Why I'm Marching

I'll be posting photos, bios and statements from marchers who will walk the entire way to the state capitol in Sacramento. The first person you'll meet below is one of our local guild's Vice-Presidents as well as an individual I am proud to serve with.

Jim Miller

Why I March:
Jim Miller teaches English and Labor Studies at San Diego City College. He lives in San Diego with his wife, Kelly Mayhew, and their son, Walt.

I am marching for my son, Walt, a kindergartener at McKinley Elementary School in San Diego. I don’t want his class size to get even bigger and his education to suffer as a result. I don’t think the families of children in public schools should have to pay out of pocket for arts, music, language, library materials, sports, and other essential parts of their children’s education.

I want to be able to afford to put my son through college without destroying my retirement, and I want the same for my neighbors. I want my students at City College to succeed and not have to worry about dropping out of school for economic reasons. I want the kids of the farm workers in the towns I’ll be marching through in the Central Valley (where the median annual income is $5,000 in some places) to have a better future, not to have the fate of a pauper.

I am marching because we are pondering closing a host of our beautiful state parks and seriously considering privatizing our prisons. We are slamming shut the doors of opportunity and gutting our infrastructure. All of this is being done in the service of protecting the interests of the most fortunate individuals and large corporations at the expense of the greater good. This is not a just future for California. We cannot let it stand. We must restore majority rule to Sacramento’s broken budgeting process and bring back a fair and equitable progressive tax system.

We need to get serious and ask ourselves what kind of future we want for our children. If, to borrow a line from Dr. Martin Luther King, our futures are inextricably bound to the future of our neighbors, then it¹s time to realize that if we don¹t invest in the future of ALL Californians, we will all suffer. Our economy, communities, and families depend upon us having a commitment to something larger than ourselves.

That is why I am marching to Sacramento, to make a case for a future California that works for all of us.