Sacramento State students delivered a solidarity torch on Friday to hunger strikers at UC Berkeley.

Senior anthropology major Estevan Hernandez and senior sociology major Amanda Mooers made the hour and a half drive to deliver the torch, which was intended to encourage seven students who haven’t eaten since April 27.

“We gave the strikers a solidarity torch as a symbol of our support for them, encouraging them to pass on the torch to the next campus (that’s) fighting the good fight,” Mooers said.

The hunger strike is a response from Cal students to the administration’s attempts to consolidate three departments – gender and women’s studies, ethnic studies and African American studies – into one department.

The strike is meant to bring awareness to the value of ethnic studies and show public support for Assembly Concurrent Resolution 34. ACR 34 highlights the importance of ethnic studies as an academic discipline in the United States.

A traditional fasting drink made up of water with lemon, maple syrup and cayenne pepper is the only thing the hunger strikers have ingested.

The strikers demand that the Operational Excellence program, a restructuring initiative aimed at reducing spending, is suspended and departments are kept intact. Operational Excellence was adopted at other UC campuses and has been the target of previous student demonstrations.

Student strikers also want to see full-time ethnic studies staff rehired.

“(Students) feel these disciplines have been disproportionately affected compared to other departments,” Hernandez said. “The administration will justify keeping other departments such as nursing because nursing saves lives. Well, ethnic studies saves lives in different ways.”

Hernandez said Cal students want to keep the ethnic studies department intact because it is through ethnic studies that students learn about history, are able to represent the population of California and can recruit multi-cultural students to the university.

In the past three years, Cal faced $100 million in budget cuts.

Sac State students from the Sac State Coalition created the solidarity torch by attaching a black cone to a mosquito torch. On the torch, they wrote “Sac State sit-in 4/12/11 to 4/16/11” to remember the protest that happened recently at Sac State.

“(The torch) is going to circulate Northern California. The campus with the most revolutionary spirit receives the torch,” Hernandez said.

When the two Sac State students arrived at Cal on Friday, they helped create a circle of support for the seven hunger strikers.

About 75 to 100 students at the support rally expressed their approval by chanting and finger snapping. The students gathered listened to music and shared their protest stories.

Mooers and Hernandez addressed the crowd by talking about the demonstrations that took place at Sac State three weeks ago.

Mooers said the Cal students are pulling a lot of weight by going without food while organizing. Mooers said she had not eaten that morning and could not imagine not eating for 10 days straight like the strikers.

A Cal professor called for an end to the hunger strike because students are putting their lives on the line.

The strikers, however, have been receiving medical checks during their hunger strike. A Cal physical health student has been checking each student’s blood pressure and vital signs frequently.

One of the strikers, Jennie Lu, did not eat for six days and had to quit because she started losing feeling in her legs.

“We are going to continue to struggle, the hunger strike is no end,” Lu said.

She said the hunger strike is a continuation of the fight many others fought throughout history.

“As people of color, we’ve had to fight for every inch of space. Ethnic studies, gender and women studies, African American studies were a space created by student initiative,” Lu said.

Last May, there were 20 Cal students who went on a 10-day hunger strike in protest of Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070, an immigration law that allowed police to stop and question anyone they suspected of being in the country illegally. The courts have stopped this bill from taking effect.

Historically, there have been several hunger strikes, including that of Mahamata Ghandi, who did not eat for 21 days in May of 1932 and the 1988 Cesar Chavez hunger strike which lasted for more than 25 days.