As Los Angeles police officers encroached near Mariachi Plaza, 17-year-old Mariluisa Minera ran up to the bed of a truck, grabbed a microphone, and urged her fellow students to stay away from police in riot gear that assembled on First Street.
Then, in a rallying cry, she shouted: “Chicano power!”
While students chanted, adult allies formed a line to shield police from youth who walked out of school Feb. 20 in protest of President Donald Trump’s deportation efforts.
Minera, a senior at Woodrow Wilson High School, admits “it was a scary moment,” but she felt empowered to continue with their demonstration.
“I realized I really do have a passion for protecting victims, protecting what’s right,” she said.
For decades, student-led walkouts on the Eastside have served as a powerful tool for activism, dating back to the 1968 East L.A. Walkouts that shed light on inequalities for Mexican Americans in the public education system.
Now, as Trump has pledged to deport “millions and millions” of immigrants, a new generation of students are carrying on the tradition. Their demonstrations began as sporadic walkouts, largely spreading on social media. But as a sense of urgency grows to protect their families and peers from threats of deportation, students are developing a more organized effort to garner awareness of immigrant and student rights.
Students have formed alliances with adult supporters from unions and immigrant rights organizations who have helped block traffic and escort them to and from Los Angeles City Hall. They’ve met with elected leaders, urging them to vote against legislation that would negatively impact immigrants. And, among a list of demands, they’re urging the Los Angeles Unified School District to be more forthcoming with how it plans to protect them and their families if U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement were to attempt an enforcement operation in or around schools.
Some students are planning on detailing their demands to LAUSD board members at the upcoming March 11 meeting.
To Chicuei Ehecatl, a senior at Theodore Roosevelt Senior High, walkouts are an important tool “for us as students who still can’t vote, who aren’t listened to in society.” (Ehecatl is also a Boyle Heights Beat youth reporter)
But it doesn’t stop there, he said. “On top of the walkouts, we’re adding more community organizing … so it doesn’t just become a movement-based organization,” said Ehecatl, who is part of the student collective Raices Unidas De Los Angeles that emerged in the midst of the February walkouts. “We’re trying to just keep moving forward.”
Scenes from a student protest at Mariachi Plaza on Feb. 20, 2025. Photos by Alejandra Molina.
This wave of student organizing is happening as Trump ended policies that prevented immigration officers from arresting immigrants at sensitive locations like schools and churches, and as news spread of a reported “large scale” immigration enforcement action that was expected to happen in late February.
LAUSD has reaffirmed its sanctuary status and provided resources for faculty and administration on how to respond if ICE agents engaged with staff on campus. A district bulletin issued in December notes that “an administrative ICE warrant, for instance, does NOT grant an immigration officer any special power to compel a school official to cooperate, access school grounds, or interview a student.”
The bulletin includes a checklist for school administrators to complete if ICE were to request access to a school site.
The district recently relaunched a 2017 initiative and website aimed at providing resources and tools to safeguard students and their families. As part of that effort, schools across the district have distributed “red cards” by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, also known as “Know Your Rights” cards, to help people assert their rights.
But “Know Your Rights” posters in school classrooms aren’t enough, said Eli Grijalva, a student at Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez Senior High.
“There should be workshops like in the parent center where they’re bringing in people to inform families and students on their rights,” he said, adding that the district should ensure “ICE is not welcome on campuses no matter what, warrant or not.”
“That isn’t an uncertainty students should have,” he said.
Grijalva said he has yet to encounter a teacher or staff member inform students about specific procedures in place if ICE attempted to enter a school.
“Just saying that they’re not going to welcome ICE isn’t really good enough,” he said.
Victoria Montes, a college advisor at Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High School, said this kind of information should trickle down to students.
“We have students from all types of immigration situations, and students are to come to school knowing that they will be somewhat protected,” said Montes, a board of director with United Teachers Los Angeles. “If they knew that there was all these protocols in place they might be more comfortable coming to school. They can focus on learning, not ‘am I safe?’”
Montes was among the adults supporting students on their walkout on Feb. 20. She did so after UTLA released her from her position at Bravo to help look after students that day. Montes said the union can release members from their work location based on UTLA business.
In late February, UTLA released a statement in support of their students’ right to protest and noted the “long-standing tradition of mass student-led walkouts for civil and immigrant rights.”
“Right now, many students feel like they are the only voice for their parents and families,” the union said.
Throughout February, students have marched L.A. streets draped in Mexican, Central American and U.S. flags. They’ve given speeches, made demands and danced to cumbias and banda. They’ve paid homage to their parents with protest signs declaring, “I am an immigrant’s daughter, the only thing I bleed are my mother’s tears and dreams.” And at a Feb. 11 walkout, students approached Mariachi Plaza from downtown L.A. holding a giant banner emblazoned with the words, “Young Informed Powerful: East Los Students Fighting Back Since 1968.”
Among other student demands, Minera noted their push for LAUSD to open Dream Centers at all district schools. Dream Centers provide resources to students who are undocumented and who come from mixed-status families. While Wilson High is home to a Dream Center, it does not appear these services are available across campuses.
“Right now, it’s a really scary time for a lot of students. [It’s] not fair if they don’t have a place to go to,” Minera said.
As a child, Minera remembers how fearful she felt during Trump’s first term. At any moment, she thought, “My mom could be taken away from me.”
“School, for me, was essentially my safe place, where I could be myself and not worry about that,” Minera said. “Now, there’s students that have to be worried about simply getting their education at school while also thinking, ‘Am I getting deported? Are my parents getting deported when they come pick me up?’”
To Emma Coloma, a 17-year-old student from Wilson High, partaking in student protests is a privilege given the history of the 1968 walkouts she learned about in her ethnic studies class as a freshman at Wilson.
One lesson she took from those historic walkouts: “We matter.”
“Even though we come from these public schools, we still have a big voice and we still want to carry on that tradition and that’s why we’re here now,” Coloma said.