MAY DAY BEGAN in the United States with the 19th century struggle for the eighthour day, led by immigrant workers. May 1, 1886 was the date of the infamous Haymarket mass rally and bombing, for which nine anarchists were falsely convicted and four of them hanged.
In the course of the ensuing 120 years, the eight-hour day was won, then lost, and the tradition of May Day spread around the world but was buried in the country of its birth.
Buried, that is, until now. A new generation of immigrant workers revived May Day this year, with mass marches, partial strikes and boycotts. The organizers called it "A Day Without Immigrants" to demonstrate the dependence of important economic sectors on immigrant labor both "legal" and "illegal." Better to call it "May Day With Immigrants."
Here Detroit, the turnout in the southwest Latino community was much smaller than the 10,000 or more who poured out for the marco severa weeks earuen against the savage House of Representatives bill (HR4437) that would turn all undocumented workers into felons.
Where Mexican flags predominated among marchers on that occasion, organizers this time urged participants to display U.S. flags and their "American" identity. (Your correspondent is unable to explain how it turned out that the Jimi Hendrix recording of "The Star Spangled Banner" was played on the loudspeaker - one of those great cultural
you Just can't script.) Economic impact
Strikingly, however, the economic impact was visible, with numerous stores along west Vernor Avenue, the bustling main street of the Latino community, shuttered for the day. In a recent successful community struggle, nearly Iwo aozen workers fired by a company for taking off work the day of the earlier mass march have regained
Here and around the country, however, hundreds of workers have been victimized, so that on May Day people were urged to go to work if failing to do so would cost their jobs.
1 ne real story, nowever, wasn't Detroit but cities like Los Angeles and Chicago where - for the second time this spring - hundreds of Thousands of immigrant workers and supporters turned out.
In Los Angeles, as labor photojournalist David Bacon wires. mobilization "filled the streets twice in one day - a huge march downtown, and another through the Wilshire district's Miracle Mile. There were so many people that those participating said they were sin numero - uncountable...
"They called for amnesty -permanent residence visas which would give the undocumented immediate legal status and rights - and equality - opposing second-class status as temporary or guest workers. They carried thousands of a men can flags, chanting Aqui Estamos y No Nos Vamos - We're Here, and We're Not Leaving.
Hundreds of thousands of immigrants had taken the day off work or school to come to the marches, and refrained from buying anything to show their economic importance Even the LA Metro let marchers on for free."
To be sure, there is another side of this story - an ugly upsurge of racism and crude Nativism which, it must be Filling the streets of LA twice in one day - immigrant workers show strength in numbers admitted, is as much a part of United States history as the tradition of May Day and labor struggle. Border patrol
Since 1998, according to the Border Patrol, nearly 2000 people have died of exposure and thirst trying to cross the desert where they've been driven by the massive fence that cuts off entry through California.
Author and activist Mike Davis, whose San Diego home looks directly south toward Tijuana, says "we can't deny the fact that there is an invasion going on over the border. It's an invasion of Baja California (Mexico) by tens of thousands of wealthy U.S. citIzens seeking ano investment opportunilies. The difference of course is that they have rights in Mexico, which are denied to people from Mexico seeking work in the USA."
That's the reality of "globalisation" - unprecedented freedom for movement of capital and the affluent, immiseration for the majority whose indigenous economies are
"free trade." destroyed by What May 1, 2006 shows is that May Day has come home, and the fightback has begun.