Roughly 400 people took to the intersection of Artesia and Hawthorne Boulevard Saturday morning, joining a nationwide protest against zero-tolerance federal immigration practices that have led to the separation of children from families.

Protestors stood at each corner, and along each median, waving signs, chanting, and cheering when supporters (whether from cars or LA Metro buses) passed by, sounding their horns.

This spring, the Alameda Unified School District (AUSD) engaged in a comprehensive review of our budget. Our goal was to identify our educational priorities and then find ways to realign the budget in order to direct more funding to employee salaries, which are about 10 percent less than the county average.

For an area within a stone’s throw of busy Inglewood Boulevard and 190th Street, the neighborhood that surrounds Redondo Beach’s Franklin Park is quiet, even on a Saturday afternoon.

Walking the sidewalks, the loudest sounds are cheers from a birthday party at the park itself, a dog barking, or dishes rattling around while people make dinner. At least, until a BNSF railroad freight train rolls down the tracks that ride the border between Torrance and Redondo Beach.

More than three decades have passed since Jeff Spicoli uttered the iconic phrase in the cult classic “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”: “Surfing’s not a sport, it’s a way of life. It’s no hobby. It’s a way of looking at that wave and saying, ‘Hey bud, let’s party.’”

Now California appears to be taking that to heart as the state considers a bill that would make surfing the state sport.

A bill in the state legislature aims to make surfing the official sport of the state of California.

AB 1782 has already passed out of the state Assembly. Next stop: the state Senate.

Lots of things officially represent California. We have a state mineral — yep, gold! We have a state fabric — denim, of course. We have a state fossil — no, not Gov. Jerry Brown — it’s the saber-toothed cat.

Now lawmakers in the state that gave us the wetsuit, Gidget and the Beach Boys are well on their way to proclaiming surfing California’s official sport. A bill to that effect passed overwhelmingly out of the state Assembly last month and is finding no resistance in the Senate.

SANTA CRUZ >> Surf’s up — for debate — in Sacramento as the state Senate considers a proposal that would make surfing the Golden State’s official sport.

Assembly Bill 1782 is in the lineup to be heard on the Senate floor as soon as this week, after which it would head to the governor’s desk. It passed through the Assembly in May with little opposition.

Mas Okui was 10 years old when he was separated from his mother.

It was April 1942. Two months before, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had signed Executive Order 9066, which turned the West Coast into a military zone after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. American citizens and other residents of Japanese ancestry were evicted from their homes and held in internment camps across the country.

Surfing is primed to become the official sport of California after a group of local politicians rode a wave of popular enthusiasm in the state to clinch an initial vote suporting its adoption.

The proposal will now be debated in the senate, with supporters hoping it can see off competition from backers of skateboarding, another quintessentially Californian sport.