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CURRENT ISSUE: May 9, 2005
VOL.
43, NO. 9Oakland,
CA
Students learn lesson in lobbying
Ivan Cendejas believes undocumented immigrants should
have drivers’ licenses. His classmate Erica Baires wants tougher
enforcement of truancy laws.
The two eighth graders decided to bring these concerns to their lawmakers,
so they recently got on the bus with 40 of their classmates from St. Martin
De Porres Middle School in Oakland and travelled to Sacramento. Ivan,
Erica and their friends were among 100 individuals from the Oakland Diocese
who participated in Catholic Lobby Day, an annual event sponsored by the
California Catholic Conference.
The large group included 19 high school students – 15 seniors from
Holy Names High in Oakland, plus four students from Carondelet High in
Concord — as well as adult parishioners, many from local Just Faith
social justice study groups.
Now in its seventh year, Catholic Lobby Day drew over 800 California Catholics
who converged upon the state capitol, April 26, to lobby against the passage
of an assisted suicide bill and the elimination of programs for the poor
and to speak out in favor of health care coverage for all California children,
food safety, and streamlined immigration assistance.
St. Martin De Porres’ contingent had the distinction of being the
youngest lobbyists in the Oakland group. It was the school’s second
trip to Sacramento since February, said Gwen Watson, a Christ the King
parishioner in Pleasant Hill. Last winter Watson, a longtime member of
the League of Women Voters, was invited by the school’s fourth grade
teachers, Franciscan Sister Mary Alice Aston and Mohammed Ali, to introduce
kids to the workings of state government, as a part of their study of
California history.
Watson boiled down the basics of Catholic social justice teachings for
the nine-year olds and gave them their first lesson in effective lobbying.
Be polite. Draw up a short list of important talking points in support
or against a particular bill, and then make an appointment with your legislator.
Watson then accompanied the class to Sacramento where the kids had the
opportunity to practice their new skills. They brought back rave reviews.
Their experiences inspired Shondrel Slaughter, the school’s eighth
grader teacher, to request a lobby day for the middle school students.
Sister Barbara Dawson, a Religious of the Sacred Heart who serves as school
principal and president, liked Slaughter’s suggestion. So Watson
returned to give more student trainings.
Lobby Day 2005 turned out to be a day of hands-on learning for the youthful
lobbyists all the way around. Assemblywoman Wilma Chan (D-Oakland) arranged
for the students to attend a hearing on AB 772, her bill that would provide
affordable health insurance for children from birth to age 21.
The class sat in the balcony of a fifth floor hearing room and watched
as numerous people testified in favor of the bill. They listened as a
Republican legislator asked a couple of tough questions about funding.
Then it was back to the first floor of the Capitol to meet with Chris
Lehman, legislative director of research for Senate Pro-Tem leader Don
Perata (D-Oakland).
“Just a few hours ago, the seats you are sitting in were filled
with newspaper, TV and radio reporters,” Lehman told the students.
“They came to talk to Senator Perata about education. Your Senator
was telling them that we need to bring California’s education funding
up to the national average.”
California presently allots $6,000 per student, but West Virginia gives
$8,000, he said.
Lehman added that the Senator had spent so much time speaking with the
press that he lost his voice. However, a raspy-voiced Perata dropped by
to welcome the students
After his departure, Erica Baires, 13, told Lehman that President Bush’s
“No Child Left Behind” plan is not working in West Oakland.
She told stories of students who roam the streets all day long instead
of learning their lessons. She asked if stricter truancy laws could be
added to the books. “We are the future, and all of us are going
into it together,” she said, worriedly.
Lehman said there were already truancy laws in effect, but that the issue
isn’t that simple: “Maybe being picked up by a cop will work.
Maybe it won’t. Maybe there is no one to come pick up the kid from
juvenile hall. Maybe the kid is in a bad foster care situation,”
he said. But he agreed with Erica that keeping kids in class is important.
Darius Maxey spoke in favor of more after school programs like the Leo
Center in Oakland. Asked by Lehman how they should be funded, Darius thought
that having bake sales might be the way to go. But Lehman suggested that
safe places for kids is too important an issue to be funded this way.
“Statistics show that crime rates go down among kids between the
hours of 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. if you keep them off the streets.”
“This is serious stuff,” he told them. “We should be
spending tax dollars on homework centers.” A couple of kids suggested
that a good way to pay for after school centers would be to “get
more taxes from the rich.”
Ivan Cendejas, 13, expressed his support for drivers’ licenses for
undocumented immigrants. “If they get pulled over now, their cars
are impounded and it’s too expensive to get them out,” he
said. “If they had licenses, it would help the economy because they’d
have to pay for smog tests every two years and get license plates.”
Lehman added that the ability to drive to work also helps the economy.
He told Ivan that until 1993, anyone could get a driver’s license.
“It wasn’t a citizenship thing at all.” But several
governors changed the law since then. Lehman pointed out that Senator
Perata has voted in favor of giving licenses to undocumented immigrants.
Later, as Erica, Ivan and Darius boarded their bus they gave Lobby Day
an A-plus rating. “Awesome,” exclaimed Ivan.
Their older counterparts at Holy Names and Carondelet also had good things
to say.
Mercedes Martin, a 17-year-old senior at Holy Names, said the experience
was “powerful. I didn’t know it was so open that people could
just walk in and have a conversation with an aide or an assembly member.”
Before Lobby Day, Martin considered freedom of speech “a joke,”
given the current Washington political scene. “But if you think
of government at the local level, you do have a lot more power.”
Holy Names senior Kandis Stubblefield, 17, now feels inspired to maybe
do something in politics after she graduates from college. “I’m
okay with debating issues,” she said. But Stubblefield added that
the prospect of fighting with fellow legislators on the other side of
the aisle could be a bit scary.
Allison Dailey, 18, a Carondelet senior, said the Lobby Day experience
was “informative and enlightening.” Trey Lawrence, a 15-year-old
freshman, expressed excitement at seeing “how passionately people
felt towards human rights and values.”
The day began with a liturgy in downtown Sacramento’s Crest Theater,
presided over by Stockton Bishop Stephen Blaire, president of the California
Catholic Conference.
Father Gene Boyle, a mentor of the late Cesar Chavez and long-time social
activist, gave the homily. Father Boyle reminded the group that Jesus
was a member of Palestine’s middle class who took up the cause of
the poor out of compassion. “He identified with the wounded stranger…
and his example awakened compassion among the disciples.” Today
the wounded stranger includes the hungry, the discriminated against, those
who thirst, the disenfranchised, the homeless, the imprisoned and the
sick, he said.
Our contemporary society isn’t radically different from Jesus’
day, Father Boyle noted. Social sin was embedded in the structures then
just as it is embedded into our structures today. Some of its contemporary
forms are abortion, stem-cell research using human embryos, and xenophobia
–“the dark side of the immigration issue,” he said.
The priest urged his listeners to emulate Jesus’ compassion for
the needy. “Faith in Jesus without compassion for the poor is a
fraud,” he said.
Andy
Hodges, a teacher at Carondelet High School in Concord, walks with one
of his students during a Lobby Day demonstration in Sacramento.
CATHY JOYCE PHOTO
Sister Barbara Dawson, principal of Oakland’s St. Martin de Porres
School, talks with eighth grader Ivan Cendejas, 13, before he spoke in
favor of drivers’ licenses for undocumented immigrants with one
of Sen. Don Perata’s aides. CATHY
JOYCE PHOTO
