By Alessandro M.
Throughout the month of February, many anti-ICE protests occurred throughout the state of California. On the afternoon of February 7, 2025 students of four PUSD high schools walked out in order to exercise their First Amendment right. I, along with students of Pasadena High School, marched to Pasadena City Hall and joined the students of other schools in protesting. The walkout was organized by a group of students from Blair, Marshall, Muir, and PHS who created multiple instagram accounts and spread the word of the walkout. Once word got to the administration of each high school, principals made statements saying that students would not be forced to stay in school but that they would be marked absent if they participated in the walkout.
At 12:04 pm, lunch time at PHS, students gathered in the center quad and walked to the front of the school where the organizers of PHS’s walkout spoke to the crowd. We were originally supposed to walk to Marshall, meet up with the Marshall protesters, walk to Allen station, take the train to Memorial Park station, and then walk to City Hall. But the lead students asked us to walk to City Hall instead of taking our original route. “Our people walked hundreds of miles for their rights,” said one of the organizers as they spoke to the crowd. “We can walk a few miles to City Hall. The point of our protest is to be seen and heard throughout the city.”
Halfway through the march, I realized that the group was not just Latinos protesting. There were students of different cultures and backgrounds that were protesting with us Latinos and Latinas. As we walked to City Hall, cars passing by honked at us in support. There were people on the sidewalk, people in front of their homes, and workers on their shift cheering for us as we walked past them. I never realized how much our community supported my ethnicity until this protest. I was on the verge of tears just thinking about how many people supported our cause.
Many immigrants like my parents, came to the United States to work and to provide a better life for their children. People are very ignorant about this fact and decide to deport people like my father. Separating families through deportation can lead to mental health struggles within the family in which children will be the most affected. It breaks my heart whenever I see ICE detain immigrants whether it’s on the news or on social media because my family and I relate to their struggles and because that could have been us.
I am very grateful for the amount of support we got from the protest. It means a lot to me. Once all the high schools made it to City Hall, we all got together to chant, cheer, and dance as if it were a party. It was nice to see all the PUSD high schools united as it’s a very rare occasion. If there is anything I learned from this protest, it’s that many marginalized groups stand in solidarity with La Raza. And La Raza never gives up and fights until the end.
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Alessandro M. is a junior at Pasadena High School and is a member of PUSD’s Student Think Tank. He is also part of PHS’s Puente program and has been a participant in the Building Empathy project with Mr. Jean Raya.
