By Seth Daniel
During a home matchup against Notre Dame on Tuesday afternoon, Oct. 3, the Chelsea High Volleyball team knelt through the National Anthem. Notre Dame’s players opted to stand and salute the flag instead. The squad—featuring Arianna Pryor, Xiana Herasme, Masireh Ceesay and Guidairys Castro among others—intends to maintain this protest throughout the season to spotlight the inequities affecting immigrant and minority young people. One Methuen school has requested they not appear at their facility to take a knee, deciding to forfeit rather than host the team.
Seven seniors anchor the Chelsea High School girls’ volleyball squad, a roster that has remained largely intact for years. That continuity has fostered a tight-knit dynamic, almost familial in nature, enabling the players to move as one unit.
It operates nearly on instinct, they explain.
When the group first decided to kneel during the National Anthem to send a message at Whittier Tech on Tuesday, Sept. 19, the action was spontaneous and uncoordinated beforehand.
The moment simply unfolded, then recurred twice more—and like anthem protests elsewhere, the gesture has ignited substantial debate throughout Chelsea High, across the broader community, and in the neighboring municipalities where they compete.
Every one of the 11 roster members now takes a knee, having done so again this past Tuesday afternoon at Chelsea High.
“When it happened first, it wasn’t planned and it was just spontaneous and we all went down,” explained Arianna Pryor, noting their action preceded the larger NFL demonstrations that surfaced on Sept. 24. “We gave each other the look and then it happened. It was just a natural thing. We had talked about it, but never planned on doing it. It was almost like mental telepathy.”
Team leadership indicates each player kneels for distinct reasons—immigration concerns, racial discrimination, economic prospects, or resource accessibility—though collectively they seem to contest the notion that the nation truly embodies freedom or provides equality for all of created or all of.
“For me, a majority of us have immigrant parents and they came to the country to provide a better future for us,” remarked Rym El Mahid, a newcomer to the squad. “. What kind of American Dream is there if things are working against our parents all the time?”
Ruchellie Jimenez participates in the kneeling because she witnesses disparate treatment, experiencing it directly. Shifting these patterns matters to her, and she views the protest as instrumental in advancing her message.
“I don’t think it’s fair how we have systematic forces against us and are always in the backseat of America,” she noted. “We struggle and get the scraps of everyone else. My parents were immigrants and I see the way they are treated and the way I am treated. That’s why I take the knee. It isn’t fair.”
For context, she described pursuing SAT tutoring outside Chelsea with a counselor recently to boost her performance.
“I was sitting with the counselor and they looked at my score and said I was a minority and from a low-income area, so I was all set; there was not need for me to try to get better,” she stated. “That’s not how I want to be treated. I just want to do better on my SAT.”
According to Pryor, she observed others kneeling as a means of catalyzing change and brought the concept to her teammates. Discussion followed, though no concrete strategy emerged initially. Eventually, her conviction solidified—she wanted to make their perspective visible, to signal that conditions require correction.
“I take a knee because I want to be there with the others that are trying to make a difference,” she expressed. “I take a knee because things need to change.”
The group emphasized their deep respect for military personnel and veterans, both those lost and those bearing lasting wounds. They stressed no intention to demean service members. Instead, they selected the anthem as their platform because it represented a peaceful method and constituted one of few accessible channels through which high school athletes could speak.
“Our team is very ethnically diverse and culturally diverse,” stated Capt. Jessica Martinez. “We feel strongly about how our country has been going, and we wanted to make our point in a way that wouldn’t seem violent or aggressive, but rather intelligent. We wanted to do something that showed we took a lot of time thinking out our actions.”
She elaborated that staging their demonstration at City Hall or similar public locations risked escalating into confrontation—an outcome they rejected.
Jimenez added, “We’re very grateful for what the veterans have done and they have given us freedom of speech to take the knee. I don’t think there is any other way for us to do this publicly. Everyone knows what taking a knee is.”
Within the school environment, responses have diverged sharply.
Considerable student opposition exists, they acknowledged, though others provide enthusiastic backing.
Last Friday, the Chelsea High cheerleaders themselves knelt before the home football game.
Coach Serena Wadsworth, recognizing her players’ conviction and their intention to sustain the kneeling throughout the season, distributed correspondence to opposing programs. While most schools responded with understanding, one Methuen institution objected to the girls’ arrival with the intent to kneel. That school cited concerns about alignment with institutional principles. They proposed forfeiting rather than hosting, though they offered to play in Chelsea as an alternative.
Notably, the athletes stressed their message targets schools beyond Chelsea—institutions less demographically varied and unfamiliar with their lived experiences.
“Our message isn’t really to be taken to only those who are doing the discrimination,” stated El Mahid. “People who aren’t minority – the white and well off – don’t know the discrimination we face. It’s a way to get the discrimination out there.”
As they contemplate the 2017 Chelsea High volleyball season’s legacy, all concur it will likely be defined by this moment. They hope their gesture prompts reflection and potentially inspires continuation elsewhere.
“There are other teams and other seasons,” offered Masireh Ceesay. “They will see what we did and see it as an example, I hope, and carry it on and find ways to go forward with our statement.”