On Saturday May 19, 2018, Center X joined with the Politics and Pedagogy Collaborative to host the Eastside Collective Stories conference at Roosevelt High School, featuring keynote speaker Shawn Ginwright, high school student-led workshops, and a ceremony honoring the 1968 LA Student Activists.
“All this talk that we don’t deserve to be here, that we are not worthy, that is not true,” community activist Claudia Rueda told the crowd gathered in East Los Angeles. “So many generations have fought for you to be here. We are worthy, we are important!
“They want us to be quiet, they want us to not be present. But we have to fight against that, we don’t have to let them win.”
Rueda was talking to students, teachers and community members who had come to the old auditorium at Roosevelt High School in East LA to honor the activists who led the 1968 school walkouts in East Los Angeles.
Aged but still activists, some shouting to the chant of “Chicano Power” one by one they came to the stage, the cheers of the crowd welling up around them, celebrating their commitment and their continuing quest for quality education and social justice.
“Students walked out of their schools in peaceful marches, to demand the better education that they knew they deserved. People of color came together and fought for a better education not only for themselves, but for us, for future generations,” Roosevelt students Anahi Gaspar and Zitali Sanchez wrote in the program for the day’s events. “We will forever be grateful for those in the ‘68 movement who fought for our voice, our soul, our education.”