Diversity and Adversity

About two dozen people gathered at an Anaheim school district meeting Saturday morning to discuss a touchy proposal to seek payment--either from foreign countries or the federal government--for teaching illegal immigrants in Anaheim schools.

Laced with nationalistic fervor and emphatic talk about race, the meeting ended with no vote on the proposal but rather with board members stressing to the audience that the proposal was about school overcrowding and adequate funding.

Outside the boardroom of the Anaheim Union High School District, about 35 protesters beat drums and carried signs that read “Immigrant Bashing” and “Fair and Indiscriminate Education Breeds a Positive Community.”

Heated exchanges flared outside the meeting between supporters of the proposal and opponents, including some who demonstrated pride in Latino culture by performing Aztec dances in costume. At one point supporters sang “God Bless America” in an attempt to drown out the dancers’ chanting.

When board members first considered sending Mexico a bill for $50 million, the amount they estimate it cost to educate illegal immigrants from Mexico for a decade, some decried it as a racist move.

During the Saturday meeting, one man stood up and exploded with a reference to the Ku Klux Klan, “Where are all your sheets!”

Andy Hilbert, a La Palma man who spoke at the meeting, said he was fearful “of the wound that this is causing in the community.” He suggested that bonds would garner more money for the district and eliminate “the rhetoric” and allow educators to “start talking about human beings.”

The issue erupted in May when Anaheim trustees debated into the night over whether Mexico should pay for the education of immigrants who are not in the U.S. legally. The proposal was put forth by board President Harald G. Martin, an Anaheim police officer who proposed billing Mexico in 1995 and again this year.

The board unanimously endorsed Martin’s plan, which later was amended to include all foreign countries, and recommended that it be sent on to a subcommittee, which was to draft a resolution seeking the payments.

Recently though, after the subcommittee discovered the district couldn’t press its claims against other countries because international law protects governments from being sued by each other, the board abandoned that idea and instead is going after the United States government.

It plans on sending “demands and requests” to the Immigration and Naturalization Service and Janet Reno, head of the Justice Department. The board is asking that the INS count the number of illegal immigrant students in the Anaheim school district and determine their home countries.

Trustees also plan on asking the federal government to reimburse the school district for the costs of educating illegal immigrants and to negotiate with foreign countries “to recover the costs of educating their citizens.”

“All we’re asking for is the money,” board member Robert Stewart said. “We can do a better job if we have the money . . . to catch more of the children that are falling” behind.

Stewart said that educating children who are here illegally could cost as much as $27 million a year.

Those at the meeting said that, to be sure, the issue was about money, though sometimes it seemed to be about more.

Barbara Walters of Costa Mesa said, “I know the illegal aliens want the Americans to pay their way. . . . This is not racist; it’s about money.”

Mary Grondie, who owns property in Anaheim but lives in Laguna Hills, said immigrants “have trashed my neighborhood. They have made the neighborhood look like a Third World nation.”