The roughly 130 West Ranch High School students who staged the latest in a series of school walkout protests brought megaphones to their demonstration and put them to use to make their message heard by the passing cars at The Old Road and Valencia Boulevard on Thursday afternoon.
Through the megaphones, they chanted: “No Trump. No KKK. No fascist USA.”
It was the latest of several such recent walkout protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement, including demonstrations by students at Saugus, Valencia, Hart and Canyon high schools. Officials with the William S. Hart Union High School District have said the students are acting on their own and the demonstrations are not authorized by the schools.
West Ranch 10th grader Gabrielle Cunada and 11th grader Ray Y., who declined to give her last name, decided to organize the protest.
“Because it’s our future, more than anyone else’s, and I feel like everyone under the ideology of ‘Make America Great Again’ by doing deportations and all these horrible (things) that’s going around. I think that’s wrong,” Ray said.
“Children are the future. You’re going to be the ones who are going to be, I guess running the world one day. So, I think it’s important for us to learn about politics and understand how it impacts us,” Cunada added. “Because if you just turn a blind eye, it’s, well, silence is compliance.”
Students had flags, megaphones, music blasting and were holding signs like “Melt ICE,” “Immigrants Built America,” and “History is Screaming. Are you listening?”
Ray and Cunada said that they wanted to give students a chance to speak out, especially the ones who were afraid.
“It’s like a lot of people were scared to speak up about ICE, because there’s a lot of people at school who are pretty MAGA or pro-ICE,” Cunada said.
Boone Vienna, a junior at West Ranch, said it is important to show up for events like this, especially for young people in high school.
“It shows that the kids … it shows what they believe and what they think of the problems that are happening in the country right now. … And since, obviously, the kids are the next generation, it shows the people in charge right now what they have to look out for. And that we’re not staying silent — we’re a part of this too,” Vienna said.
Students cheered and roared when they heard the passing cars honking and when they crossed the street with their signs.
Bailey Hoskins, a freshman at West Ranch, said he decided to join the walkout because people need to know their rights, especially exercising the First Amendment.
“I feel like because that’s just our rights. I feel like that shouldn’t be able to be taken away. That should be something that everyone has,” Hoskins said. “Everyone has a voice and everyone deserves to be heard. No one should be silenced. No one should be told, ‘You can’t say that, you can’t do this.’ You can’t say or do what you want to do. We’re all human. Everyone’s equal.”
