1968 East Los Angeles Student Walkouts

First Hand Accounts

"I arrived on campus the morning after the initial walkout the previous day, on the 'Kern Special.' I was walking in to school along with a number of others and we were met by what appeared to be a college student exhorting us to 'walkout.' I told the organizer that I thought it was not a good idea. He respectfully retorted and we engaged in an academic polemic while other students were standing around listening to the back and fourth. This experience was to be singular for me in that it was the last time I remember a polemic with so much respect for proper ideals of a polemic, from participant and audience alike. On reflection I now realize that being a college prep math major exposed me to an experience at Garfield that was not representative of the general school population. The respect of differing opinions during those days is what strikes me all these decades later."

-- Alvaro Mora, Class of 1969