Microphone
Forward to the people.
You're the first thing you hear before you see anything is the noise, because the noise is what the rallyer and the protesters were armed with.
So we just made a lot of noise.
We marched around the school in different buildings.
We were making noise, nice, nice. And the teacher, who was inside teaching, and the students were inside, uh, the classes, could hardly hear.
Microphone
It started sometime in October of '68, and it went into the next year, '69, until the next semester, but then it started many chains of schools all over.
Way back then, it was a part of the civil rights movement.
At that time, we were looking for two things, getting minorities students into school, and then the second had to do with establishing a school of ethnic studies.
We wanted to increase the representation of third world students, because there were so few.
Microphone
There were officially, I think, 75 Filipinos on the campus.
We had been attempting to establish these things by working with the administrators, but we were getting no place, and were being given promises, but the promises were never being fulfilled.
It's clear that these student organizations, including those with the minority group students, with whom these select committee made an agreement, they were not fair representers in that demonstration yesterday, because they did not demand amnesty in those agreements.
Microphone
And so, it was not part of their demand. So, naturally, they're not represented.
I ref prefer specific making the in the Third World Libberation front.
The setting then was polarization.
The strike has to be seen in the context of what was happening in the world.
Many things were increment.
It was an undergoing change of violent change.
Now, you asked me why did that happen at SF State?
Microphone
And it's because when you have alternative intellectual processes available, when there's a culture of intellectuality, curiosity, right?
And a real drive for honesty and justice.
And that's the worst thing they did when they raised us, they said, This is the country, you know, with freedom and justice for all.
And so we said, Okay, well, we're gonna call you on it, you know?
Why can't we study this?
You have no right to allow a little militant minority, both the faculty and students, to close down the university and deny the others their right to the education that they're trying to get.
Microphone
And all it takes is the courage to stand up and take whatever action is necessary to ensure that the majority can go about their business as they obviously want to do.
Different student organizations of the school, they formed into one, because they find strength in numbers.
to make it a third world liberation front.
The Third World organization, representing black brown and yellow students on campus, held a news conference to announce their full support of the BSU strike.
Microphone
And add demands of her own for admission to more Chinese, Mexican American, and Philippine students.
We have third world people together, and they're saying that we are gonna stand together, do our thing.
TWLF was the Third World Liberation Practice.
It was an organization of minority groups, black students, the Larasa, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese.
That's sort of how pace was formed.
Pace was the Filipino American collegiate endeavor.
Microphone
The purpose of pace was political.
It was to become involved so that Filipinos and taker could be represented.
And it was both on the campus and off the campus.
The Tunipunas who were up here, like myself and other people, were born here.
We grew up and
Microphone
to look into decolonization processes.
Shut it down.
!
There was a small coalition of us who, for the core group, in any event, my role in particular, was to be the negotiator with the president, with a number of others, who were on strike, so we had picket lines, and we had rallies.
Microphone
That's just a strange thing to see. A seat of learning.
Uh, you see, uh, with, uh, police land, dogs, and riot gear, and, uh, you know, barbed wire and tanks, and, like, war inside the campus of a Institute of Learning.
The fact that SF State was the first, or one of the first, or it had a student strike, was really not as important as the fact that it touched off like a, like a, I guess, a tinder box that cuts off all the different campuses all over the United States.
Microphone
You got to remember, at all times, the cops were armed.
They had guns, and they had ponds, they had tear gas, they had experimental thing called mace, and they had experimental pepper gas.
Okay, and they were bringing all that stuff to the campus, and looking for a reason to use it, you know?
Almost every day, it was like that.
We're gonna make those students shut up and just go to class.
You know, that was a really good illustration of just resistance within the Academy to simply people asking appropriate, intellectual questions.
Microphone
And that's what it was like.
Campus literally, uh, was closed down only for a week or so.
We have, uh, decided to, uh, close instructions file, and then for the session, that 400 minority students could be admitted.
In acknowledgment of the serious concern and conscientious thought that have gone into this agreement, I wish to announce that its main conclusions concerning academic matters are hereby accepted as administration policy.
Microphone
After the strike, Hayakawa, through other representatives, negotiated the demands, and they were granted forming the school of ethnic studies at that particular time.
So it then became Filipino studies, black studies, and Ladasse studies and so forth.
So that was the result of what happened.
So that was that.
Microphone
I think that they started strike, and the study of it, and its development, is good, that the students can really demand a need.
So many principles were practiced here, you know.
The power will never give in, unless it's demanded, or unless it's forced.
So many of those things were played and acted on on this strike.
I think, uh, I encourage people to go find out about the college of ethnic studies.
I foresee that this is gonna continue to go on for decades, which is really good.
Microphone
It's a very small segment of history but it's certainly an important part, you know, those segments.
My side would go right back and do it again, you know?
But it was fun.
We had a lot of fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment