May Day Ten Years Later: Reflections on the Legacies of Immigrant Spring Kent Paterson - CIP Americas
go to original May 2, 2016

MAYDAY 2006 NYC - "A Day Without Immigrants" (meerkatmedia)

As the militant protests against Donald Trump in California and across the nation attest, resistance to open racism and xenophobia is on the upswing. On May Day 2016, demonstrations from different sectors of the immigrant rights and labor movements once again hit U.S. streets.

United under the hashtag #OnMayday, demonstrations in Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Milwaukee and other U.S. cities cast attention on the U.S. Supreme Court’s upcoming decision on a Texas court’s ruling that blocked President Obama’s order to defer the deportation of some immigrants, and to encourage voter registration.

In Los Angeles, organizers also targeted police brutality, while Houston activists expressed solidarity with repressed Mexican teachers and denounced the assassination of Honudran environmentalist and indigenous rights leader Berta Caceres.

Organizations supporting #OnMayDay included United We Dream, the Center for Community Change, the AFL-CIO, Service Employees International Union, and Voces de La Frontera, among many others.

Looking Back

On May 1st a decade ago, women and men living in the shadows shook the United States to its core. Subsisting on the poorest paid jobs and enduring the worst employment conditions of the economy, undocumented immigrants demanded the regularization of their status and basic respect for their human dignity.

As one sign proclaimed at a rally in Albuquerque, New Mexico: “We Pick, We Cook, We Serve Your Food.”

On International Workers Day 2006, immigrants and their allies took to the streets, walked out of classes, boycotted businesses and stayed home from work and school. For the first time in generations, the possibility of a general strike in the United States materialized, as West Coast shipping terminals were shut down and thousands of businesses dependent on immigrant labor and customers closed.

Suddenly revived as a day of labor and social action in the United States, May Day 2006 drew the active participation of between one million-plus to several million people, depending on the estimates.

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