"It's for H.R. 4437," said Irving 11th grader Diego Garcia, clad in a lime green baseball cap and matching T-shirt. "We're just here to try to get heard." Another Irving junior texted me the message that buzzed around the Irving High School cell-wielding population. Yes, it cuts off at the end, and yes, the all-caps is all theirs:
"IF UR HISPANIC OR JUS THINK THA NEW LAW ABOUT HISPANICS IS STUPID 2MORROW IS IRVING DAYS 2 WALK UP AN LEAVE 4 ALL THA ILLEGA ..."
In the City Hall plaza, L.G. Pinkston sophomore Johanna Villasenoro was getting her soapbox on: "They need to learn how to respect Hispanics! We built all this. All you see, all these buildings and all these bridges, it was all us!"
I told Villasenoro and her friends that their absences were unexcused, and they were fine with it. She said: "It should be unexcused because we're taking a stand. It's our decision." --Andrea Grimes
