Not every kid down at City Hall dunno why he or she's there. I just got back from downtown and saw kids from Woodrow Wilson and Bryan Adams high schools being herded, field trip-style, into school buses so they could get hauled back to their respective campuses after today's immigration law protests. Many of the kids I talked to were from Irving-area high schools, and some of them seemed to kinda sorta know what was going on.

"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

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