Thursday, October 24, 1996
ACTIVISM:
Participants in Wednesday’s rally consider it a victory for
awareness, but some students question effectiveness of marchBy
Scott P. Stimson
Daily Bruin Contributor
There are people who believe the Santa Ana winds bring out the
extremes in human behavior. From fires burning in the Santa Monica
Mountains to crispy campus lawns and chapped lips, a departure from
the norm of campus life blew into UCLA yesterday with the
anti-Proposition 209 rally sponsored by the Affirmative Action
Coalition.
Everyone who witnessed the march came away with their own
impressions, and those interpretations were not the same by any
means. Sitting on the steps to the newly remodeled Ackerman Union,
Marlon Morales looked towards Westwood Plaza and contemplated
whether or not to join the crowd of anti-Proposition 209 protesters
gathered in front of the stage.
"I feel like an outsider. I don’t have much protest experience,
but I support them. If it gets really good, maybe I’ll join them,"
he said.
Other sympathetic students sitting one stairway over echoed
Morales’ doubts.
"This (the crowd) is 600 or 800 people. Where are the other
3,400 people?" asked second-year undeclared student Jason Armand.
"This is like David and Goliath. If 3,000 people came out I’d feel
more comfortable."
On the other side of the Plaza stood Jim Rinker, a third-year
business economics student who did not agree with the protesters.
"I think a rally is great. I just don’t agree with their cause,"
Rinker said. "Thirty or so years ago (minorities) were saying, ‘We
want a colorblind society.’ Now they still want to be divided along
racial and gender lines," he added.
It was with the sounds of impassioned speeches and the resulting
cheers echoing off of Ackerman Union and the Wooden Center that
protesters began their march, heading up Bruin Walk and across
campus. Bruins who found their normal route to class blocked by a
wall of chanting protesters were not at a loss to comment.
"I think that there is a better way to fight back against
Proposition 209. What is this rally really doing? Nothing, really,"
said Zulma Alvarado, a first-year history student. "They could do
so much more than marching around," she added before heading across
the Royce Quad on the way to her next class.
The service road between Bunche Hall and Perloff Hall was where
Aaron Campbell, a first-year law student ran into the procession of
protesters.
"They are trying to make people who support 209 look like
extremists," said Campbell, citing posters carried by protesters
saying ‘The Klan supports 209. Should you?’"
While Campbell watched the procession pass by him, Gilbert
Gutierrez saw the quad from inside the procession, watching
Campbell and other North Campus students from a mirrored
perspective.
"I think (the protest) is the appropriate thing to do
considering what Proposition 209 represents," Gutierrez said. "At
one level, 209 represents a return to the way it used to be before
 blatant discrimination," he added.
Protesters made their way on Circle Drive toward Westwood
Boulevard, ultimately stopping in front of the Federal Building,
where the group unfurled a sign saying "Take back our university.
No on CCRI." A "Paid for by USAC" moniker occupied the lower right
corner of the banner.
At one point, the majority of students were hustled to either
side of Wilshire Boulevard by protest security, while a group of
protesters made their way to the center of the boulevard, sat down
in a circle and locked arms.
The scene created by the protesters in the road and cheering
supporters on either side seemed like an arena sporting event. The
protesters appeared to be playing the part of the hopelessly
underdog home team while waiting for the visiting team, the Los
Angeles Police Department, to take the field.
With federal workers peering out of their office windows and the
sound of drum beats resonating in the air, the students in the
circle began to chant, "Remember, November, vote no on 209!"
As riot gear-clad police carrying batons approached on foot and
horseback, emotion ran high within the circle of students sitting
in the middle of Wilshire.
"Notice I’m wearing a Martin Luther King pin," said Tristan
Sotomayor, third-year political science student and southern
section president of the California College Democrats. "I don’t
want to see everything he struggled, fought and died for erased in
one day (by Proposition 209)."
Sotomayor, along with 34 other UCLA students, were then arrested
on the pavement while fellow protesters cheered from the sidelines
and news helicopters circled overhead.
While organizers claimed that the police tried to wait out the
protesters, they considered the march successful in educating the
public about Proposition 209 and getting their word out just before
Election Day.
"I think that the commitment of the crowd of people who did the
civil disobedience was extraordinary," said undergraduate student
President John Du.
"I think that people felt so strongly about this issue and that
it’s so important to them and their communities that they were
willing to stick it through."
SUSIE CHU/Daily Bruin
Demonstrators display anti-Proposition 209 signs in a march
through campus.