I have a few updates on Long Beach and the development of Cal State LA.
The board of trustees met in the morning today at Long Beach. Myself and Frank went because a few other groups were going to attempt to shut down the meeting. There is are about 20 or so picketing. The groups finds out that they can go inside and attend the meeting. We start walking to the door where the police were waiting and told us that we couldnt go inside with a bullhorn and signs. We put our signs down, 3 students go through the glass door, but then police didnt let anyone else go in.
Once that happened we bagan pushing and shoving against the police to go through. They threatened to arrest us if we continued to push. The mood of fighting steadily wore off. However, we didnt stop making noise with 2 bullhorns and pounding on their glass doors.
The rushing feeling lifted us because we attempted to shut down the meeting. This also helped transfer that feeling of fighting back to Cal State LA, during which the California Faculty Association (CFA) had planned a vigil and a "walk" to the presidents office at 2.
We rushed from Long Beach to Cal State LA. There were about 150 people present.
While the teachers were giving their speeches of how they need to pass AB656 (taxing the oil to fund education) we were watching students leave. The last person was a young guy dressed in a business suit; apparently he was the last speaker before "walking" to the president’s office. He began chanting from the stage, got down and led the crowd.
Frank and myself began walking with them, there was no enthusiasm whatsoever. The group stopped at the registration office. The business suit guy was showing the stacks of papers (signatures and reasons why students are upset) that was going to "show" President Rosser that we mean business. That was demoralizing. Then as the business suit guy goes upstairs to drop off the papers to the president in the 8th floor, we are standing outside waiting for him.
No one was happy about that. I started agitating people. I said, "why arent they letting us go upstairs? Why cant we go upstairs and show our presence"? The 5 people i said this too were shaking their heads in agreement. Frank was chanting, "Let us in, Let us in" as we did to the Long Beach meeting. People were quiet and didnt know what to do. Then in a feeling of spontaneity Frank and I started walking towards the door to the building. I saw how the CFA teachers werent doing anything but look at the crowd. I was in the front and shouted, "Are we Papers or are we People?", They responded, "People!", I said "Do we want to stay outside or go inside!?", they responded, "Go inside!" I said, " Let's Go!"
We start marching up the stairs all the way until the 8th floor chanting "Aint no power like the power of the students 'cause the power of the students dont stop" all the way. This was the excitement that was needed to lift students spirits up. When we got there, chanting and pounding on the walls, we are confronted by three cops, and the VP of the school, at first we aren’t aware of it. We continue our noise, we demand to see the president. This person says that he is at Long Beach. We start demanding that we speak to the next person in line. He was quiet and then another student says that he is the VP, he nods his head.
We start stating our demand, which were, no layoffs, no furloughs, return the library hours back, readmit the students who were denied access to school and more classes. We also demanded that we meet with the president and the vp. He responded as all bureaucrats do, we dont have the money and he doesnt have the presidents schedule. In addition, he stated that management hasnt gotten any raise.
We refute it by saying that we have been getting cut for 10 years and management has been getting raises even up to now. We were fired up and seemed like people unconsciously wanted to occupy the building.
Another student came in and started saying that if we want to occupy the building we have to start video taping it and call the media for attention. He said that if you wanted to occupy, it will have to be now! This put pressure on students to think fast, but it was something we werent thinking about. Inevitably, it weaken the strength. Then, another CFAer said that you dont have to be here if you dont want to and if you are undocumented or have warrants they can arrest us. I responded, "Stop using scare tactics!" She quickly retreated.
But the same student kept trying to get people to fight on the extremes, like the "now or never" kind of talk. The moral was going down and you can almost see it. They stopped to think about it and from what I can only describe was "What am I doing at the presidents office protesting or thinking of occupying it?"
This was the down fall for the students, they began to leave. One by one, but still trying to dismantle the guy’s argument was to no avail.
We weren’t ready for that action yet, but the fact that students were willing to go against the CFA event was an amazing feeling. I was able to garnish a few emails of contacts to help build another student group to fight. I was pushing for the VP to meet with us, but everyone was on the down swing and didn’t want to push any further. This showed the administration that students are beginning to organize to create fight backs.
There were ups and downs, nevertheless, this was a victory within itself, seeing that there hasn’t been any militant activity at Cal State LA since the cuts, we can honestly say that this was a victory and that we as students can look forward to more actions that can lead to a possible shut down, occupation and help the March 4th strike.
On a last note, before we left the floor, a cop came up to me and said "Come here" I said "whats the matter?" the cop said, "I want to just clarify something. All of us cops do what we can to keep the peace. This was a peaceful event and I want to thank you for being cooperative" I responded, "Well if these tuition hikes aren’t cooperative, neither will we"
Art.
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