BY ALARIC DIRMEYER
SAN LEANDRO, California - Chanting, "Education not
incarceration," 2,500 San Francisco Bay Area high school
students marched through this city October 1. The
students - who came from San Francisco, Oakland, Daly City,
Pittsburg, and Concord - had walked out of school earlier that
morning to voice their demands for more funding for education,
for the immediate creation of ethnic studies courses, in
defense of bilingual education, and against the growing
scapegoating and imprisonment of young people, especially
working-class youth and those of oppressed nationalities.
The students converged on San Leandro to protest and highlight a recently constructed Alameda County police substation here. Many of the demonstrators noted that in the last 10 years the California state government has built 19 prisons or youth detention centers but only one university.
Another demand of the protest was to stop the passage of Senate Bill 10, currently on the floor of the state senate. This bill would extend the practice of trying minors as adults and housing youth in adult prisons, allow students to be suspended from school for up to six months for use of tobacco, and establish a precedent of juvenile arrest records being open for review by college officials.
The vast majority of the marchers were Black, Chicano, or Latin American, and quite young. A number of the protesters had never taken part in such an action before. Many carried handwritten signs with statements like, "We want our history in the schools," "Ghetto Revolution," "Danger: Educated Chicanas," and "Raza Studies Now," as well as slogans protesting police repression.
The rally was organized by Olin, an organization of students and other youth that has members in most Bay Area high schools. "Olin" is Mayan for movement. The group includes many veterans of the struggles in recent years for affirmative action, immigrant rights, and against police brutality.
Ivan García, a junior at Skyline High School who helped organize the march, explained its purpose. "We were speaking out on how bad the situation is, how so many youth end up in prisons, the overcrowding of our schools, [and] the racism towards la Raza by administration," he said.
Olin called a previous rally in April with similar demands of more money for education and defending bilingual education. That event, which took place at the site of a new police station in Concord, drew 2,000 people. García said Olin's plan following the latest rally is to keep exerting pressure against school boards. "We'll be going to their meetings demanding ethnic studies. Right now we don't learn anything about our roots or culture. If they don't move, then more walkouts."
Alaric Dirmeyer is a member of the San Francisco Young Socialists.