On any other day at high school in Morgan Hill, California, no student would even be noticed for wearing a T-shirt adorned with a graphic of the American flag.
But apparently May 5th is not any typical day on a campus with a large Mexican American student population.
Four students 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.
Neither bandanas nor T-shirts are against the dress code in that school, so what could the problem be?
The American flag, that's what.
"They said we could wear it on any other day, but today is sensitive to Mexican-Americans because it's their holiday so we were not allowed to wear it today." said one of the boys.
The administrators called their T-shirts "incendiary" and said that they 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."
The boys really had no choice, and chose to go home to avoid suspension.
They say they're angry they were not allowed to express their American pride, regardless what day it is.
Their parents are just as upset, calling what happened to their children, "total nonsense."
"I think it's absolutely ridiculous," Julie Fagerstrom, one's mom, said. "All they were doing was displaying their patriotic nature. They're expressing their individuality. This is still America"
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 because it is our Mexican Heritage Day," Annicia Nunez, a Live Oak High student, said. "This is our country, and we don't deserve to be get disrespected like that."
"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. I didn't try to stop them from wearing their Mexican flags for Cinco de Mayo. They shouldn't stop me from wearing my flag."
Fortunately, the district school board 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.
All four again wore American flag T-shirts and bandanas.
As they should have been allowed to do on May fifth.
"But then I came to the conclusion that no, while there may be a serious immigration problem, it isn't really the biggest problem. The most serious problem is lack of assimilation." ---- Samuel P. Huntington
"More than one-third of Mexicans in the United States own property in Mexico, nearly 80 percent send money home and 25 percent have a spouse in Mexico. Assimilation and becoming an American citizen are not the objective for many of them." ---- John Shadegg
PORK OF THE DAY:
$18,335,000 for 17 projects by House THUD Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Olver (D-Mass.), including $950,000 for the National Council of La Raza for community redevelopment activities. There was a heated debate on whether to include funding for groups like La Raza in the 2008 housing bill which resulted in them not being included, but that didn’t stop Rep. Olver from finding money for the group elsewhere.
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