Students Find Peace in the Middle East

They toured the Western Wall, ate falafel, met other students from different countries.

Four Santa Ana teenagers spoke Friday about an unusual field trip to Israel, where they experienced firsthand the culture of the Middle East and studied the region’s politics.

The two-week trip, called “Children of the Dream,” was sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting racism.

The four students, who had previously traveled little outside the United States, said their perspective on Middle Eastern politics and race relations has changed forever.

If Arabs, Christians and Jews can get along in Israel, “then why can’t we in the United States?” asked 17-year-old Marla Guillen, one of the world travelers.

Indeed, one of the most memorable experiences of the trip, students said, was traveling to an Arab-Christian school and learning that, despite tension between Arabs and Jews, there is dialogue.

“It was happy for us to see [a Jewish student] talking to Arab students,” Daniel Salinas, 16, said.

Salinas, Guillen and the two other Orange County students--Giau Tran, 17, and Bill Rowley, 16--were chosen in part because of friendships they had made with Israeli students who visited Santa Ana last year.

They joined 17 other high school students from Los Angeles and Seattle making the trip.

The Orange County contingent gathered Friday at the Costa Mesa office of the Anti-Defamation League to speak about their trip.

Now that he is back in the United States, Rowley said, he reads the newspaper differently.

“Every time a terrorist bomb hits, I know everyone’s heart will skip a beat because we have friends there now,” he said.