There's this omnipresent movie playing on HBO, detailing the events of a 1968 walkout among East LA high schools, when the students decided to take matters into their own hands and enact change among the schools' pitiful conditions.

As "based on true events" movies tend to go, this flick's pretty awful, but it does serve the classic "Huh- I never heard about that" purpose. Right before the credits they show black-and-white footage from the actual walkouts - interesting stuff. Officials locking the kids in school so they can't march outside, cops courageously defending the city from high school students simply trying to make their voices heard.

That was 1968. Good thing we've been able to move past such measures, right?

...Right?

Well, yeah. It was, to a certain extent, deja vu all over again today at this predominantly hispanic high school protest I covered out in the boonies. The gates clank shut, keeping the kids in. Then the squad cars start patrolling the perimeter. Then, from a distance, I watch the deputies try to dissuade a couple hundred kids from walking out of class and onto the football field. When the kids finally make it up to the field bleachers without incident, chanting and cheering and waving signs, the cops stand guard at the base.

It was about the time I found myself clandestinely interviewing a soft-spoken but bold 15-year-old through a fence about what was happening in the school, sticking my iPod digital recorder through the bars, that the "Walkout" irony really hit me. The more things change...

And I know what you're thinking: An excuse to ditch class? Fuck yeah! Who wouldn't "protest"?

But I heard from several different students that the principal threatened to bar anyone participating in this afternoon event from attending prom. Or to yank athletes from the sports team - in a farm town where there's fuck-else to do. Well, whether it was a scare tactic or not, these kids sent the principal a giant "fuck you" that sure as hell earned my admiration. Later, I yelled questions to this girl from across the fence - she couldn't go on record because her teacher was glaring at her, but she did say, "We think this is a better cause (than prom)." She's not even eighteen.

When I was in high school, our "fuck you" to the principal was infesting the school's main hall with crickets and hoisting a trash can up the flagpole.

I guess the activism skipped a generation. Wherever you fall on immigration, these kids are the real deal.