COLUMN: It’s a crazy, mixed-up world

How did we find ourselves living in a country where the right to celebrate Cinco de Mayo outweighs the rights of American students in an American school on American soil to display their patriotism?

You have to give the administrators of Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, California, some credit though. Instead of Cinco de Mayo being just a day to feast on Mexican food and imbibe copious amounts of margaritas, Americans were forced to take a long, hard look at what this Mexican holiday really means.

No longer is Cinco de Mayo a day for celebrating a surprise victory over the French. It is now a day to celebrate the conquest of America – a conquest in which upwards of 12 million Hispanics have illegally invaded our borders without firing a single shot.

The Hispanic students at Live Oak High School celebrated this great victory by attending an American tax payer funded school proudly dressed in the Mexican national colors of red, green and white. Some students wore Mexican flags on their clothing while others went so far as to paint the Mexican flag on their bodies. While some might believe this attire is more appropriate for a World Cup soccer match than an academic institution, the administrators at Live Oak felt it was acceptable for the 40 percent of their student body that is Hispanic to display their great, and no doubt well-justified, national pride on school property during school hours.

The fact that this privilege was not extended to the American students did not seem to be a problem for assistant principal Miguel Rodriguez. When Rodriguez spotted some American students wearing American flag bandanas, he promptly asked them to remove them and follow him to principal Nick Boden’s office.

Had Rodriguez asked the students to remove the flag bandanas because it was a disrespectful display of the American flag and entirely inappropriate head gear, that would have been one thing. However, that was not his reason. The five students escorted to the principal’s office were asked not only to remove their patriotic head gear, but also to turn their patriotic t-shirts inside out for fear that the display of the American flag and American colors on Cinco de Mayo might incite a riot at the school.

Rather than do their job and maintain order within the halls of their school, the administrators forced these American students – not the potential rioters - to go home. While the Hispanic students were allowed to remain at school showing their national pride and wearing their national colors, the American students were treated as if they were attempting to subvert the learning environment by wearing red, white and blue clothing.

Adding insult to injury, 200 Hispanic students skipped school the following day to protest the “disrespectful” actions of their American counterparts. These students, whose First Amendment rights were not infringed upon in the least, marched on the local school district headquarters chanting “we want respect” and “si se puede” (Yes, we can!).

The American students should have been the ones demanding respect. This is America, not Mexico.

Those students had every right to remain at school and the fact that school administrators sent them home with an unexcused absence for the remainder of the day is completely unacceptable.

It is a crazy, mixed up world when cries of “Si se puede” echo in the streets of the United States while American students are punished for being proud of their country.

Kristi Reed is a reporter for the Barrow Journal. She can be reached at kreed@barrowjournal.com.