A Protest Against Injustice

On Thursday, February 20th, 2025, students from all over VUSD and community members went out to the streets to protest, driven by a deep sense of duty to their families, themselves, and their rights.

By: Ariana Lopez

As students of Redwood face fears and struggle with changes to immigration policies, coming together for an important event that is happening globally gives them a sense of empowerment and hope for a change.

Many students like Michelle Ramirez, ’27, came to school unknowing that there would be a walkout. Ramirez says, “I had a friend tell me we should do it. We all walked out together. We were all really confused and kind of unorganized. I felt bad because people were just going to think that we were walking stereotypes that kids always want to ditch school, but we all knew that we were there for a reason.”

Ramirez hopes that people knew what students and the community of Visalia were there for. Ramirez says, “Even if there were kids there just to skip school, they ended up being a part of the protest.”

Ramirez says, “There is such a high percentage of kids going missing after their families get deported because of how many families are being separated, and how many kids are being separated and taken away from their families.”

This action contributes to larger problem, as Ramirez says, “We can’t hold ourselves responsible for change in society. It’s just about speaking up because it’s a hard topic to talk about. It’s just a matter of raising awareness to stop it. If you’re willing to do something to at least try to progress as a society and not separate families, then that’s a step that we can take as a community to make places safer.”

Ramirez says, “It hurts seeing people come from other countries and sometimes just to see people from your own country suffering and hurting. Stuff like this slips between our hands inside the system and we don’t realize it, but people are being heavily affected by this.”

“It’s just like a matter of like using peaceful protests and trying to get support of communities, that’s what’s most important. I think, over and over, that’s what I kept telling kids, to not be violent,” says Ramirez.

Finishing off, Ramirez says, “Hispanics and Latinos just come from such beautiful roots, and I’m not just saying that they’re the only culture that’s beautiful. There’s so many cultures out there, and like we should admire all of them like nobody’s perfect, it doesn’t matter what culture [you] come from. It just matters that we stand together.”

A Redwood student who asked to stay anonymous says, “The protest was about supporting immigrants and supporting our families and making sure that we’re staying here together.”

The student said, “It was kind of just like showing people that we can stand together. Trying to support each other and doing all of this together gives us hope that we’ll push through it and that we can meet our goals.”

Expressing faith in justice for immigrants, the student said, “I hope that we get to stay here you know, we’re allowed to stay here. We have the right to stay here. We all work like the same as everybody, we have have homes here just like everybody. There’s no difference just because we are another race.”

The student also said, “I hope that the important message that people saw is that we’re just that like we are kids trying to do this for our families and how this problem isn’t just affecting our families but the little kids just trying to grow up as well.”

The anonymous source said, “The Hispanic community always makes sure to help one another, always there for each other, the culture, the food and dancing, and the joy of spending time together is such a big thing to us.”

Lastly, they express their feeling on why the protest was so important. They said, “I think that for my family it’s kind of like living in struggle, because you have to worry about something all the time, or like about your family, and it’s just hard.”

Emily Ochoa, ’28, says, “I hope that people would help us and support us.”

“I just felt like really good that a lot of people got together to do all of it, because its a good cause,” says Ochoa.

The importance isn’t only to Ochoa but to many other students all over VUSD and the world hoping to make a mark and build their community.

Dr. Brandon Gridiron, the Principal of Redwood High School, says, “I first learned about the protests through media. I got to hear, just on the news and circulation around the nation, that students were having their thoughts and opinions about what was going on across the country.”

Dr. Gridiron ensures that all kids at Redwood are safe while also being able to express themselves freely without disruption.

Dr. Gridiron says, “safety is priority number one for us and knowing that the students were wanting to protest during the school day, my initial thought was, how do I show their safety? Because, you know, obviously they have the constitutional right to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly.”

Expressing his honor to respect students rights and protect them, Dr. Gridiron says, “I also want to uphold the standard of what it means to be in school and ensuring that every student is learning every day.”

“I think that the fascinating thing is that students are aware. As an educational institution, we want to inform and support our students to be critical thinkers about situations that may come up for them.”

Dr. Gridiron says, “I think this is the beautiful part of education. We get to go through that process and learn together, and democracy allows us to say this is our constitutional right to have this opinion.”

On how exciting it is because kids are now engaging in political topics, Dr. Gridiron says, “I do think it’s an opportunity for us to continue to help the kids understand the political conversation, and how to have dialogue in a way that brings common ground and understanding.”

Dr. Gridiron finishes off by saying, “It’s a lot of work to do, but there are young people who are passionate and we have to help them critically think of how they’re gonna navigate all of it.”

Tags: activism, hispanic, news, protest, Redwood, redwood gigantea, redwood high school, redwood journalism, redwood news, redwood protest, rhs, rhs news, rhs protest, students, visalia ca, vusd