt b scared…. All these politic officials are trying to make their dreams come true by destroying ours, AND THEY WILL, unless we do something about it!!"
On the Internet site, which serves as a free-of-charge, virtual gathering place, users can send bulletins to all of their MySpace "friends." The lists can include dozens of people and the bulletins can be passed along in seconds.
It didn't take long before most of Garden Grove High's roughly 2,200 students knew what was coming, without the knowledge or involvement of teachers or parents.
Soon, the bulletin crossed over an invisible but critical line between teens who were friends but attended different schools. Students began posting their telephone numbers, and soon dozens more pledges to participate were obtained through phone calls and instant text messages.
Still, when the tardy bell rang Monday morning, Muniz had no idea what to expect. Teenagers can talk a big game. But would they follow through?
She waited in front of the school. Soon, the doors opened, and scores of students — most of them Latino, but a handful of whites, African Americans and Asian Americans too — joined her. They marched through Garden Grove and Anaheim, picking up students at several other schools as planned through MySpace bulletins. By 1 p.m., they had covered 10 miles. An estimated 1,500 students had walked out. Muniz was a truant — and, to her friends, a hero.
School administrators have since informed her that she'll have to perform community service as penance. Back at her home, a humble ranch-style house with family photographs on the wall and avocados on the dining room table, she said it was worth it.
"Sometimes you have to stand up for what you believe in," she said. "We did. And it worked."
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