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Page 2
November 21, 2012
photo by
C ari H achmann /T he P ortland O bserver
Roosevelt High School students and alumni take a stand against racial injustice and fight for immigration reform.
Powerful Lessons
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RACC
H ALL SW M A IN S B R O A D W A Y
One outcrop of the movie at
Roosevelt was the formation o f a
Student Alliance Project, a group
that now works to ensure more
underrepresented youth can retain
positions o f power and leadership.
Roosevelt alumni Cesar Pinada,
23, now a working member of Stu­
dent Alliance Project, shared his
motivations for taking action.
As a 17-vear-old at the time,
Pinada said he and his family were
dealing with issues of citizenship.
He felt ostracized and oppressed, “I
wanted to speak up for undocu­
mented youth who didn’t have a
voice, who wanted to be heard, to he
recognized,” he said.
While peers his age were enjoy­
ing the freedoms of youth and aspir­
ing toward dreams like earning a
driver’s license and a working wage,
he and other youth of undocu­
mented immigrants were in fear of
deportation.
Jaime Limon Guzman. 26, who
grew up in Mexico and came to the
U.S. with his family, says he’s faced
discrimination in both countries for
the color of his skin.
Now a youth coach for the Stu­
dent Alliance Project and founding
member for Oregon’s Dream Activ­
ist, an undocumented student action
and resource network, Guzman told
the student interviewers that anger
and frustration motivated him to fight
for immigration reform. “I wanted
to— 1 had to do something,” he said.
“Papers” filmmakers emphasized
the importance of storytelling as a
way to fight for change. When you
read or hear another’s story and talk
about it, you can realize common
strengths and work together on an
issue, they said.
The students asked their men­
tors what they hoped to see in the
future.
‘T d like to see an America that’ s
equal...w here everyone has equal
rights and no one is judged by where
they come from,” said Pinada.
As the 45 minute discussion came
to a close, students shifted rooms
throughout the school to complete
another round of interviews before
taking back to the classroom to ana­
lyze their notes and write about their
findings.
The students will collect the pho­
tos and essays to produce an ex­
hibit that will travel to various loca­
tions within the community. It will
join a national Fredrick Douglas
exhibit on the importance of literacy
freedom.
The Roosevelt students are part
of a flagship project of the Writing
and Publishing Center, part of the
school’s College and Career Transi­
tion Center.