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Rally to Kick Off Skyline High School Youth Center

By Ji Hyun Lim

Dozens of students, community agencies and sponsors gathered in Oakland’s Skyline High School library, chanting, clapping in unison, and speaking on behalf of a proposed Youth Center. Students and community allies spoke passionately about the need to integrate an advanced placement curriculum for all, provide for students’ health needs and promote cross-cultural understanding among the African American, Asian American and Hispanic students.

The March 14 kick-off for the Youth Center gathered parents and students along with Skyline principal Lois Walker, Oakland superintendent Dennis Chaconas, city council member Henry Chang, and the S.H. Cowell Foundation’s Mialisa Bonta, among others. Many representatives brought gifts, both monetary and symbolic such as a tie, hammer, book, baskets, and pictures.

Students at Skyline High School in Oakland are joined by city council candidate Moses Mayne, center. Left to right: Angela Davenport; Seth Carlin-Goldberg; Moses Mayne; Greg Johnson; and Tony Douangviseth. Photo by Jacob Averbuck.

Student Victor Duarte articulately proposed, “One land, one people. We have to take responsibility for the students.” He added, “As the saying goes, it takes an entire village to raise one child.”

Skyline was not always collectively working towards the goal of meeting academic achievement gaps and preventing school violence. In fact, violence and antagonism between different ethnic groups spawned a need to have a dialogue.

“Oftentimes, incidents start non-racially,” Youth Together Project Coordinator Margaretta Lin said. Two and a half years ago, a student accidentally bumped another student’s car. “It was not malicious, but the rumors start. The people involved took it up again in school. Things quickly became racialized because people jumped in to defend their race. It became an issue of racial pride,” Lin said.

Duarte, a senior at Skyline, said, “Tensions build up, and Asian American students felt African American students were getting special treatment by African American staff. African Americans thought Asian Americans were getting more privileges as the ‘model minority.’ A lot of my friends were African American and Asian and I felt torn between them.” According to Duarte, fights broke out frequently and one student was reported to have had his head bashed into a window.

Racial tensions escalated. Partnering with the Youth Together organization, Skyline High School conducted a group mediation session. Approximately 80 African American and Asian American students discussed their perception of the violence and what could be the causes. On the third day, Youth Together met with the two groups to reconcile differences.

The students discovered that violence and animosity stemmed from issues of inequalities such as educational tracking, differential treatment of students based on race and lack of adequate resources to accommodate student needs.

“There were no multiracial student organizations to provide a vehicle for the youth to break down stereotypes, issues and develop healthy relationships,” Lin said.

With the ethnically diverse characteristic of the student body of Skyline, the Youth Together main focus is on leadership development, promoting multiracial justice, peace and unity, student advocacy/organizing, and a student-led school change campaign. The umbrella of goals targets the 52 percent African American, 27 percent Asian American, 7 percent Hispanic, and 14 percent white population at the school.

Skyline is trying to counter the lack of resources that translates into alarming drop-out rates: 43 percent African Americans; 25 percent Asian Americans; and Hispanics at 11 percent.

“Southeast Asian students are suffering. The dropout rates of Mien students is high,” Youth Together Coordinator Veronica Terriquez said.

According to Youth Together, there is a need to integrate programs for the disenfranchised groups. “Africans and Latinos and Southeast Asians are not getting into AP classes because they think they can’t take it,” student Tony Douangbiseth said.

Lin points out that language barriers and the lack of access to forms to get into honors classes may also prevent students who come from schools that don’t prepare middle school students to take college prep courses. “Their parents are immigrants or working class, maybe they’re in foster care, the parents don’t know these forms have to be filled out,” Lin said.

The Youth Center at Skyline High School hopes to promote peer tutoring, SAT prep, as well as meet health needs with a full-time nurse. “[The students] need a place where different people can ‘kick it’ with different races that will foster interracial relationships, to have non-competitive sports to ease the tension in a competitive environment,” Lin said. With the support of the community, the Youth Center hopes to achieve these goals.