6:00

On Friday, Monday and Tuesday of late March, 2006, over 44,000 students walk out of their schools in the county of Los Angeles. They do so for varying reasons, some to protest the conditions they’re inheriting from a system they recognize as “broke-ass,” others because they see an opportunity to skip class and duck into someone’s house during school hours. What unites them seems to be an absolute discontent with their current situation and a legitimate desire to be part of a conscious movement that’s larger than the individual.

             I find myself in a public high school on the days of the walkout, teaching the conventions and techniques of art to 14 to 18 year olds. On my break Monday, I hear helicopters overhead and as the intercom pronounces a campus-wide lock down, I immediately think there’s been a shooting- images from the other day of two of my students in handcuffs outside my classroom also appear in my mind.

            I turn on the radio to find out what’s happening and get a traffic report saying that many of the streets surrounding the school are congested because of kids marching. This was Friday- the school resumes regular schedule for lunch and goes back into “lock-down” for the last period.

            During that period, I talk to the students, mostly upperclassmen, and they’re eager to get home, asking me if I think the school would keep them after the final bell rang. Someone asks for some paper to make a poster, which takes me by surprise, and then many more do, all writing with markers in bold letters the slogans that we’re familiar with: “We didn’t cross the border, the border…” “Que Viva La Raza” “No human is illegal” etc. I ask if any had seen the movie Walkout, which just premiered on cable TV the week before- many had.

            That weekend, a million people march in downtown Los Angeles- packing 15 blocks of Broadway and spilling into the adjacent blocks- the biggest congregation of people in the history of Los Angeles.

            On Monday, I’m back in the classroom- this time around, the whole day we’re in lock down mode. A truly surreal day,,, we have our lunches delivered to us and have to eat in class (our tiny, windowless class), students are escorted six at a time to the restroom (one young woman remarks to me “They’re treating us like criminals!” while a young man smiling to himself responds that that was “down…”) and I get periodic requests to turn the TV on to the news from students with cell-phones talking to people on the “outside.” In one instance we turn on the TV just in time to see the front of our school being occupied by students who must’ve walked 3 miles to get here. They’re demanding that their fellow students walk out with them, banging on the doors, in some cases attempting to break in. Later, a student on a phone tells me “they’re on the freeway” and we turn on the TV to see a line of students walking on the 101 near downtown, stopping traffic all the way behind them.

            Tuesday is more of the same, but the same crackling intensity I feel on Monday has waned, and the walkouts now feel like distant shouts being heard from underground. Students are restless and all the administration can say is “we care about the student’s safety.” On Monday I hear on the news that 44,000 students walked out and on the radio that another action is planned for Friday, Cesar Chavez Day.

            Outside of school, we adults talk about the happenings, why it happened, why now, what the students were thinking, what they’re going to do next. What’s happening right now feels like a snake, and I can almost understand the flow of the group dynamic- this seems to be a movement with no leadership- or with a very decentralized leadership (in keeping with the times). Because of this, I think that there is more steam left in it- especially since these young people are sensing, very probably for the first time, that they’re making a collective decision. Their actions clearly reject the mythology of individuality that has been heaped onto their plate since they were born. Whether they know it or not, their actions are more than rebellion, they’re opening up holes in the mythology and culture of individuality, competition, consumerism and apathy- they’re challenging and breaking the image of the people they’re supposed to be- self-absorbed, self-destructive and ultimately docile and apathetic. Now, this “movement,” with its reflections in Paris suburbs and university, might need spokespeople, texts, histories of its own- it might want to get media-savvy, clarify its grievances (if not its demands) and reach out to other groups. If you have something to contribute to this archive of documented oral history- please use this technology to post it.