“A hunger strike has no limits,” said Angel Cervantes, a Claremont Graduate School student who is one of the five southland students who pledged to starve on Oct. 17 until the University of California Regents agreed to meet and reevaluate their July 20 decision to roll back affirmative action programs.
Early Tuesday, four of the five strikers traveled to Sacramento to bring their concerns to Gov. Pete Wilson, who urged the Regents’ decision to drop affirmative action, and was conveniently out of town when they arrived. The group, less one, continues its strike at UC Davis.
One was reported too ill to make the trip. The other four were wheelchair-bound, their bodies too weak to walk.
Making Gov. Wilson listen to their plea may prove to be a greater challenge than the hunger strike itself. Five emaciated bodies will likely fall short of stirring any kind of emotion or hint of tolerance in this badly-chosen elected official.
A hunger strike should have no limits. If an individual has chosen self-starvation as the way to send a message, no one should create obstacles to keep that person’s voice from being heard.
Yet, the hunger strike that these students have inflicted on their minds and bodies has fallen short of grabbing the attention they seek. The demonstration was overshadowed by their arrest on Sunday on the UC Irvine campus.
Word of the protest did not spread until 20 campus police officers broke through the chain of a reported 150 supporters who guarded the “liquids-only” demonstrators.
According to New University, the UCI campus newspaper, law enforcement interrupted the 13th day of the hunger strike, and 299th hour without food, to arrest the strikers.
The arrests were made because of the administration’s concern for the students’ health and their refusal to end the strike after 10 days.
Did the administration believe that these students were starving themselves just to get their anger against the Regents’ decision out of their system?
Their demands of a Regents meeting and a reduction in student fees were not met. This strike is more than a demonstration, it is a call for action. A call that the Regents and California are plugging their ears to keep from hearing.
The strikers have shown damaging symptoms related to starvation—fatigue, back pains and headaches. One demonstrator’s health has been so severely affected that signs of kidney and liver failure have begun.
These observations were made during one of the twice-daily routine medical checks UCI administrators asked of the strikers.
The concern of the administration became the health of the protesting students, instead of the message the emaciated bodies were expressing.
The administration should preoccupy itself with dealing with the affirmative action issue at hand, rather than mothering its students.
Cesar Cruz, one of the strikers, has had his mother by his side throughout the two weeks of starvation. “I know he is right. I feel proud because they are so brave to do this,” she told the Los Angeles Times.
Unfortunately for the administration, 13 days of starvation did not hinder the group’s purpose.
Hopefully, these individuals who have participated in the hunger strike will join the list of great activists like Cesar Chavez and Ghandi. Like these great leaders, the hunger strikers chose self-suffering to send their message, instead of inflicting their personal beliefs on others.
”People united will never be divided,” is what supporters chanted when the hunger strikers were handcuffed and removed from the UCI campus.
Hopefully, this statement rings true and the pain and suffering of these five men will not be in vain.
