If you want to know why California’s kids can’t read or write, consider this commencement address from the 24-yr-old president of Santa Ana Unified, one of the state’s largest and worst:
“Today, we must not stay silent because we live in a moment where there are people in power and in our neighborhoods telling us to keep our heads down, to not rock the boat, to not get too political. But let me ask you something: Is it too political to demand that children should not be held in cages? Is it too political to be undocumented, or is it too political to say that being undocumented is not a crime, but that separating a mother from her child is? Is it too political to believe that the color of your skin should not determine whether you survive a traffic stop? Is it too political to say that housing is a human right and no one should sleep on the street while luxury units sit empty? Is it too political to say your zip code should not determine whether you have clean air to breathe, safe water to drink, or access to a park? Is it too political to demand that our tax dollars stop funding the killing of children in Gaza and instead start feeding and housing our children in our communities? No, the answer is no. What’s political is a system that tells us that we should be grateful for scraps while billionaires decide who eats. So to those that want our silence, I say this: You will not get it. You will not get it from the people of Santa Ana because the class of 2025 did not survive a global pandemic, racial uprisings, economic hardships, and the attacks on our very identities just to graduate into a world that refuses to hear our voices. So you, the young people of Santa Ana, have a sacred responsibility. And that responsibility is not just to succeed, it is to interrupt. To interrupt systems that were never built to serve us. To interrupt narratives that paint our people as problems instead of protagonists. To interrupt cycles of violence that stretch from our neighborhoods to nations across the globe. But your presence here, sitting in this chair…”