Students Stage March Against Proposition 187 : Protest: Estancia High youths, waving flags and signs, leave campus to show opposition to governor’s support of measure targeting illegal immigrants<i> .</i>

Shouting “viva la raza!” and “Mexico, Mexico, Mexico,” a group of about 200 students from Estancia High School staged a boisterous but peaceful march Friday to protest Gov. Pete Wilson’s support for Proposition 187, the statewide initiative that would deny health care and education to illegal immigrants.

“We think Pete Wilson is a racist,” said Carlos Hernandez, a junior at Estancia who joined his classmates in walking off campus about 12:45 p.m. “I think (Proposition 187) is just an excuse to get us (Latinos) out of here.”

“I think it’s wrong,” said junior Danny Barajas. “I think Pete Wilson is making a big mistake” by supporting Proposition 187.

“It’s not treating us like human beings,” said Elva Perez, a junior who characterized the ballot initiative as discriminatory and racist.

Some motorists honked their horns in support of the students as they waved Mexican flags and protest signs during their nearly three-hour march from Estancia to Costa Mesa High School and back. A handful of students from Costa Mesa High joined in the protest.

Not all the passing motorists were supportive of the march, however. “Some people were yelling, ‘Go back to Mexico,’ ” said freshman Alma Perez. “They were racist.”

Costa Mesa patrol officers followed the marchers, who blocked traffic at times as they walked east on Wilson Street from their school on Placentia Avenue.

“They were rather difficult to control, as they were youthful and vigorous in their march toward Harbor Boulevard,” said Police Lt. Alan Kent. “They ignored our commands to get out of the road.”

At one point, police corralled the students into a corner of the Harbor Plaza shopping center to await the arrival of two school buses from Estancia. But before the buses arrived, many of the students broke into a run and continued their march back to campus.

Kent said no arrests were made. “It was just a lot of annoying the local citizens,” he said.

Estancia High School Principal Marguerite J. Anatol said she learned about plans for the march on Thursday when students distributed a flyer that urged a march against Wilson and Proposition 187. Slightly more than half of the school’s 1,158 students are Latino, she said.

“It was peaceful, and I’m thankful for that,” Anatol said of the march. She said those who participated are considered truant for missing afternoon classes, and that each student will have to serve two hours of detention.

“My responsibility is to help maintain a safe and orderly environment--that’s my No. 1 concern,” said Anatol, who maintained that missing class was not the best way to demonstrate their concerns about Proposition 187.

Roy Alvarado, a drug counselor at Estancia, agreed that the march was counterproductive. “I tried to tell them not to disrupt their classwork,” Alvarado said. “Another time and place would have been great.”

Alvarado added that the community’s problems with gangs, drugs and graffiti would grow far worse if Proposition 187 passes.

“It’s just going to explode, the deterioration of the neighborhoods,” Alvarado said. “You’re targeting the kids as a vehicle to get to a bigger problem, and that’s not right. Kids have enough problems right now.”