Good afternoon.

My name is Emily Almendarez, an eleventh grader from UCLA

Community school. I come from a low-income household, run by my parents, both
immigrants, with eight members total, located in Koreatown, attending a school that
does not receive the same funding, as say a school located in Woodland hills. I humbly
present myself to you not only as a student, but as an individual from a community fed
up with the marginalizing and inadequate resources given not only to minority filled
neighborhoods, but the schools and the students in them.
Through my experience, school is the institution that plays a pivotal role in the
manner in which its pupils perceive the world and the people in it.
From school, springs systems of oppression, one known as racism. Firsthand, I
have seen the results of neglect on behalf of the school board in reference to inner city
school, and the failure to teach anything other than white/European history. Students of
color are often times criminalized or racially profiled by on campus police officers. In
addition to this, as a result of sparse help and resources in their schools, the school to
prison pipeline is more often than not realized as the dropout rates increase.
The passing of policies through the school board in search of creating
consciousness or eradication of these issues, cannot heavily be relied on. For instance,
even though ethnic studies was passed by pressuring school board members, there has
been no plan made for how it will be implemented, nor how or who will fund its
execution. For this reason we cannot believe that just because a restorative justice policy
is written officially, that it will be followed, obeyed word for word, or made into reality.
We need to create consciousness among our peers, teachers, and parents of our
common oppressor, through organization and mobilization. Much like the anti
apartheid movement, we must stress and emphasize the fact that these
institutionalized, systemic forms of oppression need to be changed, and that we can
start with the equalizing of our schools. We need to ban together, students, peers, and
teachers to promote standing for marginalized individuals, in order to pressure the
district to make the changes we wish to see in our schools, that will serve as stimuli to
change our society for the better.
At UCLA Community school, the CEJ chapter, part of the Schools LA Students
Deserve Grassroots coalition, made up of both teachers and students, are holding a
performance educating the youth of tomorrow of the statistics of police brutality and
illustrating, through skits, lighting, and monologue, the manner in which in inner city
schools, we the students, are expected to live up to nothing but prisoners of local jails.
This idea is reinforced by the lack of resources that we receive, and the supported
teachers that are laid off. We need to realize that in order to change these pervasive,
offending views; we must fight for our demands, and see them be fulfilled.