"Nations who do not listen to the demands of their students run the risk of being left without a future." -- Eduardo Galeano

Thousands of students have unplugged themselves from their iPods and cell phones and PlayStations and started to talk, to listen and to participate in the reality that surrounds them.

It's about time.

In Puerto Rico, it's been almost a month since the students of the University of Puerto Rico have been on strike, protesting a series of drastic measures taken by the administration, which would reduce the possibilities for studying for many young Puerto Rican men and women.

In Arizona, high school students head up a demonstration at the offices of Senator John McCain (R-AZ), to remind him, now that he has taken a step backward when it comes to immigration reform, that he was one of the original sponsors of the DREAM Act, the law which would allow children of undocumented immigrants to attend university and obtain temporary residency permits. They were telling him that he should be true to his word and vote in favor of this law.

And yesterday [May 19], in Washington D.C., when First Lady Michelle Obama visited an elementary school accompanied by the First Lady of Mexico, a Latina pupil in the second grade asked her if it is true that President Obama was going to throw all the undocumented immigrants out of the country, confessing at the same time that her mother has no papers.

The courage of these youths and children, whether conscious, subconscious or innocent, should not be merely a subject for the news of the day and be forgotten tomorrow when some other noteworthy event elbows it off the front pages of the newspapers and out of prime time news broadcasts.

Just as the youth of this country woke up from their electronic lethargy during the 2008 presidential campaign and contributed in large part to the election of the country's first African-American president, now they must remain on the alert and participate in the daily – and boring – struggle for legislation and governance that affects them.

In Puerto Rico, parents, siblings, friends, members of the faculty and the populace in general, disobeyed orders from the police and passed water and food over the heads of a cordon of officers to the students entrenched in the Río Piedras district so that the students could sustain themselves and continue their protest.

That is the image of the event which ought to transcend all others and remain with us. Without the sustaining support of the rest of the population, the attempts at creating change by a group of young people would not get off the ground – worse still, it would undermine their faith in the future, which is to say, their faith in themselves.

And there is no greater crime than robbing a new generation of the belief that the future belongs to them.

Let us pass water and sandwiches and hope to the students.