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Dozens gathered at the 16th Street BART plaza on Saturday, April 4, rallying in support for the missing 43 students from Ayotzinapa in Guerrero, Mexico.<\/p>\n
After an hour filled with speeches, sign picketing, and Aztec dancing, demonstrators marched from 16th and Mission streets to Buena Vista Horace Mann elementary school, where some of the missing students\u2019 loved ones spoke of their anguish and frustration with the unsolved kidnappings.<\/p>\n
On Sept. 26, 2014, 43 male students from the Ra\u00fal Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers’ College of Ayotzinapa in Guerrero, Mexico, seized several buses and traveled to Iguala, Mexico to protest a conference led by Mayor Jose Luis Abarca\u2019s wife, Angeles Pineda.<\/p>\n
On their way to Iguala, the students were ambushed by local police and allegedly taken into custody by \u201cGuerreros Unidos\u201d gang members, where they were presumably killed. Mexican authorities arrested the former mayor and his wife in Mexico City in November 2014, and according to Mexico Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam the couple have been formally charged with orchestrating the kidnapping.<\/p>\n
This event triggered the resignation of Guerrero\u2019s governor, \u00c1ngel Aguirre Rivero, and international outrage over government corruption and police brutality.<\/p>\n
Caravana 43, an activist organization in the United States, coordinated three caravans to call attention to justice for the 43 missing students and plead with the government to reconsider its military aid to Mexico.<\/p>\n
The Ayotzinapa visitors included: Estanislao Mendoza, father of a disappeared student Miguel Angel Mendoza Zacarias; Blanca Luz Nava V\u00e9lez, mother of a disappeared student Jorge Alvarez Nava; Josimar de la Cruz Ayala and his brother Angel Neri de la Cruz Ayala, a student and one who survived the Sept. 26 attacks; and Cruz Bautista Salvador, a professor at the teacher\u2019s college.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last few months, I\u2019ve been feeling sad for not knowing where my son is,\u201d said Blanca Luz Nava V\u00e9lez. \u201c[In Mexico] we don\u2019t have a media that supports us or that tells the truth. That\u2019s why we are here. So that hopefully we have the support of the media from here [United States]\u201d<\/p>\n
The rally raised about $3,000 to help aid the Caravana 43\u2019s tour around the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe support from the people [in the United States] is very big in our mission to find the missing students,\u201d said Estanislao Mendoza. \u201cThe donations we receive from the people is what helps us sustain this tour. It gives us strength to move forward in our mission. \u201d<\/p>\n
Mendoza said that their first priority is finding the students.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been searching for six months from one place to the other,\u201d Mendoza said, \u201cplanning what we are going to do to find our kids and to get the word out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The families of the students expressed their disappointment with the Mexican government\u2019s lack of support in the search. Several politicians including President Enrique Pe\u00f1a Nieto promised to help retrieve the students, and yet nothing has been done, according to Mendoza.<\/p>\n
Art and dance and resistance<\/strong> \u201cThis [dance] is a form of resistance,\u201d said Ni\u00f1a Rodriguez. \u201cIt\u2019s a form of prayer and blessing for the 43 students. Through dance, we are praying that they\u2019re okay and they\u2019re alive.\u201d<\/p>\n Jovani Rodriguez, an artist, held two large painted sheets, with the help of a few friends.<\/p>\n \u201cI went through something similar that the families went through in 2006 in the city of Oaxaca where I am from,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cThere was a revolt to impeach the governor in our state where I became really involved with activism work. Since sometimes violence, fists and sticks don\u2019t have an effect \u2026 I thought why not create art and let it have a greater effect on people.\u201d<\/p>\n Jovani\u2019s first piece, titled \u201cM\u00e9xico Secuestrado\u201d or \u201cMexico is Kidnapped,\u201d illustrated a person blindfolded and gagged. His second piece, \u201cWe are here to express our complete solidarity of the people of Ayotzinapa because every one of those students was a hero,\u201d said Joey Johnson, an organizer with the Stop Mass Incarceration Network. \u201cWe want them all back alive.\u201d<\/p>\n On April 6 the caravan visited City College of San Francisco where campus organizations like Movimiento Estudiantil Chican@ de Aztlan (M.E.C.H.A) and Associated Student Council of CCSF (ASC) showed solidarity with Los 43.<\/p>\n \u201cAyotzinapa was the last straw because just like the mass murders and missing people of Mexico and the femicides in Juarez, people are mobilizing in trying to do something about it,\u201d said CCSF student and M.E.C.H.A member Itzel Calvo.<\/p>\n Caravana 43 will continue its tour through Pacific Coast cities and across the nation to spread the word, find answers and seek the justice the students deserve.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we want is for people to be conscious about what is happening and to see that it is wrong and to react,\u201d V\u00e9lez said. \u201cWe can\u2019t stay the way we are and allow the government to oppress us whenever they want. It needs to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dozens gathered at the 16th Street BART plaza on Saturday, April 4, rallying in support for the missing 43 students from Ayotzinapa in Guerrero, Mexico.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":26069,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3929],"tags":[2906,4753,3807,4747,4751,3779,3806,4749,440],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-26068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en","tag-16th-street-bart-plaza","tag-angeles-pineda","tag-ayotzinapa","tag-caravana-43","tag-guerrero","tag-jose-luis-abarca","tag-los-43","tag-m-e-c-h-a","tag-mexico","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nThe April 4 event started with an Aztec traditional dance as the crisp air filled with the smell burning sage.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cAyotzinapa \u00a1Lucio Vive!,\u201d was a detailed portrait of one of the students.<\/p>\n