KSP x LA Local: A Classroom Built for Organizing

The LA Local

Protesting immigration raids is a choice. He gives his students the tools to decide

History teacher Oscar Gutierrez helps his students at Miguel Contreras Learning Complex organize and understand their own place in history during a moment of immigration raids.

This article by Dayana Cabrera is part of a yearlong youth journalism cohort between The LA Local and the Koreatown Storytelling Program.

Every Thursday, history teacher Oscar Gutierrez opens his classroom at Miguel Contreras Learning Complex to students in MEChA, the club he advises. Dayana’s article follows Gutierrez and his students as they organize a walkout to City Hall to protest immigration raids, spending lunch periods making posters and planning chants in the weeks before. Gutierrez grew up in South Central in a family that migrated from Puebla, Mexico, and sees teaching as an extension of his own history with organizing. Dayana’s article was published in the LA Local on August 26, 2026.