Immigrants Protest Reduction of Classes

It was just one small act among the many that keep the wheels of democracy turning--a single petition, sent to a state senator’s office like scores of others.

But this petition stood out: It was from a group of immigrants in gritty East Hollywood protesting the elimination of classes that prepare them for citizenship exams.

The petitioners are prep cooks, housekeepers, garment workers--Spanish-speaking people who take long bus rides to low-wage jobs and usually count among the meeker of political constituencies.

Few members of the group speak English. Several said they had only attended elementary school in their home countries. A couple said they had only recently been learning to read and write.

But they are anything but meek. Their petition, prompted by budget reductions at Los Angeles City College, included a strong, concise statement of demands and was accompanied by rows of signatures, phone numbers and Social Security numbers.

It was, in short, the kind of self-confident protest more commonly associated with wealthy homeowners or seasoned advocacy groups.

To state Sen. Richard Polanco, who received the petition, it was astonishing, said his aide, Saeed Ali.

“Who are these people?” Ali asked. “Sen. Polanco knows this district, knows the people there,” he said. “Usually immigrants don’t do this.”

Except, perhaps, if they’ve taken their citizenship classes to heart.

“We were at a point where we had to say, ‘Enough!’ ” explained one of the students, Olivia Ramirez, a cook from Guatemala who, like others in the group, spoke in Spanish. “And why not? This is a country of free expression.”

“It isn’t fair,” said another, Israel Monterrosa, an auto-shop worker. “We all sincerely want to learn more. . . . We are struggling to become citizens.”

Several of the students said they saw their effort to organize as a sort of practice run at citizenship. “We have to participate,” said Ana Berta Garcia, a 50-year-old housekeeper from El Salvador. “We are going to be citizens, and we are going to vote.”

But so far, this first brush with political activism seems to have left many feeling ambivalent about the bureaucracies they’re getting to know.

Citizenship classes at Los Angeles City College were reduced several weeks ago after officials with the Los Angeles Community College District failed to reapply for a $1-million state grant due to a bureaucratic snafu.

The classes help immigrants improve their English, understand U.S. history and civics, and fill out applications in preparation for becoming U.S. citizens. Federal dollars funneled through the state Department of Education help support these classes.

The college district has acknowledged the error, and leaders have shifted some funds from existing reserves to restore the program--at least partially.

But these bureaucratic intricacies were lost on most students.

And in the meantime, City College temporarily cut its four weekday citizenship classes, leaving just two Saturday classes. Both of those have waiting lists, said Donald Moore, citizenship director at City College.

To students such as Garcia, the class reductions were deeply disappointing. Garcia flunked the citizenship exam when she took it last month. Now, she said, she has little more than a week before she gets a second chance.

Her frustration at not having classes is shared. “The immigration people tell you to go to school to learn the history,” said Maria Orosco, a cook from Nicaragua. “But if there aren’t classes, how can you do it?”

That’s why, she said, the students felt they had to act.

They pressed their teachers for suggestions. The teachers were partly responsible for planting the idea of a petition, according to both the students and Moore, the director. “I think they thought it would be an interesting civics lesson,” Moore said.

But Monterrosa and the other students say they were the ones who ran with the idea.

They organized a meeting at a student’s home, recruited the one proficient English speaker of the group to write a letter, and persuaded some of the Armenian students in the class to join, despite language difficulties. “In union, there is strength,” Garcia said.

In the end, they produced a one-page letter with more than 100 signatures. “The Latino Community and the Armenian and Russian Community are very upset and disappointed,” the letter read. “We are hard-working individuals who deserve the opportunity to succeed.”

Although the letter was addressed to Mary Spangler, president of City College, Spangler said she didn’t receive it until late August.

By that time, Spangler had already made a difficult decision to cut back on other college programs to keep the citizenship classes from being eliminated. Asked about the petition, Spangler was terse.

“The people who put this petition together were ill-advised to do it so directly,” she said. “Had they come to me, they would have,” she broke off, “but they didn’t come to me.”

Instead, it was Polanco who responded first. His aide Ali said that, when the petition arrived in late July, Polanco had already begun having discussions with college district officials over citizenship programs.

After receiving the petition, the senator wrote a letter of complaint to the chancellor and board of trustees, which promptly shifted $500,000 from reserves to keep the program alive, though in reduced form.

Moore said another night class may be added by Oct. 28, although students have not yet been told.

In fact, as of early this week, no one had called the petitioners back, Monterrosa said.

As far as they knew, the petition had vanished in a void. Upon learning from a reporter that their letter had helped spur Polanco’s action, they seemed surprised.

But they were quick to point out that they are still waiting for classes. Student Dimas Melendez said the responsiveness of authorities in the United States appeared not so different than what he would have expected in his native El Salvador.

However, none said their appetite for citizenship had been dulled. “I adore this country,” said Orosco, the cook from Nicaragua.

The students’ reasons for pursuing citizenship range from the abstract--the desire for greater rights and responsibilities--to the prosaic: One student praised the United States because, he said, a person could afford a television here.

But most said they wanted to be citizens to get better jobs.

Monterrosa, who once earned $3 per week as a campesino--a peasant worker--in Guatemala, put it most simply: “To be a citizen has always been my dream,” he said. “You have more opportunities here, better pay.”