Prop. 187’s Quiet Student Revolution : Activism: In contrast to more publicized walkouts, Latino youngsters are turning opposition to immigration measure into a real-life civics lesson.

On the surface this week, student reaction to Proposition 187 erupted in noisy, sweaty school walkouts buzzed by television helicopters and blocked by police.

But away from the din, a more meaningful morality play was under way. At many other schools, equally fervent but more organized students gathered peacefully to teach one another about the controversial ballot measure, which would deny a variety of state tax-supported benefits, including a free public education, to illegal immigrants.

San Fernando High School students held a seminar at a nearby junior high. Students at Roosevelt High School on the Eastside shunned the idea of walking out of class and staged a peaceful rally after school instead. At Chatsworth High, students held an assembly in favor of Proposition 187 attended by 200 classmates.

For these students, Proposition 187 has become a real-life civics lesson, the first political issue to spark their imaginations, a banner that may become a generational turning point similar to the anti-war and civil rights movements.

“For some, I think it has taken them out of a form of youthful lethargy and gotten them to think about their lives and futures,” said James Trent, a UCLA education professor who researches student activism. “It is democracy in action. They won’t be the same anymore.”

Latino students--who make up 68% of the Los Angeles Unified School District--have largely been at the helm of the activities; for many, it is their first brush with the democratic system that their families came to this country to find.

Although the highly publicized walkouts, complete with chanting students waving foreign flags, have provoked derision among many voters, especially those who support Proposition 187 or are undecided about it, the more introspective debates and protests are more prosaic, even moving.

* In Panorama City, half a dozen San Fernando High student government and Chicano club leaders walked proudly into the office of Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) to deliver petitions signed by students for and against Proposition 187. He promised to send them to Gov. Wilson by overnight mail.

* In Reseda, students of Cleveland High’s Latino Club researched and staged an elaborate daylong forum in their gymnasium where guest speakers spoke for and against the initiative, then answered questions from a respectful audience.

* Downtown, students at Belmont High made plans to walk precincts and staff telephone banks through Election Day.

The conversation between San Fernando students and Katz revealed a glimpse of the pride and prejudice youths are grappling with.

Dressed in a purple T-shirt and jeans, Araceli Recendez leaned urgently forward from a sofa in Katz’s field office to tell him she was working against Proposition 187 “for my raza, my race.”

Aaron Digarza, one of Recendez’s compatriots in a campus chapter of the nationwide student group Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, echoed her sentiment--explaining that he had helped persuade Pacoima Junior High children not to walk out of classes Thursday.

“The younger kids are confused and full of rage,” said Digarza, 17. “They were afraid that they weren’t being heard. It’s up to us to put them on our shoulders.”

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Digarza’s and Recendez’s concern appeared to be ignited by the perception of a threat to Latino families that goes beyond the specifics of Proposition 187. Instead, they expressed a fear that the initiative is aimed at their inclusion in America.

“We didn’t realize that society would turn on us,” said their classmate, Libertad M. Ayala, 15.

“The people who wrote this initiative never counted on so many of you young people getting involved in politics in this way,” Katz told the group of students, most of whom were talking to a politician for the first time. “You are learning a lot more about civics and government than you ever will from a book.”

What did these voices of democracy sound like? At ground level, in classrooms and auditoriums across the city, they were loud but sometimes not so clear.

Van Nuys High students flocked to an open microphone Friday during an all-day assembly attended by government classes.

“When I moved to L.A., I was so happy--there were all kinds of different people,” said Sharon Aviv, a junior. “Proposition 187 is against people loving their culture. It says you’re American or nothing.”

Behzad Jacob Faturechi, president of a Rush Limbaugh fan club at Van Nuys, which draws conservative students, said his friends felt intimidated by the fervor against Proposition 187, but he spoke out anyway.

“It really gives an indication that the people of California don’t want to provide services for people who aren’t citizens,” said Faturechi, who immigrated to the United States from Iran at age 8. “Mostly it’s a first step toward dissolving the welfare state where people get things for nothing.”

Students in favor of Proposition 187 had an easier time at Chatsworth High. Leaders of a peaceful anti-Proposition 187 rally held a week ago decided to attend a pro-Proposition 187 assembly Thursday to show that they respect diverse opinions.

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Across town at Roosevelt High, students involved with the organization MEChA persuaded their peers to demonstrate their opposition to Proposition 187 after class, disdaining the showy walkouts they had seen on television. Even when a crowd marched to the campus from Shure High in Montebello, the students turned down the raucous invitation.

Instead, Roosevelt government and economics teachers made the initiative a part of their curriculum for the day. After school, they marched to Soto and 4th streets to chant their opposition in front of an Arco gas station and Vons supermarket, whose corporate organizations have contributed to Gov. Wilson’s campaign.

On campuses throughout the city, teachers found themselves acting as referees at assemblies and in classrooms.

“Forget your lesson plans!” Taft High Principal Ronald H. Berz said Wednesday during an impromptu faculty meeting. “It’s healthy to discuss these issues in class tomorrow. The kids need to know that we are concerned about them and will not punish them for expressing their opinion.”

School board member Leticia Quezada, who emigrated from Mexico at age 11, said she was seeking “an awakening process” similar to what she felt as a college student during MEChA protests at UC Santa Cruz two decades ago.

“The chancellor told me: ‘Young lady, you should devote yourself to academics, and not to politics.’ And one of these days I’m going to tell him that politics is my life, and became a part of my life as a result of those protests.”

Daniel G. Solorzano, a UCLA professor specializing in minority education, considers the Chicano Movement of the late 1960s the watershed event of his life and remembers how high school children involved in the Eastside “blowouts” of 1968 and 1969--protests against inferior educational conditions for Chicanos--went on to become student leaders at Cal State L.A., UCLA and USC. Will it happen again?

“I look forward to meeting (the current generation of activists) on this campus,” he said. “I get excited with students challenging me. These events can be real catalyzing, and it’s always for the best.”

Contributing to this story were special correspondent Maki Becker and Times staff writer Jocelyn Stewart.