DOWNTOWN : Students Pleased by Anti-Prop. 187 Rally

Olga Miranda and five other students hooked arms as they marched down Main Street last week, marveling at what they had accomplished: Hundreds of people with signs bashing Proposition 187 streamed behind them as the curious watched and several news cameras whirred.

The college and high school students declared their three-day hunger strike and protest march successful in rekindling opposition to Proposition 187 and what they consider anti-immigrant politics.

“We were just cracking up when (the marchers) got to the kiosk” at Olvera Street Plaza on Saturday, said Miranda, a Belmont High School senior who took part in the fast. “We were going, ‘We can’t believe we pulled it off.’ ”

Although the thousands of marchers that the students had hoped for did not materialize, the members of the Four Winds Student Movement, a coalition that evolved from the student walkouts prior to last November’s elections, decided that the estimated 450 people who did participate helped raise public consciousness of immigration concerns.

Although California voters approved Proposition 187, which would cut off undocumented immigrants from public education, non-emergency health care and other government services, a federal injunction has barred implementation of most provisions of the measure pending court review.

Protest organizers said they believe that the march and fast, which ended Saturday, demonstrated the strength of student voices even though fewer than 100 students participated.

Although they said they passed out flyers at several schools, a majority of the marchers represented established political organizations. Those groups included a janitors union, an immigration rights group, advocates for the creation of a labor party and supporters of the Zapatista rebels in Mexico.

“Regardless if the number of students was small,” Miranda said, “they represent other students. If it wouldn’t have been for all those organizations that came out, it wouldn’t have been a success. It’s really commendable they came out to stand with the students.”

Cynthia Anderson, a member of the National Lawyers Guild chapter in Echo Park, said she attended the protest to support the students’ efforts. Anderson said her group has represented students who were threatened with suspension or expulsion from school after the walkouts.

“I’m really committed to what the students are doing,” Anderson said. “We feel this issue strongly everyday.”

Students said organizing the march taught them the difficulties in pulling off such an event. They had to raise money to print flyers, find someone willing to donate water, make phone calls between classes, and deal with the city bureaucracy to get streets closed and barricaded for the march.

“We thought of the march as an educational process,” Miranda said. “It was the first time we had organized something as big as that.”

Mark Anthony Garcia, 18, a student at Lincoln High School, said the fast and march were worthwhile.

“I hope people get the message to come out and speak,” Garcia said.

The other students participating in the fast were Cesar Cruz, 20, of UC Irvine and Angel Cervantes, 22, of Occidental College.

The members of the coalition next plan a trip to Sacramento in April where they will protest Gov. Pete Wilson’s support of Proposition 187 and proposals to eliminate affirmative action.

The state Legislature is expected to take up the possibility of barring affirmative action programs statewide, and a campaign has begun to put such an initiative on the ballot in 1996.

“They are saying that we’ve already had our equal share, that they’ve hired enough Mexicans and blacks and Asians,” Miranda said.

“Because of affirmative action . . . a lot of low-income students attend universities. If they eliminate that, we will not be allowed to do so, and without an education we are nothing.”