This story was produced under The LA Local’s Youth Journalism Program. To learn more or to get involved, click here.
On the first day of school, history teacher Oscar Gutierrez greeted students with a smile and a sign.
The 31-year-old teacher connects with students in the classroom and as an advisor for the MEChA club at Miguel Contreras Learning Complex of Social Justice in Westlake. The organization promotes cultural pride, political awareness and community empowerment.
All of that takes on a new meaning as the threat of immigration raids hangs over Los Angeles and the rest of the country.
“Educación No deportación,” Gutierrez’s sign reads as he welcomes students to another semester at the Westlake campus.
Several months earlier, students at the high school spent their lunch hours making posters and posting on social media to spread awareness about a school walkout in response to the raids.
They planned to march to City Hall in downtown.
The day before the February walkout, students gathered during lunch with Gutierrez at school. Across multiple tables, some students were in charge of making colorful posters and others were having conversations to discuss what they wanted to say with their speeches and others worked on their chants to use during the walkout.
Some students were even in charge of taking pictures and uploading them to their official MEChA Instagram page.
Gutierrez spoke to the students about their ideas and planned actions.
The MEChA club, which stands for Chicano Student Movement of Aztlán, is a student organization with him as their advisor, but Gutierrez also wanted the students to understand that the moment they’re currently in tells a story – their own stories.
“I also hope that (students) can take that history, make connections with their family, and understand kind of how they got to this situation, how they ended up migrating here,” Gutierrez said reflecting on what he hopes his students take away from his instruction.
“To understand that they are makers of histories, that they’re not just passive beings that let history happen to them, but that they’re active agents of change and of history. That (they) can make history themselves, even as young people.”
On February 4th, students walked from Miguel Contreras to City Hall in downtown chanting phrases like “ICE Out” and carrying posters that said, “NO MORE ICE” and “ ICE DOES NOT BELONG IN OUR HOME.”
The Los Angeles Unified School District teacher, Gutierrez made it clear that the walkout was a student decision, but he supported them. He said it inspires him to see the type of work that high school students do to voice their opinions.
“MEChA is a home. A family, for those of us who might feel isolated or unheard,” said Giselle Soto, MEChA club co-president and high school junior. “We educate ourselves as well as others, not just about civil rights, history or movements like the Chicano Moratorium or the student walkouts, but also how those struggles are still ongoing to this day.”
For Gutierrez, organizing is a big part of his life.
Outside of the classroom, he organizes with his community in South Central as a member of the Community Self Defense Coalition – a rapid response network recently formed in response to the immigration raids.
His own path is not so different from his students.
While attending the University of California, Santa Barbara, Gutierrez was a member of the campus MEChA club. While he began college majoring in Economics, he took classes in Chicano Studies and Education and fell in love with the subject and the idea of sharing that kind of history with his community.
He describes that experience about sharing culture as an important moment in his life.
“ Many of us find out when you go from these types of schools in LAUSD to college, it’s really challenging,” he said. “ A way that I looked for support and help when I was at college was to join these types of spaces.”
He hopes that space is his classroom at Miguel Contreras Learning Complex of Social Justice.
Every Thursday during the school year, Gutierrez provides his classroom as a space and support system for students in MECHA to discuss and organize around the issues that are impacting their community.
The current immigration raids have been a big topic among the students, as many are from immigrant families. They connect to the situation that is happening because it involves their community and their culture that is being affected as well.
“As members of MECHA we voluntarily agree to go out and protest to create change within our society,” Soto said. “We take action and raise our voices for ourselves, families, friends, for those who have been and are under attack. Especially for those who are unable to raise their voice due to being in hiding, in fear for their lives or in some cases captured by ICE.”
Gutierrez’s family is originally from Puebla, Mexico, and migrated to South Central around the late 1990s.
He attended Santee High School in South Central and describes how his high school was similar to the one where he teaches now.
“ I became a teacher because I wanted to be an Ethnic Studies teacher and a community organizer. I feel like those two things go hand in hand. Those Chicano youth movements [in the 1960s] were really supported by teachers,” Gutierrez said.
He wants to provide students with the knowledge and empathy to care about other people who may may have different experiences than their own.
“We’re a community school. This school is situated in a setting where what’s happening is impacting deeply a lot of people in our school,” he said about the immigration raids.
He wants students to be the voice of those who can’t speak up so freely.
Gutierrez adds, “It’s a great opportunity for them to kind of be advocates for those in our community who may be scared and may not be able to do as much in this moment.”
