Immigration issues transformed Anthony Lemus, a 16-year-old who admits to falling asleep in class, into a charismatic, megaphone-grasping leader who was instrumental at the DC rallies. Other “political issues, such as the Iraq war, have not galvanized him,” he told the Washington Post, “because they do not threaten a single race and don’t seem like things he can change.”
Pacific News Service criticizes the mainstream press for producing too few articles like the one about Lemus, saying the media has failed to give young people due credit for their effective organizing around immigration issues. In Los Angeles, for instance, the thousands of young people who mobilized did so almost entirely through fliers, text messages, and MySpace bulletins.