Assimilation? Schoolkids chant "Mexico! Mexico! Mexico!" to Minutemen in Santa Ana

Hacks and others continue to pretend that the assimilation of millions of Mexicans isn't a problem. Here's one of the most striking counter-examples. On May 1, a group of protesters from the Minuteman Project protested in Santa Ana, CA as part of an illegal immigration rally (report). Across the street, young schoolchildren climbed on top of playground equipment and began chanting, "Mexico! Mexico! Mexico!"

It seems like the MMP members were protesting the Mexican consulate, and the school was just coincidentally across the street. On the video their chant appears to have started spontaneously rather than being deliberately provoked.

Even taking into account that they're children, their choice of a chant is very revealing and should be very disturbing. Rather than all the other choices - the usual leftwing smears, or chanting for "reform", or simple name-calling, or all the other choices they had - they chose the name of what is almost certainly to them their country. Also disturbing are the comments on the video by Mexicans - including those living here - supporting the children's choice (links).

When you see a hack hand-waving away assimilation problems, please send them the video link.

The school involved is the Orange County Educational Arts Academy (OCEAA), a charter school at oceaa.org. They've released a statement linked to from oceaa.org/English/oceaa_board.htm:

During the second lunch period, a group of OCEAA students stood on the play structure and chanted "Mexico" while demonstrators protested at the Mexican Consulate across the street. When an administrator was notified of the students' actions, he went out to the playground to redirect the students, but they were already returning to the building for class... The Board has received emails indicating that members of the public believe the students were brought to the playground by their teachers, and that the school explicitly sanctioned this demonstration. We wish to assure our school community and the general public that this is not the case. The students were at lunch recess; they were not on the playground during instructional time. We learned from a demonstration organizer who visited OCEAA Wednesday morning that the group moved to the Consulate spontaneously. Likewise, the students' chanting was impromptu, not part of a pre-planned counter-demonstration. We regret that the recess supervision staff did not quickly recognize the need to shelter students from media exposure and from hostile protesters... In addition, we wish to express unequivocally that OCEAA does not require nor expect students to participate in political demonstrations, much less express a particular viewpoint...

Immigration2007a · Thu, 05/10/2007 - 15:25 · · Importance: 1