What’s at stake:
The forum was organized by school leaders and students alike to specifically allow students a dedicated time to voice their concerns with ICE enforcement in front of the news media.
Following weeks of student walkouts in protest of ICE and the Trump Administration, Edison Computech Middle School organized its own student forum in Fresno on Thursday, allowing students a space to speak up in front of the media.
Thursday’s “We are Young, Not Silent” forum was organized by students alongside Nicole Vargas, the school’s campus culture director. Superintendent Misty Her, Trustee Keshia Thomas and other community leaders attended the forum.
“What we’re seeing throughout our district, throughout our valley and throughout our nation is students that want to be heard,” Vargas said in an interview.
According to Vargas, students participated in a walkout last week and wanted to do so again, prompting her to approach students about organizing the forum.
She said the forum gives students a place to speak out and exercise their First Amendment rights, but in a way that keeps students supervised on campus and off dangerous and busy streets.
Students used the forum to criticize ICE and demand accountability against immigration enforcement authorities. Many spoke of their fear of losing family and friends to sudden detainments by federal agents.
“As students, we’re often taught that we’re too young to understand politics. But we’re not too young to understand fear; we’re not too young to understand our classmates worried about their families and we’re definitely not too young to feel what it’s like when people in our community are scared,” said Isabella, a student speaker.
Many of the students also admonished the government’s increasingly aggressive tactics and its treatment of detained people under immigration enforcement.
Dozens of students showed up to Computech Middle School’s forum, where students spoke out against ICE and the Trump administration. Diego Vargas | Fresnoland
“Hard-working immigrants are being deported just because of their skin color or because they didn’t come here legally,” said eighth-grader Elizabeth Ochoa, who referenced the Supreme Court’s decision last September that allows ICE agents to use race, ethnicity and language as factors to conduct stops.
“When someone gets deported, they get sent to a detention center where your basic human rights get stripped away and the facilities are crowded,” Ochoa added.“No one should have to go through that. Immigrants are still humans. I’m a human and I’m not an alien.”
Students also thanked school leaders for being open to the forum, but emphasized the need to continue to speak out to meet the current moment.
“I want to speak for all schools, not just ours, to state that the stuff happening in our generation is not OK, and students in schools should not worry about if they are going to get taken by ICE,” said Computech student body President Tyrese Jones, adding, “We do walk-outs to try and teach a lesson to people who don’t know and those who do.”
“I would have hoped that we learned from our past: people being targeted and taken from their homes just because of who they are. Doesn’t that sound familiar?” said Gabriella, an eight-grader.
“We need to use our voices and we need to be loud to show our love for our diversity and our community and our love for our culture; you can’t beat hate with hate, but you can beat hate with love,” she added. Being alive is not a crime.”
School and district officials did not share any immediate plans for more student forums in the future.
Computech’s student forum comes at a time when Fresno County schools are attempting to adapt to ongoing student walkouts.
In Clovis Unified, district officials and the Clovis Police Department announced on Wednesday their intention to seek misdemeanor charges against adults who participated or encouraged students to leave campus earlier this week..
Over the weekend, a joint statement signed by multiple Fresno County superintendents and the Fresno County Superintendent of Schools called the community and students to end walkouts entirely, citing safety concerns.
Her, the FUSD superintendent, also appeared alongside Fresno Police Chief Mindy Casto in a social media post urging students to be orderly during their protests.
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