Always Running #5

Well, apparently "the legend" (a.k.a. maxwell a.k.a maxium, which means big in latin heehee) liked my going the "extra mile," so I did it again.

In the memoir, Luis is part of a group called "ToHMAS," or "To Help Mexican American Students." In the high school that he goes to, there are a lot of Mexican American students, as well as Caucasian and other races. However, the Latino students are often disregarded by the school administration, and placed into classes that they aren't usually interested, most often based around blue collar jobs such as shop class and mechanics. The students are also discriminated against often in the school, and "ToHMAS" wants to do something about it. All of the Mexican American students plan a walkout and they pull it off in a massive protest against the school.

As a fairly politically involved young person, I have always taken an interest in useful and effective protesting methods. Walkouts have always seemed interesting to me. They are not quite a boycott, which proved to be a very effective method in the Civil Rights Movement, but a walkout is very similar. I used some prior knowledge and some research and found out that young members of "YAWR," an organization founded in Seattle, had successfully done a walkout and achieved the goal of it. YAWR stands for Youth Against War and Racism, and the students in Seattle had a walkout to protest military recruitment in schools. The government often will send in military recruiters to high schools, where the recruiters make the military seem like a wonderful option to high school students, especially racial minorities. Kids will often take the bait and throw away their future because of it. So, in Seattle, the students planned a walkout to protest against action like this.

Neat!