It’s a good thing to wear your flag and show your national pride.
UNLESS, of course, you are an American in an American public school.
Every public school official knows that America is an evil place, and that its citizens should hang their heads in shame.
Five Morgan Hill students sent home for wearing American flag T-shirts
2:11 PM
By Lindsay Bryant
Live Oak High School students from left, Daniel Galli, Austin Carvalho, Matt Dariano and Dominic Maciel were sent home from school Wednesday because they were wearing American flag t-shirts on Cinco de Mayo. Photo by: Lora Schraft, Staff Photographer Freshman Laura Ponce shows off her Mexican pride as she wears a Mexican flag over her shoulders and wears facepaint Wednesday as she waits for school to get out at Live Oak. Photo by: Lora Schraft, Staff Photographer Five Live Oak High School students’ First Amendment rights were challenged this morning when they were asked to leave school because they donned American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo. Officials at the school chose not to comment on the situation, but one student said an official called the T-shirts “incendiary.”
“They said we were starting a fight, we were fuel to the fire,” said sophomore Matt Dariano.
The Morgan Hill Unified School District issued this statement: “In an attempt to foster a spirit of cultural awareness and maintain a safe and supportive school environment, the Live Oak High School administration took certain actions earlier today. 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 five teens were sitting at a table outside during their brunch break about 10:10 a.m. when Assistant Principal Miguel Rodriguez asked two boys to take off their American flag bandannas. The boys said they complied. In the same conversation, sophomore Dominic Maciel said, Rodriguez told the group to “walk with him to the office.”
Dariano called his mother Diana, who spread the word to the other parents, who all arrived soon after to have a conference with Rodriguez and Principal Nick Boden. The group said they were not instigating anything and did what they always do at break – sit and talk and eat.
The boys were told they must turn their T-shirts inside-out or be sent home – and that it would not be considered a suspension – but that Rodriguez did not want any fights to break out among Mexican-American students and those wearing American flags. Dariano said other students were wearing American flags but since they were a group of five “we were the easiest target to cause trouble” according to Rodriguez, he said.
The boys told Rodriguez and Boden that turning their T-shirts inside-out was disrespectful, so their parents opted to take them home.
“I just couldn’t believe it,” said Dominic’s mother Julie Fagerstrom. “I’m an open-minded parent, but it’s got to be on both sides. It Robert Airoldi 5/5/10 can’t can be five kids singled out.”
A front-desk secretary said Boden was unavailable for any comment on what had happened Wednesday and Rodriguez was busy with testing, the secrectary said.
More than 100 students were spotted wearing red, white and green as they were leaving school. Some had the Mexican flag painted on their faces or on their arms.
Nothing in Live Oak’s dress code policy addresses what transpired Wednesday, but it does state that “the school has the right to request that any student dressing inappropriately for school will change into other clothes, be sent home to change, and/or be subject to disciplinary action.”
One Mexican-American student, freshman Laura Ponce, had a Mexican flag painted on her face and chest, peaking out of her low-cut shirt. She did it because, “it’s our day, the only day we can show our spirit.” A school administrator took away the Mexican flag she was carrying as she was waiting to go home. Ponce said: “not cool.”
“There was a lot of drama going on today,” Ponce said. Some were saying “Mexico sucks” while Mexican-American students responded in their second language.
“Some were yelling Spanish to us,” Maciel said, who is half-Hispanic. “I couldn’t understand it, but it sounded bad.”
Some Mexican-American students said that their flags were taken away or asked to be put away, but none were sent home for wearing red, white and green. Since Boden would not comment, it’s uncertain if any other students were sent home for what they were wearing on Cinco de Mayo.
Live Oak High School even hosted a group of professional baile folklorico dancers, who waved flags and played traditional music from Mexico.
“It’s sad it’s come to this,” Fagerstrom said. “But we stand behind their patriotic nature and the boys expressing their individuality.”
The boys wrote a two-paragraph statement that they each signed detailing their support for American patriotism and that they felt disrespected and discriminated against when their First Amendment rights were discarded Wednesday at school.
“We were not going to start a fight. We wanted to show our pride,” Dariano said.
Yes, that’s right. Here in the good old US of A, American students were ordered to turn their American flag T-shirts inside out while Hispanic students all around them freely and proudly displayed their Mexican flags.
Showing pride in America isn’t such a great idea anymore, given that we now have a president who has repeatedly traveled around the world apologizing for America’s greed and depravity. I mean, pride in WHAT?!?!
That’s moral idiocy (aka liberalism, aka progressivism, aka Marxism) at work.
When I went to high school, I understood that liberals could do terribly stupid things. But I never thought for a second that we would one day descend to the point that our nation’s own flag would be banned in an American school funded with American taxpayer dollars.
Then again, I didn’t know that one day an anti-American racist Marxist would one day be president.
I also have to say this: if displaying an American flag is “incendiary” to Mexican students, then we need to kick their butts out of our country as fast as we freaking can. Because they obviously aren’t Americans if they hate our flag that much.
What those five brave kids needed was this guy…
Tags: American flag, Cinco de Mayo, Dariano, Fagerstrom, five teens, incendiary, Jim Brossard, Maciel, Mexican flags, Oak High School, T-shirts, United States of Mexico
Start Thinking Right 
May 7, 2010 at 9:37 am
Ugh, yeah. I think it was just a group of kids wanting to show American pride. Can’t we all celebrate Cinco de Mayo?
May 7, 2010 at 3:06 pm
The funny thing is that Cinco de Mayo isn’t really much of a big deal in Mexico.
There has been a giant furor which has actually increased, in which Mexicans here are protesting the American flag. We’ve seen them burning the American flag in other rallies. We’ve seen them flying the Mexican flag above the American flag.
I’m all for celebrating one’s ethnic identity. I would demand my children learn English even if we were living in another country; and I respect families that want their kids to understand and even take part of their heritage.
But if you live in America, you respect the American flag. If you’re going to protest the American flag, get the hell out of our country and protest it to your heart’s content in whatever other country.
And don’t you dare piss on my flag, and call me a racist for complaining about it or wanting to punch you in the mouth.
That’s my basic view, in a nutshell.
When wearing your flag is deemed “offensive” and “inflammatory,” something has gone desperately wrong with our nation and with our way of life.
May 7, 2010 at 7:31 pm
On certain days American patriotism is prohibited???
I’ll wear this shirt at any place and time I DAMN PLEASE!
http://tinyurl.com/patriotism-where-I-damn-please
May 7, 2010 at 8:07 pm
I have written to the principal of this school as I imagine thousands of others have and of course he backpeddled. Still that doesn’t excuse his idiotic decision in the first place. I think he should be compelled to resign. I have never heard of anything so insulting and moronic.
May 7, 2010 at 9:19 pm
I think I’ll go to Mexico and scream at everybody who wears Mexican colors on the Fourth of July. You know, just to see what it’s like to have that kind of chutzpah.
May 7, 2010 at 9:23 pm
Other than the election of Barack Obama – a man who palled around with terrorist bomber William Ayers, and who spent 23 years in Jeremiah Wright’s racist, Marxist, anti-American church – nothing else so stupid and moronic comes to mind.