O.C. Students March, Doctors Plan to Continue Hunger Strike

Protests against Proposition 187 continued Friday throughout Orange County, ranging from student demonstrations in Tustin, Santa Ana, Anaheim and Costa Mesa to a hunger strike launched by more than a dozen doctors in Orange.

The members of California Hispanic Medical Group in Orange said they plan to continue their liquid only fast until Election Day and predicted other physicians would join.

“As health-care providers we cannot stand idly by and soon become potential instruments of a Gestapo-like machine apparatus requiring us to report any patient that comes to us in their time and hour of medical need and is unable to verify their legal status,” said Fernando A. Montelongo, president of the medical group.

Proposition 187 would deny illegal immigrants most public social services including education and all but emergency health care.

Hundreds of students walked out of at least 10 high schools and middle schools from Santa Ana, Tustin and Orange to stage a six-hour protest in the streets throughout Santa Ana.

The protests began about 10:30 a.m. when 100 Tustin High students marched to Century High to coax students there to walk off campus. They were unaware that about 200 Century students already had left the campus and were on their way to other schools to recruit protesters.

The Tustin students walked miles to City Hall, the Civic Center and a number of schools, waving flags and placards denouncing Proposition 187 and Gov. Pete Wilson.

Some schools were approached three times by different groups of protesters. The groups all converged at Memorial Park about 1:30 p.m., where the crowd grew to about 400.

“We’re teen-agers. We have no right to vote,” said Abimael Cabrera, 18, a Tustin High senior. “That’s why we’re out here, to get voters to know that 187 is wrong and inhumane.”

The proposition “is going to affect the people who can’t even vote,” said Ana Palma, 15, a Tustin sophomore.

Tustin Principal Bob Boies, who followed closely behind his students for a few hours, walking and riding with police, said he sympathized with their cause and opposed Proposition 187. “It is racist . . . mean-spirited legislation,” he said, “and the kids feel powerless.”

But Boies said he wasn’t happy with the walkout, adding that students who left the campus will be expelled, suspended or given detention for ditching school.

In Anaheim, police escorted about 25 students, many carrying Mexican flags, down Ball Road from Magnolia Avenue to Dale Avenue. The morning protest was so peaceful that even the police decided to leave, officials said.

In Costa Mesa, about 60 Estancia High students marched down West 19th Street after class. Led by a student carrying an American flag and escorted by several Costa Mesa motorcycle officers, the students waved signs and chanted anti-187 slogans.

Later in the afternoon, another group of 50 to 100 medical students and doctors from UC Irvine Medical School and UCLA gathered with signs and banners in front of Tustin City Hall to protest the ballot initiative.

Times correspondents Mimi Ko, Tom Ragan and Thao Hua contributed to this story