Prop. 187 Debate Becomes Live-Action Civics Class : Education: Characterized as an awakening, passion over ballot measure introduces students to politics.

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 far different--and perhaps more meaningful--morality play was under way. At many other schools equally fervent but more organized students gathered in intensely peaceful, constructive ways to teach each other about the ballot measure that would deny a variety of state tax-supported benefits, including a free public education, to illegal immigrants.

A group of San Fernando High School kids held a seminar at a nearby middle school. Van Nuys High School students conducted an “open microphone day” in their campus auditorium. Several Chatsworth High youths held a pro-187 assembly attended by 200 classmates.

For these students, the debate over Proposition 187 has been a live-action civics lesson--the first heated political issue that has sparked their young lives with passion, and which stands to become the same kind of turning point that the anti-war and civil rights movements were for a previous generation, education experts said.

“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 comprise 68% of the Los Angeles Unified School District--have largely been at the helm of the activities. For many it their first brush with the democratic system that their families came to this country to find.

While the highly publicized walkouts, complete with chanting students waving foreign flags, have provoked derision among many voters, especially those who support or are undecided about Proposition 187, the images of the more introspective debates and protests were more prosaic, but at times more moving.

* 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 fashioned plans to walk precincts and staff telephone banks through Election Day.

* In East Los Angeles, students at Roosevelt High were baited to leave campus by a crowd that had marched over from Shure High in Montebello, but they refused--deciding to remain in class and demonstrate after school instead.

* 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. Pete Wilson by overnight mail.

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

Dressed in a purple T-shirt and jeans, Araceli Recendez leaned 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 Araceli’s compatriots in a campus chapter of the nationwide student group Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, echoed her sentiment--explaining that he had helped to persuade Pacoima Middle School students not to walk out of classes Thursday.

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

Aaron and Araceli’s concern appeared ignited by the perception of a threat to Latino families that goes beyond the specifics of Proposition 187. They expressed a fear that the initiative is an arrow 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.”

The notion that the student-prompted activities are acting as a civics laboratory was celebrated as a hopeful sign by several education observers.

“At a time when we are so cynical about government, here we have thousands of young people who think their actions might make a difference,” said Jeannie Oakes, assistant dean of the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Services. “It signals to me a real buying-in to the democratic system.”

A specialist in school curricula, Oakes said it was now up to high school teachers to emphasize in government classes “the importance of every person’s voice in shaping public policy.”

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, for instance, flocked to an open microphone on 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,” declared Sharon Aviv, an 11th-grader. “Prop. 187 is against people loving their culture. It says you’re American or nothing.”

Next to the mike was Maggie Gomez, 15, commenting on a previous day’s walkout that ended tumultuously. “We have to show that we’re smart enough to be united,” she said. “We can’t go on vandalizing. I saw some of you doing it and that’s just wrong.”

Behzad Jacob Faturechi, president of a Rush Limbaugh fan club at Van Nuys, said his pals felt intimidated by the anti-187 fervor, 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 Behzad, 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-187 rally held a week ago decided to attend a pro-187 assembly on Thursday to show that they respect diverse opinions.

“Some were shy about speaking in favor,” said Eric Lozano, 16, an organizer of Cleveland High’s open forum on Thursday. “But we had floor teams to tell the students to be cool and give everyone their turn.”

Teachers found themselves acting as referees at these assemblies and in classrooms.

“Forget your lesson plans!” Taft High Principal Ronald H. Berz declared 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.”

Taft journalism teacher Geri Seiner said one student asked her in class how the initiative process worked. The boy was dumbfounded, she said, that a initiative he considered ill-conceived could get on the ballot.

English teacher Errol Jacobs said he used his classes at Taft as a forum for discussion, but was less sanguine about the results.

“Our kids are surprisingly ignorant about issues and it shocks me,” he said. “But this is one they all have an opinion about. Now I think we should strike while the iron is hot.”

Jacobs vowed to become a deputy registrar of voters next election season so that he can sign up 18-year-olds, contending that students would be more apt to register to vote with a teacher than at a card table set up in supermarket parking lot.

Participation seemed to be the central theme not just for the teachers and students, but also for others involved in schools, such as school board member Leticia Quezada. She suggested and coordinated forums from her Downtown office, and offered a broader perspective.

“The organizing skills students are gaining are very important and will have a long effect on their lives,” she said.

“It is an awakening process. They are awakening to their rights to speak, to assemble, to fight for something they believe in, and to demand a free public education,” said Quezada, who is opposed to the measure. “It’s the kind of process that creates a spark in people to become policy leaders.”

Quezada, who emigrated from Mexico at age 11, said she felt that spark 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.”

The legacy of student activism can be long-lasting.

Daniel G. Solorzano, a UCLA professor specializing in minority education, considered the Chicano Movement of the late 1960s as the “watershed event” of his life. He grew wistful when viewing TV footage of the high school protests over the past week.

“It was almost like seeing myself,” said Solorzano, who grew up in East Los Angeles. He was a business major at Loyola University when he was “awakened,” he said, by his involvement in the Chicano Moratorium March in Boyle Heights on Aug. 29, 1970.

Following that event, he says he became more involved in his community, shunning school to work instead with young people as the assistant director of a playground.

Musing on the future of the young people involved in Proposition 187 activities, he said he wondered if they, like high school students involved in the East L.A. Blowouts of 1968 and 1969, would go on to become student leaders at Cal State Los Angeles, UCLA, Cal and USC.

“I look forward to meeting them 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.”

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