“Solidarity” was the word on everyone’s lips throughout the March 4 day of action.
What began with a half empty conference room A at 10:30 a.m. gradually turned into two groups: bus loads of students traveling to San Francisco for a rally, and a crowd of 74 protestors, including De Anza College students, faculty members, alumni, former instructors and bystanders of all ages, who marched to Cupertino City Hall to hear Mayor Kris Wang, Council Member Orrin Mahoney and fellow students speak on the importance of education and social action.
By 11:00 a.m., Conference Room A was filled with attendees of the teach-in. By 11:20, it emptied as students formed a line to receive tickets to provide evidence of their attendance. De Anza President Brian Murphy, a speaker at the teach-in, called attention to the number of people leaving and the dedication of those who chose to remain. “Here, we are a part of something larger than ourself,” he said.
Murphy emphasized three problems affecting the California educational system. First, he criticized the two-thirds vote required by the California constitution to pass a budget or to raise taxes. Second, he called the tax system in place in California a model for the nineteenth century, outdated and nonfunctional. Third on his list was the “systematic under-investement in all three sectors of higher education.”
“We are genuinely in this together,” Murphy said, and asked students to make sure that they were being prepared to be well-informed voters, concluding with a plea to students to “Come at us, push us, ask of us.”
Also among the speakers were Edmundo Norte, program coordinator of the Institute of Community and Civic Engagement, David Ledesna, an anti-war activist who competes for high school students’ attention with army recruiters, and Hector Rincon, a Colombian activist working for blue collar workers rights and unionization.
Norte emphasized the importance of being involved in protests and understanding the problems at hand.
“There is more wealth being produced today than ever in the history of humanity … It’s not a budget crisis, it’s a priorities crisis,” he said. “We have to use our voice in this democracy … we vote with our dollars.”
Ledesna’s focus was on refuting certain common assumptions about resources and government.
“There really is a draft, don’t let them tell you there’s no draft in the U.S. There’s a poverty draft,” Ledesna said. Despite the limited enthusiasm in the room, one of the frequent microphone failures didn’t stop Ledesna from raising his voice to the level of a protest chant to deliver his final point, that members of society have an obligation to defend their constitutional rights.
Following the speakers, teach-in organizers Isabelle Barrientos Vargas, Felicia McMullen, and Jose Francisco Romero divided the restored crowd into three workshops. Ledesna gave further personal recollections of his work in preventing students from allowing their financial circumstance to force them into the army. Rincon recalled the unionization of janitorial staff at Safeway stores. An activist and De Anza student explained the impact of the California Democracy Act, a petition to place a proposition on the November ballot to reduce the percentage of majority required to raise taxes or pass a budget from 67 percent to 51 percent.
At 12:15 p.m., students attending the teach-in filed out through the doors of the Campus Center to join the crowd milling around Tent City in the Main Quad, awaiting the instructions of events organizers who would divide the crowd into those who would board the buses to San Francisco and those who would remain to participate in local action. Music and activist slogans blared, banners were unrolled, and the smell of spray paint filled the air as protestors used makeshift stencils to emblazon protest slogans on shirts and posters.
By 12:40, the protestors had gone their separate ways. Local activists, about 35 strong, wielded posters, banners, pots and cowbells, chanting their slogans into a microphone as they made their way around campus, trying to coax followers from their classes and out onto the streets.
Barrientos Vargas and McMullen opened classroom doors to announce their purpose as their followers cheered outside, but they were often turned away – in some cases by locked doors, in another by a class member actively pulling the door shut, with McMullen caught between the door and the frame, shouting, “I’m a student, please don’t abuse me.”
The marchers encountered similar levels of enthusiasm as they entered the cafeteria, cheering and urging students having lunch there to join them. Few, if any, diners rose to join them.
“Theres no point in marching for money you don’t have,” said Daniel Yoshi before leaving the cafeteria.
“This is America. You don’t have to go to school if you don’t want to,” a student who wanted to be known only as “Henri” said.
Another reason onlookers gave as to why they chose to remain uninvolved included needing to attend class, often due to a midterm or quiz that had to be completed.
One group of ESL students looking on said they were confused about the purpose of the march because they didn’t speak English, and expressed their wish for Chinese translations of the slogans or signs.
As they made their way down Stevens Creek Boulevard, protestors were accompanied by numerous police cars and honked at frequently by passing cars.
On their arrival at City Hall, the percussion and cheers reached a brief crescendo before petering out quickly as the protestors crowded into the space in front of City Hall’s front doors. A speaker system and Cupertino Mayor Kris Wang awaited the protestors.
Wang said she would not use her customary welcome to the visitors to City Hall, instead shouting to the protestors, “How are you today? What is innovation without a well supported education system?”
Two more council members spoke briefly before the microphone was offered to impromptu speakers, who were invited to share their reasons why education was important to them and their experiences with the budget cuts.
Speakers included Meredith Watson, an ex-chef with a serious back injury. She walked the roughly three miles round trip to City Hall and back on her cane to protest budget cuts. To her, the budget cuts would harm her ability to get an education that could help her get a job which doesn’t require her to stand for long periods of time. John Milton, a former English professor at De Anza, frequently interjected encouragement and statistics as people spoke into the microphone at City Hall.
“Complacency kills,” warned David Daman, the CEO of a group called Everything Wins, whose purpose is to provide food to the hungry. He continued, “Your education is paramount to your future.”
