Students Rekindling Prop. 187 Fervor : Protests: High school and college demonstrators are planning a three-day fast and a march Downtown to denounce passage of measure.

Students awakened politically by Proposition 187 hope to rekindle opposition to anti-immigrant politics by staging three days of protests, including a fast by 10 college and high school students.

Organized by a coalition evolving from the massive student walkouts before last November’s election, students said a three-day fast beginning Thursday at Olvera Street Plaza will be followed by a Downtown march.

Sympathetic students who learned of the Los Angeles protest on the Internet, an international collection of computer networks, also plan to stage similar protests on college campuses from Indiana to Florida to Mexico City.

“After (Prop.) 187 passed, there was a lot fear, anger and frustration in the communities,” said Angel Cervantes, the 22-year-old Claremont Graduate School student who emerged as a student spokesman during the walkouts.

“We are putting this together to bring people back together,” he said.

California voters approved the sweeping initiative, which cuts off undocumented immigrants from most public education, health care and other government services.

A federal injunction has barred officials from implementing most provisions of the measure. But Gov. Pete Wilson has filed suit to keep the federal courts from acting on the measure until state courts interpret its legality.

Calling themselves the Four Winds Student Movement, the group is composed of Los Angeles-area college and high school students who meet weekly at Occidental College. Cervantes said the group dwindled to 10 members each meeting, down from a peak of about 75 students just before the election. A planned disruption of the Tournament of Rose Parade to protest Proposition 187 failed to slow any of the floats.

Cervantes said the hunger strike is the group’s first major public action, although he admitted it is being put together by a four-member committee with little money.

“What the student movement has historically done, and what it needs to do now, is raise public awareness,” Cervantes said.

Olga Miranda, a senior at Belmont High School, said 10 students are expected to fast for the three days. Meanwhile, information on immigration rights, naturalization and voter registration will be handed out.

On Saturday, the final day of the fast, supporters are expected to begin marching at 10 a.m. from Broadway and Olympic Boulevard to Olvera Street Plaza. Miranda said she expects the march to draw 5,000 people.

“We want to fight all these actions that are against undocumented people,” said Miranda, a second-generation Mexican American. “We are making a call to all the communities of all races to join us.”

Los Angeles Unified School District teachers who opposed Proposition 187 are planning a one-day “solidarity fast” and will participate in the march, said Steve Zimmer, who teaches English to immigrant students at Marshall High School.

The teachers also plan to talk to coalition students about their goals on the first day of the fast.

“We think that what they are doing is important and worthwhile,” Zimmer said.

Zimmer, a member of the teachers’ group On Campus that has protested Proposition 187, said the organization is working with parents at campuses. Over the next 18 months, teachers hope to set up a local response to the legal outcome of the measure.

“There is no injunction against fear,” Zimmer said. “And whenever 187 resurfaces, all of these attacks and fears in parents and children will also resurface.”

Miranda said the purpose of the fast is to reawaken resistance to Proposition 187, warn of proposed anti-immigrant laws and demand that education be made a national priority. They also want to call attention to alleged human rights violations in the U.S. and demand multicultural education.

“We see 187 as a broader attack on affirmative action, on the working class. Even if we would have defeated 187, there are still many dangers. We believe these are issues for everyone,” Cervantes said.

Cervantes also said that the coalition is trying to broaden the interest in anti-immigrant politics beyond Latinos. One tactic was to use an electronic computer mail group dedicated to news of Proposition 187.

College and high school students, the Internet message said, intended to “perk the public’s conscience” by fasting at a park dedicated to Los Angeles’ Mexican heritage. Curious readers zapped back with interest.

“When we saw something like this, we saw it as something we could do,” said Kimberly Ann Harman, 21, a member of the Leftist Student Network, a campus club at Purdue University in Lafayette, Ind. She said 15 members of the group have committed to fasting and arranged to watch political movies and hear a lecture on the history of anti-immigrant legislation in the U.S. Immigration is not a burning issue in Lafayette, Harman said, but for some students, the questions it raises are.

“Our group focuses on social issues like racism, discrimination and classism, all of which are part of Proposition 187,” said Harman, whose club adviser questioned the group’s goals.

The actions of the Indiana students will coincide with planned hunger strikes on college campuses in south Florida, Mexico City and a protest in Wisconsin. Organizers said students at campuses in England and South Africa have also pledged to participate.

John Peck, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin who monitors the Prop. 187 electronic mail, said the targeting of the measure has brought together campus groups that usually were independent.

“This (issue) has been very good,” said Peck, whose group plans to stage three days of political street theater. “It’s drawn together a lot of people of color on campus here, along with some of the mainstream groups like the Green Party and the student labor groups.”