CURRENT AGE: 21
CALIFORNIANS FOR JUSTICE
Californians for Justice
San Diego, Long Beach, San Jose, Fresno and Oakland, Calif.
While much youth activism takes place at the local level, Californians for Justice fights for justice and educational excellence for youth in the entire state.
Founded in 1995, Californians for Justice works to empower young people of color to work for fairness and equality in their communities, especially in their schools. They address educational issues within specific schools and also through politics at the state level. For example, CFJ members were part of an alliance in May that rallied outside the California legislature in Sacramento in support of two pieces of legislation “which together would increase budget transparency, raise California’s per-pupil average, and fund the actual cost of educating California’s diverse student body,” according to the campaign’s Web site. (Assembly Bill 8 and Assembly Concurrent Resolution 54 are still awaiting action in the State Senate.)
Besides working in the political arena, Californians for Justice seeks to build educational motivation and leadership among high school students through its Summer Youth Leadership Academy. One recent participant was Maria Soto, 17, who immigrated from Guatemala as a child. She recently spoke to Y-Press from CFJ's Long Beach office.
What the Summer Youth Leadership Academy?
It’s a seven-week leadership development for youth. You have to be a high school student. We have workshops on racism and LGBTQ, which is lesbian, gay, bisexual transgender and queer community. We study anti-Semitism and we study environmental justice, and we learn how to do public speaking and to talk to media. And we do phone banking, which is calling people to turn out to our events.
What are some of the educational issues CFJ has addressed?
Right now we’re going to start a campaign on the California high school exit exam, which is an exam you must take before graduating high school. During your sophomore year you take it the first time, and if you don’t pass it the first time, you have four chances before graduating. And so we’re working on this campaign to eliminate the exam because we don’t believe it’s fair.
We have statistics that show that this last year, one out of five African-Americans were denied their diploma because of this test. And this test is given to English language learners and special education [students]. … It's not a different version of the test, it’s the same test that everyone takes. We also have a statistic that says that 50 percent of special education students were denied their diploma because of this test.
Why is educational activism important to you?
Well personally, I’m an immigrant student. I wasn’t born here. And CFJ helped me a lot because I didn’t have resources that told me I was able to attend college after high school.
I was struggling my sophomore year in high school, and I just gave up ’cause I just believed there wasn’t a pathway for me after high school. I got involved with the organization, and I started learning new leadership skills that I never knew about or tried out. It just opened like a new doorway for me for my life. It has changed my life completely.
Copyright 2009 Y-Press