Teens protest 'unfair, racist' treatment March for 3rd day on immigration

JJ Hensley The Arizona Republic Apr. 1, 2006 12:00 AM

Chanting "S, se puede!" "I want my papers" and "We're not criminals," dozens of Mesa students took to the streets Friday to protest what they consider racist and unfair treatment of Hispanics.

Groups from various Mesa junior highs and some high schools marched throughout the city carrying Mexican flags and bandanas.

"We're protesting because people are calling us criminals and we're not criminals," said Jorge Ramirez, 13, a Mesa Junior High eighth-grader. "We want our families to come over here and get some freedom."

Throughout the week, students throughout the nation have protested House Bill 4437, which would make it a felony to be in the United States illegally.

In Tucson, 900 to 1,000 middle school students and 300 high school students participated in demonstrations Friday, the third straight day of protests. Several schools instituted a "hard lockdown," meaning remaining students stayed in their classrooms with campus perimeters secured.

A high school in Yuma also was placed on lockdown Friday, after about 200 students from another campus rallied in front of Yuma City Hall.

In Mesa, a group of about 50 students started at Mesa and Kino junior high schools before school, and made its way down Brown Road and eventually to Carson Junior High, where they attempted to pick up more students but didn't find many takers. The group then marched to Poston Junior High and continued to parade throughout the city.

The whole scene didn't make much sense to Westwood High School senior Nick Merrill.

"I think it's pretty stupid that they just walk down the street every day," he said. "I think they're just making it worse for themselves. . . . It just makes the American people more mad."

Mesa Superintendent Deb Duvall said the district will treat the incident like any other unexcused absence. Schools thought to be on the path of the protesters were locked down Friday to prevent students from getting on campus and disrupting classes. But students could leave if they chose not to heed the warnings of school staff members posted at each exit, Duvall said.

While the superintendent wasn't pleased that students were leaving campuses, she did see some benefits from the newfound sense of activism.

"We need to help our young people recognize that they have a responsibility to be leaders in their communities, and to do that, they need to have an understanding of what's going on in their country. I think recognizing the implications and impact of certain pieces of legislation is a step in that direction," she said.

The marches came a day after racial tensions flared at Apache Junction High School after a student attempted to raise a Mexican flag on a school flagpole, and another student then burned it.

The student who brought the flag told school administrators he did so in response to an inappropriate comment about his ethnicity made Wednesday by another student.

District spokeswoman Carol Shepherd said the event started when a Hispanic student tried to raise the flag and it escalated to a "non-physical confrontation" between six students: three Hispanic and three Anglo.

School administrators on Friday sent a letter to parents alerting them to a ban on all flag-related clothing or items.

Administrators later reversed that decision after students, parents and the community raised concerns. School officials said their intent was "never to take away a student's freedom of expression."

Reporter Lars Jacoby and the Associated Press contributed to this article. A version of this story appeared in The Mesa Republic.