Students and faculty protested Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity in a walkout during lunch on Friday. Watch Aquila’s video reporting from the scene.

Organizer Elie Ahluwalia (12): A lot of us have been hearing about what’s going on in the news, specifically in Minneapolis. I’ve heard about ICE being in our area, and I knew a bunch of other schools were doing walkouts on the 30th, which was today. I knew we didn’t have anything planned, so I was pretty upset in the car. I was thinking, “I’m really not okay with this,” but I feel like our community doesn’t express things like this well. We don’t really show up or do protests or things like that. 

And then I got to school, and then Pavith Khara (12) sends a text in some group chat because apparently Syna Sharma (12) had texted her and said, “Ask if anyone’s walking out today.” And Pavith was like, “I’m going to say, is everyone walking out today,” to make people seem like everyone is walking out.

And then I was like, “Yeah, I’m so down.” So then I just saw Syna pull in. I went to Syna’s car. I sat in her car, and we planned the whole thing. I was like, “I’ll talk to teachers. We need to get supplies for poster making.” I posted something on my story, and then they reposted it.

This is happening at 7:30 in the morning. I was just going up to everybody and telling people to come. My sisters told people in their grade. I talked to some freshmen. I think a lot of people ended up finding out about it.

Attendee Marc Gouriou (10): I think that it emboldens others, either at Harker or just people driving by, and it makes them feel like their voice is heard, and that other people agree with them, and that makes them also take action. It makes you stronger, it makes your community stronger and it puts pressure on the people who have the power to make decisions.

English teacher Susanne Salhab: For me, it’s really special. I think it’s one of the most special moments I’ve ever had in my six years of Harker, because I think the stereotype about Harker students is that they tend to be motivated by grades only, just care about getting into an Ivy, Stanford or MIT, and that you only care about GPA. 

It’s super moving — I was crying so much with Teacher Johnson — to see that you care about things besides grades, that you care about your country and that you care about other people. I think for me, it’s really moving and it’s super special to be a part of for sure.

Attendee Ryder Hewitt (12): This is a cause that matters deeply to me. I mean, these are my neighbors. This is in my neighborhood. I have ICE trucks at the corner store behind me. My neighbors, the kids I played soccer with, the families I’ve grown up going to their houses. This is a reality. This is a real thing. So when I see something like this, and I see kids coming out here and protesting, obviously I’m grateful, and I’m supportive of it. I’m going to participate. 

But I still think we’re not doing enough as a school, as a community, or as a student body to support the people that are in these problems and being persecuted for simply their race or where they’re from. 

We don’t have enough community conversations. We tend to shut down open dialogues out of fear that it might cause some differences between each other. But the differences are what we need.

Salhab: Obviously very exciting to see already so many people here and also so many faculty too. For us, it can also be scary because we were told, and we know that we’re not allowed to be partisan, and we’re not allowed to be political. So some people could interpret this as a threat to our jobs. But also it’s important to me that students and people in the community know that we care about you, and we want you to be safe, because you’re standing at a pretty dangerous intersection. We want you to be safe, and we also support you, we care about you and we’re really inspired to see this

Elie: You need to be educated. I’ve talked to so many people where I was like, “Hey, are we planning on walking out tomorrow?” and they’re like, “For what?” and they genuinely didn’t know what was going on. I think people who came to the walkout or heard about it should be thinking about reading up on social justice activity all over our country to see just what’s going on. 

Although it’s far from you, like it’s in Minnesota, it has the potential of coming to San Jose. ICE activity has been in San Jose. There has been talk about ICE agents coming to the Super Bowl, and the Super Bowl is being held here. We don’t want them here. 

I don’t think that we are as far from the problem as we think we are. At this school, we have so many people of color, and that’s something we should all be standing up against, because that’s totally not okay.