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Disunity in Anaheim Union High School District
SOCIAL ISSUES: Anger over board's immigration measure persists among Hispanic parents.
November 21, 1999
By FELIX SANCHEZ
The Orange County RegisterANAHEIM - Sparking interest in bread-and-butter school issues is sometimes a tough sell. Just count the number who regularly attend school-board meetings, educators say.
But a firestorm of attention that flared in the summer - when the Anaheim Union High School District board voted to try to get compensated for educating the children of undocumented immigrants - has helped band together a group who say they will continue monitoring school performance when this battle is over.
"A lot of community organizations are getting together now. Indians, Mexican-Americans, blacks," said Kathy Jurado-Navarro, with a coalition of district parents, residents and activists formed in response to the resolution, adopted Aug. 19.
"Harald Martin did a good thing. He said something so outrageous to us, attacking the children, that he brought us together," Jurado-Navarro said.
Martin is Anaheim Union High School District's board president and spearheaded the controversial resolution that asks the U.S. government to get financial compensation from foreign countries, including Mexico, and then funnel the money to school districts.
At local schools, Martin argues, services and facilities are burdened by growing numbers of children of illegal immigrants, children who know little English.
Its approval prompted heated protests by Hispanic activists and counterdemonstrations by immigration-reform workers supporting it.
While the district enrollment of 28,533 is about half Hispanic, its leadership, from the the school board to its Crescent Way headquarters and to the principals' offices, remains mostly white.
Some district students joined in the impassioned rallies, shouting down trustees in at least one volatile meeting, and then waving signs at two other board sessions.
Plans for a student walkout, though, fizzled.
And in recent interviews with three dozen students at two district high schools and a middle school, the majority knew little about the resolution until it was explained to them.
Jasmine Ortuno, 12, a U.S.-born seventh-grader at Ball Junior High School, had heard of the proposal. "It sounds so racist, so mean. It makes some of them think that because we're Mexican, we're from Mexico," she said.
The furor seems to be dying. But members of the Coalition for Educational Rights, formed in response to the resolution, say they will not let the issue die. Board members who voted for it will be held accountable next election, member Sefarino Garcia said.
The resolution has created division within the district, Garcia said, and demonized immigrant children.
"Students are uneasy and uncomfortable," Garcia said. "The agenda for the school board now is education and immigration. It should only be education."
Michelle Majewski, journalism adviser for The Anoranco student newspaper at Anaheim High School, said the resolution angered students when it first came up.
"They wanted to write the school board and to the newspaper. They were very upset," she said.
COMPETING ISSUES
In recent weeks, though, other issues have arisen in the district, which extends from Anaheim into Buena Park, La Palma and Cypress, that at times have overshadowed the immigration debate:
The board earlier this month enacted a "moment of reflection" at the beginning of the school day, something that detractors say is the first step toward reintroducing prayer in school.
The October shooting death of a Kennedy High School football player, Brandon D. Ketsdever, 17, after the theft of a plastic pumpkin left fellow students in grief.
Martin has come under fire for publicly questioning whether a former Cypress High School student who was sexually molested by her teacher was partly responsible for the crime. The comments have prompted protests and demands for Martin's censure.
When all is said and done, the resolution itself may lead nowhere.
The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has said it can't and won't go into the schools to find out who is illegal.
"I think it was more a symbolic thing and they realized it probably shouldn't have come up," trustee L.E. "Slim" Terrell said of his colleagues' action. Terrell's was the lone vote against it.
Besides Martin, voting for it were trustees Alexandria Coronado, Robert Stewart and Katherine H. Smith.
"It violates the civil rights of so many people it would never be able to be enacted," Jurado-Navarro said.
Martin says the issue is still in its infancy.
He was recently buoyed by a Republican bid to get the federal government to reimburse local governments for some costs tied to undocumented immigrants, and said the resolution will spur action.
"It is not even close to being finished," Martin vowed.
Letters explaining the resolution were sent by the board to President Clinton, Attorney General Janet Reno, U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, and the Orange County legislative delegation. There was no response, so another will be mailed soon, Martin said.
"We're requesting they take our request seriously," Martin said.
Martin also said he believes the resolution has created no conflicts in the district. If students and their parents aren't "illegal aliens," they have nothing to worry about, Martin said. Education will improve.
STUDENT REACTION
No one knows exactly how many children may have parents who are undocumented immigrants, although Martin estimates the number at 15 percent to 25 percent of the district's total enrollment.
Parent Javier Perez, who along with his wife immigrated from Mexico and eventually became U.S. citizens, said his children were upset by the resolution.
"They were born here," Perez said of his 13-, 16- and 17-year-olds, who attend Anaheim High School. "It upset everybody. We need to be a little bit more together, as a Mexican people, to keep things like this from happening."
Tiffany Robertson, 16; Jose Sanchez, 16; and Sebastian Big Mountain, 16, honor students at Anaheim High School, said most students don't care about the subject. Their take? The board is misguided in trying to bill foreign countries, especially Mexico.
"This is not Mexico's problem. They are not sending them over here," said Elisabeth Coy, 16, an 11th-grader at Anaheim High, where Hispanics make up about 88 percent of the student body. "It's our government's fault. They should make it easier to get citizenship."