Latino License Protest Hits Schools

School districts from the Bay Area to Orange County recorded record absences Friday as hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets to protest the state’s repeal of a law allowing undocumented immigrants to apply for driver’s licenses.

In a planned daylong boycott of the classroom and workplace, demonstrators beat pinata images of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and urged workers to stay home and not purchase commodities such as gasoline.

The protest came in response to the Legislature’s repeal action last week and as part of an effort to highlight the economic contribution of California’s Latino community, the nation’s largest. The protest was planned to coincide with the feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

“We already had this law won, and Gov. Arnold came and took it away. And we know he’s an immigrant,” said Blanca Duenas, who marched with roughly 100 demonstrators along Cesar Chavez Avenue in Los Angeles. “He may have become a citizen, but he remains an immigrant.”

The protest’s impact on the workplace and marketplace was hard to gauge. Dozens of retailers in San Francisco, and one apparel manufacturer in Los Angeles, decided to close their doors, but other businesses appeared unaffected. Retail sales were not heavily affected in most areas.

Duenas, 46, was one of a number of protesters who said she had pulled her children out of school Friday in response to the repeal.

Officials in heavily Latino schools said more than half of their students cut classes Friday, but questioned just how committed the students were to the driver’s license issue.

“A lot of kids are opportunists,” said Victorio Gutierrez, assistant principal at Roosevelt High School on Los Angeles’ Eastside. “A lot of them didn’t really understand the concept of the [driver’s license controversy] and the complexity of it. They just wanted to get out of class.”

On a normal Friday, Roosevelt would see roughly 300 absences. On Friday, more than 1,700 students failed to show up.

Officials such as Gutierrez said that students were harming themselves by refusing to go to school, because the district loses $40 in state funding for each student who cuts class. “They say missing a day isn’t going to make a difference. But sure it is. Latinos have the highest dropout rates,” Gutierrez said.

However, students who helped organize the boycott insisted that they weren’t simply enjoying a day off from school. They said they were exercising what little economic power they have by denying districts state-aid funds.

At a rally of more than 100 students and adults a block from Roosevelt High School, senior class President Martha Aguilar, 17, said student absences were a strong statement.

“I decided not to come to school, because the impact we’re going to have on schools is going to be a great one,” Aguilar said. “In hurting the school, they’re going to know how many people supported this.”

At least one school district tried to preempt a student walkout, with little success.

In Santa Ana, school officials offered to raffle a color TV for those who attended school and the district sent home a note to parents urging them to send their children to school.

While a final absence tally wasn’t available Friday evening, a Santa Ana Unified spokeswoman said the absentee rate appeared to be triple that of an average Friday. “We were really hoping it wouldn’t be this dramatic,” Lucy Araujo-Cook said, “because there is a lot lost -- opportunity especially, but also important funds.”

Nativo Lopez, president of the Mexican American Political Assn., had called for a general strike among Latinos and immigrant workers. He and his supporters urged Latinos and immigrants to stay away from work, not send children to schools and not shop anywhere.

While many heeded Lopez’s call, others did not, including Jesus Gonzalez, 40, a cosmetologist in Hollywood, who said Friday that he had no plan to participate in the boycott.

“This isn’t being done the right way. It’s very hard -- without much unity, before the holidays, when we need money to eat, to buy presents -- to not show up for work,” he said.

In downtown San Jose, more than 150 people marched from Guadalupe Church to the city’s Plaza de Cesar Chavez, where they met other protesters who began their march at the Department of Motor Vehicles building.

In San Francisco’s largely Latino Mission District, dozens of taquerias, record stores and clothing stores closed for the day and displayed signs supporting the boycott in their windows. At Cesar Chavez Elementary in San Francisco, more than 60% of the student body failed to show up.

A crowd of about 100 people gathered in front of a BART station for a rally to denounce Schwarzenegger’s decision. Day laborers, activists and high school students sang Spanish songs about “El Norte,” carried handwritten signs and cheered when passing trucks honked in support of demonstrators.

“We’re out here because Arnold said ‘No’ to driver’s licenses,” said Ramundo Sanchez, 35, a day laborer.

In Los Angeles, Dov Charney, a senior partner with American Apparel, said his company shut down its manufacturing operations, which employ 1,200 workers, to demonstrate sympathy with the protesters.

“You can’t operate in California any longer without this population,” Charney said.

*

Times staff writers Holly J. Wolcott, Lynne Barnes, Jennifer Mena, Joel Rubin, Julie Tamaki, Chris O’Connell, Jean Merl, Azadeh Moaveni and Monte Morin and the Associated Press contributed to this report.