1,500 Students Leave Class to Protest Against Prop. 187 : Immigration: Demonstrators from high schools and junior highs walk out of classes. Most later return, but some are suspended.

About 1,500 students from high schools and junior high schools in Los Angeles, East Los Angeles, Huntington Park, Bell and South Gate left their classrooms Friday and demonstrated their opposition to Proposition 187.

“It’s not my fault my parents are here illegally,” said a 14-year-old freshman. “If they have to leave, what am I going to do?” She was one of about 200 who walked out at 9 a.m. and marched about two miles from their campus at Firestone Boulevard and State Street to Atlantic and Florence avenues in Bell.

As they marched, the students waved banners and signs bearing such slogans as “No to 187,” “Viva la Revolucion” and “Down With Wilson.” (The governor supports Proposition 187.)

The proposition’s best-known provisions would bar illegal immigrants from public schooling, non-emergency health care and social services. Proponents say the measure would help curb continuing, large-scale illegal immigration. Opponents consider the measure to be poorly drafted and a xenophobic invitation to harass the foreign-born.

All of Friday’s anti-187 demonstrations were generally peaceful, but Bell police ordered the dispersal of the crowd at Florence and Atlantic, explaining later that officers “wanted to prevent things from getting out of hand.”

Capt. Steve Weber of the Bell Police Department said two students were arrested for truancy.

As in the case of the other demonstrations at Jordan and Fremont high schools in central Los Angeles, Roosevelt High School and Stevenson Junior High School in East Los Angeles and high schools in Bell and Huntington Park, most of the South Gate students returned to class, according to Los Angeles Unified School District officials.

But at South Gate High, Principal Raul Moreno suspended the demonstrators for two days for leaving the campus without permission. Moreno--himself an opponent of the proposition--said that although he sympathized with the students’ position, they chose an inappropriate way to express their beliefs.

In Orange County, officials announced the suspension of two students who led a walkout demonstration against the proposition Wednesday.

The students--from Anaheim High School and Santiago High School in Garden Grove--said they were suspended for trying to get hundreds of other pupils to follow them to a rally. One was suspended for three days and the other for five days.

Times community correspondent Mimi Ko in Orange County contributed to this story.