[News] The Suicide of Anthony Soltero

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/maass04122006.html

April 12, 2006

Another Young Victim of the Stigmatization of Immigrants

The Suicide of Anthony Soltero

By ALAN MAASS

School officials threatened to punish 14-year-old Anthony Soltero for 
standing up for immigrant rights. Now he's dead as a result of their threats.

Anthony's tragic suicide has shaken and saddened people around the 
country--but also made them more determined to continue the struggle 
for equality that he was a part of.

"He was just fighting for his rights," Anthony's mother, Louise 
Corales, said at a Palm Sunday mass for Anthony at Our Lady of 
Guadalupe Church in Ontario. "He would be proud that we're here now 
to honor him because he is a hero."

Anthony, an eighth-grader at DeAnza Middle School in Ontario, Calif., 
west of Los Angeles, helped organize a student walkout in the week 
following the 1 million-strong March 25 demonstration in LA against 
anti-immigrant legislation that would brand undocumented workers as felons.

Tens of thousands of students participated in the walkouts across 
Southern California--facing harassment and abuse from both police and 
school officials. In Anthony's case, the threats had tragic results.

According to civil rights lawyer Sonia Mercado, Anthony was called 
into a school administrator's office on March 30 for questioning 
about the walkout. The administrator told Anthony that he could be 
barred from attending graduation, that his mother could be fined $250 
for his truancy, and that he could go to jail for three years, 
Mercado told the Press-Enterprise, a local newspaper.

Anthony was a top student, but had been disciplined for having a 
pocketknife at school and was nearly finished with a term of 
community service and probation, Mercado said.

Anthony called his mother from home to tell her about the threats. 
But before she could arrive back, he had shot himself in the head. He 
left behind notes apologizing to his mother--and asking her to keep 
his younger brothers from seeing his body.

"Anthony was born here, and his mother was born here," said Nativo 
Lopez, president of the Mexican American Political Association and an 
organizer of the March 25 demonstration in LA, who met with Anthony's 
family last week. "This is an example of a native-born citizen who 
identifies with this movement and takes a leadership role in a middle 
school to organize a walkout of his peers. He did this, and the 
school authorities threatened him with incarceration if he did it again."

In a bitter twist, Ontario police say they will ask prosecutors to 
charge Anthony's stepfather with a felony--for not keeping his gun locked up.

But the people who ought to bear responsibility in this 
tragedy--officials of the local school district--this week defended 
to reporters their policy of punishing students who participated in 
the walkout. During the walkout itself, the school district asked 
police to round up protesting students and issue them 
citations--something even the cops who now want to send Anthony's 
stepfather to jail refused to do.

Lopez says that this attempt to punish students for exercising their 
rights--which certainly isn't confined to Ontario--is "absolutely repugnant."

"It's fine if they read passages from the Constitution, the history 
of the country, biographies of George Washington and Thomas 
Jefferson--who the English, back in the era of the American 
revolution, accused of terrorism," Lopez said. "But then these 
children who are willing to practice these same precepts and theories 
can be reprimanded for actually living the Constitution."

Students in Los Angeles have planned a march for immigrant rights on 
April 15, which they have named in Anthony's honor. They have called 
on students around the country to hold events on the 15th to honor 
Anthony Soltero and his commitment to justice.

Alan Maass is the editor of the 
<http://www.socialistworker.org/>Socialist Worker and the author of 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1931859094/counterpunchmaga>The 
Case for Socialism. He can be reached at: 
<mailto:alanmaass at sbcglobal.net>alanmaass at sbcglobal.net


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