Magdalena:

When I first started, my neighbor told me that he got injured at work and asked me what he could do and if he had to pay for it or not. I said, "Well, if you got injured at work, your employer has to pay for the medical bills. You can get workers’ compensation." And he said, "That’s really good to know." Because he was in a union as well, I told him he should talk to his union representative.

There was some lady that was working in a sweatshop and she hadn’t been paid for four weeks of work. So I told her that she could sue him for not paying her. Also, I gave my cousin advice because he is under age. He’s not 14 yet and he started working so I told him he couldn’t work until he was 14. And he said, "Oh, but they’re paying me good money," and I replied, "The money’s not a big deal."

Nora:

I use my knowledge of workers’ rights. I tell my neighbors, I tell my parents, I tell people that I know can use this information in their jobs that they work in sweatshops. My mom says she has to do 300 certain things and she has to rush because she won’t even make the minimum wage. So I tell her about her rights because she didn’t know you could go complain and file a report that they are not getting paid minimum wage. So I told her and I told my neighbors too.

Leonardo:

The most useful thing I learned was the knowledge about safety at work. I’ve had the opportunity to use that information with my dad’s friends and my mom’s friends who work at places like that.

Jorge:

I never even knew about rights. Now I actually tell people. I try to let them know what their work rights are as workers. My mother had a work accident and she fell down or something. I don’t know exactly what happened, but she landed on a big basket and messed up her whole right side of her body. She wouldn’t have known about her rights, but I was helping her out.

With my cousins, I ask them if they’re working too late, they shouldn’t be working. You only should be working four hours while you’re in school.

Maria:

Right now my mom has a restaurant so every time I see little things that are very hazardous, I always tell her, "Mom, you have to do it this way." Besides my mom I have affected my husband and my brother-in-law as well.

Sara:

Local friends would ask me questions like, "If I worked so many hours this weekend – is that right or wrong?" And then I would tell them the actual right information. Some of my friends who worked at Company X worked too late. I told them, "You shouldn’t be working that long. They can’t require you to be there."

Octavo:

I have a job right now so I discovered a lot of things that my company was doing were against the law. I learned that they could not keep me after 10pm, so I learned a lot about that and I spread the work to friends and coworkers about the law too. I talked to a lot of the students about it.

Mavis:

My friends didn’t know the rules. Some of my friends were staying late at night and some weren’t getting paid like they were supposed to, so I would tell them the information and it turned out to be useful for them. Workers’ rights and the hours and the pay and all that – I shared that with all my friends.

John:

My dad didn’t really know about workers' rights and he’s been working for the same company for close to 20 years at a steel mill. He still didn’t know many of his rights or what he could get out of the job. It had been a couple of years since he had a raise and so he went to his supervisor, asked him about it. He got a pretty good raise out of it. Yeah. If it weren't for me, he never would’ve asked. So that’s cool!

I told some other students. A lot of them were working past midnight on school days in restaurants. After I informed them and they told their employers it worked out great for them. They got a lot out of the class even though they didn’t take it.

Maria:

We went to a class and it was the 9th graders, and at the beginning they took it like a joke but by the end of the class, they took us seriously. So it was a big achievement. At the beginning they were playing around like, "Oh yeah, workers’ rights. Who cares?" By the end, they cared a lot!

Leanardo:

I’m a little bit more confident with public speaking. I used to be very, very nervous.

Mauricio:

I remember the presentations we did in front of a bunch of people. I think the huge crowd had 300 people because we did it in front of an adult night school. We would all get nervous right at the moment, but we would just go ahead and do it anyway. It was a nice experience and a lot of people really appreciated it.

Jorge:

My best memory of this class would be just teaching other students and knowing how they react to the things they didn’t know.

Sara:

Since becoming a peer educator I’m much more comfortable talking in front of people. We saw that the audience paid attention and that was great. It was real fun doing that. I liked that.

Octavio:

My best memory was the presentation at UCLA because I never thought we could do that; we could actually be in high school and be teaching university students. The UCLA students were surprised that we knew all this stuff about teen workers’ rights. They knew how much courage we had to go up there and speak in front of total strangers, just being in high school. It felt cool because we accomplished something that a lot of people don’t. So that was something new for me. And I got used to it. It’s pretty easy now for me to go in front of people and talk to them. I’m going to be a teacher – it will help.

Mauricio:

It did help me. I wasn’t really aware of how to speak in front of people. At UCLA I was kind of nervous because I was an 11th grader going to teach people that have already graduated from high school. They actually were surprised that we knew things that they didn’t. When they were our age, they didn’t know about these things.

John:

We went to UCLA. That was the most memorable activity because we got involved with graduate students and gave the presentations that we got used to doing a lot in the class. We went through the class and gave presentations to 9th graders, and then we moved up to graduate students so that was a big jump. Probably later in life I’ll get a job or somewhere giving speeches because I like public speaking. It’s pretty cool. It was a lot of fun and everybody was paying attention. Later on they said that our presentations were well done. They couldn’t believe that we were still high school students. They thought we were in college. It was pretty cool!

Maria:

I see things differently now because some jobs I see must be really dangerous, and some are not so dangerous. Then it makes me think that we should care for our community, we should be involved, and what we gain by being involved. Also, I think that you can make a difference!

Nora:

It affected my life because I got to meet new people that I was never used to. I’m used to living in my community, and I never went out of my community. Because of this project I met new and interesting people and I made friends.

Jorge:

I am more aware of where I work and what kinds of jobs I get. You have to know what your working rights are.

John:

Now I realize how many bad things are around us and now I’ve seen how many people are suffering that we didn’t even know about.

Sara:

In many ways I see the politics even inside the actual projects, how people just manipulate other people and take advantage of other people. I understand what they mean by "politics" now with actual environmental problems and also social problems. It affected me.

Octavio:

It opened my mind a great deal because I didn’t know we could actually make a difference. It’s like a group of people just getting together and working for something that they know is wrong and trying to change something that they know is wrong.

Mauricio:

Now that I know what my rights are, I see the world different. I see what’s around me, and before I wouldn’t have seen what was around me. I would only see what I was doing, not what other people were doing.

Nora:

I would make more of these classes because it’s currently only one class, and only one teacher and only one period. I think they should get more classes and more teachers."

Jorge:

I just had a great experience, and I hope other schools and classes here at this high school take this course. It should be a requirement for 9th graders because you learn a lot.

Octavio:

I just wish there was a way they could expand this project more throughout LA and California and eventually go nationwide because this is a very good project. It helps a lot of people out.