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Why we walked out

By Jennifer and Javier Leyva

April 3, 2006

Last week we walked out of our school, Manual Arts High School. Almost the entire school walked out. We were a part of thousands and thousands of students who left school to protest an immigration bill that would hurt many immigrant families.


A lot of people, especially in the media, have tried to make it seem like we walked out just to get out of school or we walked out without knowing what the issue was about. Maybe that was true for a couple of students but not for the majority of us. It wasn’t true for us.


We walked out because the laws that the politicians were proposing would affect our family. Our family is almost all immigrants. Our parents came to the United States when they were young. Our mom used to work for a sweatshop and our dad is a manager at a car rental company. Many of our aunties and uncles are immigrants who can’t find jobs or work in sweatshops without health insurance.


The reason that many immigrants come here is to support their families. They don’t come to cause trouble. They come here for a reason – to make a better life for their family. But if the law passes then many families will be affected. Many families could be torn apart, just for trying to make things better for themselves and their children.

Our parents have worked hard all their lives. But it is hard for immigrant families to get ahead. It’s hard when people can’t get good paying jobs. It’s hard when we go to schools in South Central that are mostly Black and Latino and that don’t have enough good teachers or books. We go to schools that don’t prepare us for college or for good paying jobs. It’s hard to make a better life when the schools only prepare us for jobs cleaning hotels or working in restaurants. It’s hard when most students in South Central don’t go to college.

Last year, we fought for more college prep classes in South Los Angeles schools. Our fight for a better education is the same as the fight for better immigration laws. In both, we are standing up for our rights and fighting for what we need to have a better future.

We walked out for our families, for our community, and for ourselves.

Jennifer Leyva and Javier Leyva are 10th and 9th graders, respectively, at Manual Arts School in South Central Los Angeles. They are also members of the South Central Youth Empowered Through Action program of the Community Coalition for Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment.