Leading up to May Day, many of the organizers of earlier immigrant rights actions spoke out against walkouts. They planned events for later in the day, encouraging people to join them after work or school. Whatever effect this may have had on those considering whether to take the day off, it didn’t dampen anyone’s enthusiasm to turn out for the protests.

More than 100,000 workers and others, overwhelmingly Latinos and many of them young, marched from Union Square to Foley Square in Manhattan, filling Broadway for 30 blocks. Often protesters would sing and dance along the way, sometimes chanting, Aquí estamos y no nos vamos, y si nos echan regresamos! (We’re here to stay, and if they throw us out we will come back). Around 7:00 p.m., two hours after the march had started, rally organizers ended the program and police began to clear the area. But then thousands more buoyantly arrived, filling Foley Square a second time! The procession had gained steam as people got off work and made their way to the march with co-workers, neighbors, and family.

José Guzmán, a construction worker born in Ecuador, said his work site had been closed for the day because no one showed up. “There should be amnesty so I can travel back to my country,” and not fear being prevented from getting back into the United States, he said.

Mercedes Cortes, a high school student from Long Island, was one of the many marchers in their teens or early 20s. “This is a subject that hits home,” she said. “I understand the stakes. There should be a road for legalization. Political power is involved—they want to cut off immigrants’ access to power.”

Roger Toussaint, president of Transport Workers Union Local 100, was one of the speakers at the kick-off rally at Union Square. He told protesters to “not allow yourself to be intimidated. You are not a criminal, they are criminals.” Toussaint had been released April 28 after five days in jail for his role in leading 34,000 city bus and subway workers in a three-day strike last December. “I call on union leaders to redouble our commitment to organize the immigrant workforce,” he said.

Earlier in the day protesters formed human chains in several parts of the city at lunchtime. Some 3,000 turned out in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and thousands more in Jackson Heights, Queens. In the Garment District the UNITE HERE union organized a protest of about 125. “Everyone should have papers,” Amparo Arenas, a sewing machine operator, told the Militant, “so they don’t have to be scared of the police or of a knock on the door from immigration.” Turnouts at May Day rallies across New York State included 2,000 in Poughkeepsie, 450 in Ossining, and 4,000 in Hempstead, Long Island, where most day laborers reportedly stayed off the job.

El Diario, one of the main Spanish-language dailies here, reported there were immigrant rights actions in more than 20 cities in New Jersey. About 300 people, mostly day laborers, marched in Passaic, while many businesses closed for the day in North Bergen and Union City.

The immigrant workers’ boycott did affect many employers. More than 500 mushroom workers marched in Kennett Square, the center of U.S. mushroom production, south of Philadelphia. Output was down in the area. A company official at Pietro Industries told the Philadelphia Inquirer only eight of 120 workers came to work May 1. None of the 175 workers at one Vidalia onion farm in southeastern Georgia showed up. Industry officials in Florida told the media that more than one-half of workers at construction sites in Miami-Dade County weren’t on the job that day. Large rallies took place in Orlando, Miami, and Homestead, Florida.

Many employers opted against playing hardball. “Law firms have been advising their clients that the immigrant labor boycott is protected by the National Labor Relations Act, even though it isn’t specifically a union action,” said the May 2 Wall Street Journal.

Highly publicized raids by immigration cops in the two weeks ahead of May Day gave added urgency to the protesters’ demands for legal status.

Also sparking anger among supporters of immigrant rights was the blunt opposition by President Bush and other politicians, like Sen. Hillary Clinton, both to the May 1 boycott and to a Spanish-language version of the “Star-Spangled Banner.” “I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English, and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English,” Bush said at an April 28 news conference.

The New York Times editors warned two days before the May Day action that a massive walkout by immigrants would damage “their worthy cause.”

Judging by the smiling faces and surprise at the size and vigor of the May 1 march here, many of the onlookers along Broadway welcomed the show of strength by immigrant workers and their supporters.
 
 
Related articles:
Immigrant workers revive May Day: Up to 1 million in L.A.
Immigrant workers revive May Day: 400,000 in Chicago
May Day Actions for Immigrant Rights by State and City
May Day: a workers’ tradition reborn
Miami: 4,000 rally to back Haitian immigrants
U.S. gov’t interned Japanese from Latin America in WWII  
 
 
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