Students walked out on January 7 to protest against I.C.E. arresting people. They walked from Neuwirth and met up in the city hall downtown.
During nutrition on the morning of January 7, 2025, at 10:10 AM, more than 100 Neuwirth students walked out of the campus and began their march toward City Hall in downtown Los Angeles. The walk took 1 hour and 30 minutes to complete, and it was dangerous since they had to cross several homeless encampments and stay clear of speeding cars and various other potential incidents. I talked to some of the students who walked out, and here's what they had to say.
Henry Carrera (12): “The protest, at first, was chilly, and we were walking a lot, but there was a time when girls started fighting and people tried to break them up. It was bad at first, but then it got better.” I asked him if the girls were okay, and he replied, “Yes, they were good, but the guy that got stabbed at the end wasn't. The guy was throwing up gang signs and got pressed by some guy, it wasn't until his homie ran around the guy and pushed him down from the guy that got pushed down HIS homie pulled out a knife and stabbed the guy in the back and I was shocked and told my friends to go back to the car or school so we don't get involved.”
Bryan Diaz (12) “It was good we were in the car holding posters and stuff. But after we ran into a problem, we parked the cars somewhere else, and then we went walking… oh yeah, the tunnel was bad. When we began to walk. Someone threw a loud-ass firework, and people mistook it for a bomb, so they began to run the way they came from.” (Bryan was with Henry, but they got separated, so they had different experiences concerning the stabbing.)
Ruvaldino Pelico (12): “The protest was peaceful at first. We met up with other schools, got Starbucks, and vibed to the music. When the protest ended, there was fighting, and someone got stabbed.” He also shared a detail about a woman in distress: “She was naked running around the grass and she had no pants or anything like that. She was going around the students and trying to be weird with them”.
What was supposed to be a peaceful protest to speak out against the unlawful ICE arrests that were happening within our community turned into a chaotic mess that led to the stabbing of one high school student from a different school and six fights that broke out that day.
What can we take away from this experience? On one hand, the protest that was organized by our students here at Neuwirth was unorganized and needed more support from people. Some students walked out but didn't go to the protest; they went home instead. On the other hand, we should be proud of the students who joined the protest and advocated for the rights of those who can't speak out. Let this be shown that our school can do it, but they just need support from people who can help them.
