March 30, 2006, 12:45PM Opinions split over red, white and green Mexican flags divisive topic as principal shows his support for student protests By JENNIFER RADCLIFFE Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Reagan High School Principal Robert Pambello was ordered to remove a Mexican flag Wednesday morning that he had hoisted below the U.S. and Texas flags that typically fly in front of his school â a symbol he agreed to fly to show support for his predominantly Hispanic student body. At nearby Hamilton Middle School, a child was asked to wipe off Mexican and U.S. flags painted on his face. Hundreds of other students carried Mexican flags during walkouts Wednesday â acts of protest that they vow to continue until Congress rejects legislation that would further restrict immigration. "There's no other way to be heard ... It's not the best way or the right way, but it's our way," Reagan freshman Jose Lopez, 14, said of the effort. The Mexican flag has become a lightning rod in the immigration debate that's consumed the city and the nation this week. Students say the flag represents their pride in the contributions Mexicans make to this country. Critics, though, said watching young Hispanics in the streets with the red, green and white flags is more than they can stand. These youngsters are in the United States and should â at the least â carry the U.S. flag, they argue. "The whole thing just makes my blood boil," said Bruce R. Wing, a 52-year-old Missouri City resident. "I want them all out of here." Wing said the Houston Independent School District should fire Pambello. HISD leaders said no decision has been made about possible discipline against the principal, who declined interview requests Wednesday. "It is appropriate to fly the flags of the United States and Texas over schools in the Houston Independent School District, since we are a public entity of the state," HISD spokesman Terry Abbott said. "It would not be appropriate for the school district to advocate allegiance to a country other than the United States. Therefore, it is not appropriate to permit use of school district flagpoles for the purpose of flying flags representing other countries." Raul Ramos, a professor of Texas history at the University of Houston, said most Mexican-Americans see no contradiction in flying the Mexican flag alongside those of Texas and the United States. "Most students at Reagan High School have relatives or ancestors from Mexico," said Ramos. "The flag represents Mexican heritage as much if not more than citizenship."
Learn to love the new symbol of our multiculturalism and diversity. ********************* Mexican flag flies over Chasewood North in Jupiter . . . at least for now KIT BRADSHAW kit.bradshaw@scripps.com By KIT BRADSHAW kit.bradshaw@scripps.com March 29, 2006 The Stars and Stripes have been replaced by the Mexican flag at Chasewood North, and residents of the condominium community off Central Boulevard are puzzled as to who made the switch. "I woke up Sunday morning and looked up from my patio and then realized that the American flag wasn't on the flagpole," said Sue Miller a Chasewood North board member. "What captured my attention were the colors â at first I thought it was an Italian flag, but one of our residents said it was the Mexican flag. "I went to the flagpole, to see if the American flag was maybe on the ground, but they took it, and they cut the rope to get the American flag down and the Mexican flag up as well." A best estimate of when the switch took place is Saturday night. Chasewood South, which also has a flagpole at its entrance was untouched; its American flag was still flying from its 20-foot flagpole. At the present time, Congress is in the midst of a debate about immigration, seeking to radically change the immigration laws, perhaps by allowing the approximately 11 million illegal immigrants in the country to have a path to citizenship. But Miller said she can't figure out why this national debate would result in the American flag being stolen and replaced by a Mexican flag in Chasewood North. "I'm flabbergasted that someone would do this, and I'm wondering why here," Miller said. "We have some Hispanic residents here, but not a large Hispanic population, and I'm curious if this occurred anywhere else in town." It may be several weeks before the Stars and Stripes once again fly over Chasewood North, according to Miller, who at one time was the resident manager of the complex. "We tried to get the flag down but couldn't, so we need to hire a company with a boom truck to get up there and replace the rope and put up the American flag," she said. "I would guesstimate that this would cost $500 or more to do."
Hey look on the bright side: If the 18 million illegal aliens were Muslims instead of Mexicans, petty flag vandalism would be the least of our worries!
Give them time. Probably the single worst lesson you could give potential citizens is that we are not serious about enforcing our laws. If we gave them all amnesty tomorrow and allowed free immigration, how long do you think it would be before they had another grievance?
Sooner or later some one will get killed over this sort of thing. I wonder if the principal would have punished anyone if no one had hauled down the mexican flag? I doubt it. I look for those kids on O'Reilly or Hannity later this week. ************************************8 Immigration tensions spark flag-burning in A.J. By Blake Herzog, Tribune March 31, 2006 This weekâs tensions over immigration reform literally caught fire in the East Valley on Thursday when students raised a Mexican flag over Apache Junction High School â and then other students yanked it down and burned it. âI know (they) shouldnât have burned the Mexican flag,â said Jacob Stewart, a 16-year-old sophomore. âI heard it was raised above the American flag and that just irked me.â He said the turbulence was tied to the newsmaking debates in the state Legislature and in Congress, where ideas from offering illegal immigrants a chance at citizenship to making them felons are being considered. Freshman Chelsea Garcia, 15, and junior Brittany Ramage, 16, said the unrest had more to do with longrunning racial tensions at the school. â(This weekâs events) might have sparked a little more anger,â Ramage said. âBut kids are not very deep about that stuff.â The Hispanic student who brought the Mexican flag said he was responding to a racist remark directed at him Wednesday. The flagraising, flag-burning and shoving match that followed happened before most students arrived at school. Six students â three Hispanic and three white â will be disciplined, principal Chad Wilson said. Officials with the Apache Junction Unified School District would not specify what kind of punishment the six students face. Wilson said in a letter sent home to parents that there would be âincreased supervision, including additional police officers, on the campus over the next couple of days.â District spokeswoman Carol Shepherd said the additional security was being brought in as a precaution. âItâs one of those situations where if you didnât have additional security and something did happen, weâd be challenged by parents about why we didnât do anything,â she said. Wilson said the increased security would include four off-duty police officers the district hired as security guards, along with its regular school resource officer. By early afternoon Thursday, district officials said the environment on campus had sufficiently calmed down to continue preparing students to take Arizonaâs Instrument to Measure Standards test next week. âItâs much more conducive to quality learning today than it could have been,â Superintendent Gregory Wyman said. Shepherd said parents were calling the district office about false rumors their children had brought home: âThat the American flag had been burned â not true. That this had happened four or five times before â not true.â The confrontation happened at the flagpole in front of the schoolâs Navy ROTC building, but Maj. Bill Parker, one of the organizationâs advisers, said he did not know whether any of his students were involved. He said ROTC provides diversity training to all its students, and about 20 percent of his NJROTC students are Hispanic. About 17 percent of the overall student body is Latino, according to the district. Wilson said he e-mailed teachers separately Thursday about the incident, but left it up to them to decide if and how they should address the issue in their classrooms. He emphasized that six out of the schoolâs 1,618 students were involved in the flag fight, and many students might not have the same problems dealing with the racially charged immigration debate. School flagpoles have been lightning rods across the country this week, including an incident in which a Houston high school principal was disciplined after he flew a Mexican flag underneath his campusâ U.S. and state flags. A new political awareness among high school students has also been grabbing attention, as thousands of teenagers have walked out ofclasses to join rallies nationwide. More than 100 students from Mesaâs Carson Junior High and Westwood High schools marched in protest on Mesa streets Tuesday. Organizers of last Fridayâs protest that drew 20,000 people of all ages and shut down miles of 24th Street in Phoenix are gearing up for another one on April 10. During a news conference Wednesday, they begged high school students not to join in until after school lets out. Former Mesa resident Mercedes Mercado-Ochoa, who attended the conference as a member of Unidos in Arizona, said many of the students are part of struggling families and may be the American-born children of illegal immigrants. She said the way to get kids to protest responsibly is to provide them with positive role models, rather than encourage bad choices such as those made on both sides of the Apache Junction dispute. âWe need to be educating them on what César Chávez was all about â he wasnât a boxer,â she said. âAnd about Martin Luther King â what he wanted for the people.â