Students Kicked Off Campus for Wearing American Flag Tees
Freedom of expression or cultural disrespect on Cinco de Mayo?
By GEORGE KIRIYAMA

On any other day at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, Daniel Galli and his four friends would not even be noticed for wearing T-shirts with the American flag. But Cinco de Mayo is not any typical day especially on a campus with a large Mexican American student population.

Galli says he and his friends were sitting at a table during brunch break when the vice principal asked two of the boys to remove American flag bandannas that they wearing on their heads and for the others to turn their American flag T-shirts inside out. When they refused, the boys were ordered to go to the principal's office.

"They said we could wear it on any other day," Daniel Galli said, "but today is sensitive to Mexican-Americans because it's supposed to be their holiday so we were not allowed to wear it today."

The boys said the administrators called their T-shirts "incendiary" that would lead to fights on campus.

"They said if we tried to go back to class with our shirts not taken off, they said it was defiance and we would get suspended," Dominic Maciel, Galli's friend, said.

The boys really had no choice, and went home to avoid suspension. They say they're angry they were not allowed to express their American pride. Their parents are just as upset, calling what happened to their children, "total nonsense."

"I think it's absolutely ridiculous," Julie Fagerstrom, Maciel's mom, said. "All they were doing was displaying their patriotic nature. They're expressing their individuality."

But to many Mexican-American students at Live Oak, this was a big deal. They say they were offended by the five boys and others for wearing American colors on a Mexican holiday.

"I think they should apologize cause it is a Mexican Heritage Day," Annicia Nunez, a Live Oak High student, said. "We don't deserve to be get disrespected like that. We wouldn't do that on Fourth of July."

As for an apology, the boys and their families say, 'fat chance.'

"I'm not going to apologize. I did nothing wrong," Galli said. "I went along with my normal day. I might have worn an American flag, but I'm an American and I'm proud to be an American."

The five boys and their families met with a Morgan Hill Unified School District official Wednesday night. The district and the school do not see eye-to-eye on the incident and released the following statement:


The district does not concur with the Live Oak High School administration's interpretation of either board or district policy related to these actions.
The boys will not be suspended and were allowed to return to school Thursday. We spotted one of them when he got to campus -- and, yes, he was sporting an American flag T-shirt.

Why do I suspect that there's more to this than is being reported.

Why do I suspect that there's more to this than is being reported.

Why do I suspect that there's more to this than is being reported.

No I didn't, because it appeared that the whole article was quoted.

I'm suspicious that 5 buddies just happened to decide to wear american flag clothing on Cinco de Mayo. So that leads me to believe that it was the peaceful protest that you suggest, not the we could wear them on any other day thing the kids are stating. That was the more than reported part I was refering to.

I'll admit I'm a bit torn on this one. No reason they shouldn't be able to wear what they want, however if they were doing it to provoke the large number of mexican-americans there and being dicks about it, the schools primary function is to make sure they are getting educated, not enabling them to protest.

U.S. flag code.

MORGAN HILL, Calif. -- Tensions mounted at a Bay Area high school Thursday, a day after five students whipped up emotions by wearing t-shirts depicting red, white and blue American flags on Cinco de Mayo.
A group of 50-60 Latino students walked out of classes at Morgan Hill's Live Oak High early Thursday, marching to city hall and rallying to show their support for a school official.
That unidentified assistant principal had ordered the students who wore t-shirts with American flags on Cinco de Mayo to either go home or turn the shirts inside out.

The thing is though, that the only kids being dicks were the ones getting upset about the flags. Assuming the kids wearing the flags did know this would happen (which they probably did), they weren't being dicks, they were calling attention to someone else's dickery. There's no reason we should avoid displays of patriotism just because a certain day happens to be important to another nation.

I would agree if the intent of the kids wearing the American flag was simply to express their own patriotism. Calling attention to someone else's dickery, though, is a sketchier proposition. There are times when it might be appropriate - a black man sitting at a "white's only" lunch counter, for instance. However, more often than not, it's just someone trying to provoke a response by being a douchebag - for instance, transvestites dressing up in flamboyant drag to attend Easter Mass as a means of "calling attention" to the Church's dickery towards homosexuals.

I actually had a guy call me a "fascist" because I told him he was showing more disrespect than patriotism by abusing the fag on his antenna.

The key difference being that in your example someone had to go out of there way to strategically locate themselves in a place they normally wouldn't have been, and attired themselves in a way they knew was in appropriate to their location.

Aye, it's not a perfect analogy. I think the point is valid, though. There's a difference between shining a light on massive injustice and being an obnoxious sh*t-stirrer. High-school kids trying to piss off other high-school kids? Strikes me as the latter 9 times out of 10.