Giving Compass' Take:

• East Los Angeles has a history of walkouts and protests staged by Latino students fighting for a better education. Since the 60s, many things have changed for Latinos, but Dreamers are still feeling part of a marginalized community in their schools. 

• How can school systems do more to support Dreamers? How can outside organizations partner with schools to make this happen?

• Dreamers face uncertainty in their futures, especially in terms of their education.  Read about the struggles they endure while applying for college.

Before there were Dreamers, thousands of young Latinos marched out of their East Los Angeles classrooms half a century ago for their right to be educated.

“I was never told I was college material or capable of aspiring for something better,” said Bobby Verdugo, one of the leaders of the 1968 Chicano student movement known as “Walkouts or Blowouts.”

“Dreamers are being marginalized today. They are being treated like they don’t belong here, like they are not wanted. That’s how we felt 50 years ago”

March 1 marks the 50th anniversary of what has been called the nation’s first major mass protest against racism by Mexican-Americans. More than 15,000 students from Roosevelt, Wilson, Garfield, Lincoln, and Belmont high schools walked out of their classrooms to challenge the inequalities in Los Angeles public schools. Fifty years later, their bold action has reaped educational gains for Latinos, but they haven’t come fast enough, advocates say.

Students now come to schools where many more adults look like and relate to them. This year in LA Unified, 37 percent of teachers are Latinos, as well as 43 percent of school administrators and 38 percent of district officials. But as a state, California, which has the nation’s largest Latino student population, also has the biggest Latino teacher-student gap, according to a report released last week by the Center for American Progress.

Read more about student walkouts by Esmeralda Fabián Romero at The 74