Today marks the first day of May – the first day of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and May Day.
May Day has roots in commemorating the historic struggles of the working class and labor movement. Since 1899, working class and labor organizations have commemorated May 1st as a day to support workers – in honor of the Haymarket Riot in Chicago in 1886 [1]. It was during this movement that propelled the 8-8-8 demand: 8 hours for work, 8 hours for play, and 8 hours for rest.
Over the decades, May 1st’s International Workers Day began to recognize our immigrant communities’ role in labor. As early as 2006, immigrant organizers began mobilizing to show up in the streets to demand fair wages and safe working conditions. But we have always been part of the labor movement.
Whether it was the Delano Grape Strike organized by Filipino and Mexican workers to the Chinese railroad workers in the 1880s to garment workers in New York City, immigrants have always been organizing for healthy working conditions [2, 3, 4].
Today, we know and recognize that our immigrant communities are the driving force of our working class, taking on often-unfavorable jobs and keeping our communities safe and thriving. We know we can count on our immigrant workers.
But since 2016, the rising xenophobic and anti-immigrant sentiments have fueled policies that ban Muslims, an attempt to strip education rights, and separate families at the border [5, 6]. Today, we see increased repression against immigrants for speaking out – an attempt at suppressing our organizing power.
In 2017, the first Day Without Immigrants protest and boycott urged immigrants to abstain from participating in normal, daily life. From Atlanta to Chicago to even rural cities like Northfield, MN, shops and restaurants closed their doors in solidarity and thousands of demonstrators took to the streets [7]. This disruption showed the absence of our immigrant communities in the workforce.
Right now, our immigrant communities are the first to face deportation and criminalization for dissent. Our family members are abducted and disappeared; international students face this same repression for speaking out against a rising fascist regime [8].
With renewed attacks on our immigrant communities, hundreds of May Day actions are growing across the U.S. On Thursday, May 1st, thousands are marching for immigrants, for students, for our friends and family. Because an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us.
This May Day, urge your members of Congress to block the administration’s devastating attacks on immigrants and protect our immigrant families.
Next, find a local May Day action to rally with us.
The current administration is trying to divide us, but we know our power is in our collective struggle. We come from a lineage of people who have resisted oppression here in the belly of the beast and in our ancestral homelands.
Through our labor, our determination and community care, we build people power and organize!
In solidarity,
Leyen, Kari, Allison, Irma, Van, Turner, and Sharmin – the 18MR Team
Sources:
[1] Haymarket Affair – Britannica
[2] Workers United: The Delano Grape Strike and Boycott
[3] Railroad – Chinese Labor Strike, June 24th, 1867
[4] Garment workers’ strike begins in New York City’s Chinatown
[5] Donald Trump’s Muslim Ban – ACLU Michigan
[6] Supreme Court Overturns Trump Administration’s Termination of DACA
[7] Tens of Thousands Strike on Day without Immigrants
[8] What we know about the foreign college students targeted for deportation
UPDATE 11/4/24 Download our FREE ZINE for you to print out, fold and distribute to your community. Though the Marathon is over, we still must inform […]
“There are millions of Palestinian refugees all over – so when we think about our food sovereignty it’s about cultural preservation in the places that we’re in, and that’s inevitably interconnected with the other people […]
