Back in the late '70s and '80s, when most white people didn't feel safe in predominantly Latino neighborhoods like San Francisco's Mission district (or inner cities, for that matter), summer started with Cinco de Mayo. Tiny, hyper-local street fairs where Mexican restaurants, crowds of happy, loud brown people and lamb chop-sideburned Santana-wannabe garage bands filled the air with cultural and political electricity. It went largely unnoticed outside of the Latino neighborhood, what used to be called El Barrio.
Cinco de Mayo's mix -- live salsa, mariachi and rock Latino music; sometimes-inspired English and Spanish-language political speeches and volanteando (flyering) -- provided the soft cultural cushion for generations of citizens and non-citizens dropped by the American Dream. And none but the cigarette smoking Marxista even knew or spoke about May Day, the International Workers Day rallies that filled cities around the country this past weekend.
Thirty years, millions of mobile devices and a massive wave of migration later, Latinos have largely forgotten the meaning of Cinco de Mayo. There's still considerable color, music and even some inspiration among attendees at Cinco de Mayo events, but the electricity of the events has been heavily doused by beer promoters trying to capture Latina hearts and minds, and by military recruiters desperate for young Latino bodies.
With notable exceptions among the more thoughtful Cinco de Mayo organizers around the country, event organizers no longer tell us that we're celebrating the victory of the badly equipped, but inspired Mexican guerrilla army that fought and defeated the far better-equipped forces of Napoleon III's decaying French Empire. Cinco de Mayo's loss of electricity has itself become a Latino-"American" sign of imperial malaise.
Instead, our electricidad has migrated to Primero de Mayo (May Day). Born in the U.S., after immigrant and other workers protesting in Chicago's Haymarket Square were killed by police in the late 19th century, Primero de Mayo was, until very recently, a largely forgotten commie affair.
Today, Latino workers, specifically immigrant workers, march against the militarized immigration forces of President Obama, and these workers are powering May Day back to relevance in a decaying empire that tries to border itself off from the rest of the working world by celebrating "Labor Day" in September. The day connects us to people marching throughout the hemisphere and the entire world; it previews and makes palpable the bottom-up borderlessness that is the only salvation for this extremely troubled planet.
So we now have a big border wall between the increasingly domesticated (i.e. distributors of Budweiser are giving vendors slick promotional materials celebrating "Lime-O de Mayo") Cinco de Mayo events and the fresher, more insurgent and globally unifying Primero de Mayo. But in times like these -- with war and corporate domination bankrupting community, culture and the planet itself -- there's more at stake than a debate over corporate cooptation or anxiety about the kinds of events we want in our neighborhoods. The difference between Cinco de Mayo and Primero de Mayo reflects the difference between forces pushing 50 million Latinos in this country to align with the corporate powers behind both the Tea Party and the Democratic Party, and the forces that are pulling us to fight the power -- including that of the president of the United States.
Joining the beer pushers and military recruiters on the Cinco de Mayo streets will be the political operatives of Candidate Obama. Fueled by the Bush-like patriotic fever following the killing of Osama bin Laden, these operatives, including many Latinos, will be trying to paper over the juggernaut of deportation that President Obama's other operatives, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, have rolled over Latino streets. Obama is breaking -- and politically bragging about -- records for persecution, imprisonment and deportation of undocumented immigrants.
But all is not lost. Millions of Latinos have marched and will continue to organize in response to President Obama's war on immigrants. They and their allies marched last weekend in direct opposition to the militarism and corporate domination that define U.S. immigration policy and threaten the planet itself. As we marched in Primero de Mayo actions throughout the country, we celebrated and stepped towards a new, more globally connected country, the United States of América.
Que Viva el Primero de Mayo!
(This post first appeared in Colorlines)
Follow Roberto Lovato on Twitter: www.twitter.com/robvato
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Actually, most white people still don't feel safe in the Mission unless it's broad daylight, and they can pick up their order of tacos without losing sight of their friend's car idling outside. It was a hipster's paradise during the dotcom, but it's back to being a gangland battleground.
BHO is "waging war on immigrants" via deportations, Secure Communities, E-Verify, 287(g), Worksite I-9 Audits, false promises of immigration reform, failed The DREAM Act, & no 8th Amnesty coming.
Republican corporations are exploiting illegal immigrants' cheap labor
Seems like everyone is against the illegal immigrants these days ~ tough life, "living in the shadows" as a fugitive from U.S. Immigration Laws
Having Cinco de Mayo being an American holiday now more than a Latino holiday is a good thing. It'll be like the Mexican version of Saint Patrick's Day, when everyone's a little bit Irish. Isn't it better to celebrate the contributions of Mexicans and Mexican culture to America in an inclusive manner rather than wishing for the past when Mexicans were feared by the mainstream and separated into their own ethnic enclaves? The beauty and strength of American society lies in integration, not segregation.
True global unity doesn't lie in some misguided neo-Marxist global get together. The vast majority of people have no interest in revolution, instead they want a happy family, a good job, and a safe neighborhood. That's much more Corona and Cinco de Mayo rather than rallies and Primo de Mayo, and there's nothing wrong with that.
They have the right to rally for more rights in this country. The work that legal and yes ILLEGAL immigrants do in this country keep costs down in agriculture and construction. They also pay taxes as well.
Latinos can rally, sure, that's part of our democratic society, they can even lobby for allowing illegal immigrants to stay. Conversely, I have the right to disagree, and maintain that we have borders for a reason, and that it's unfair to all the legal immigrants to let the illegal ones have a free pass. As to taxes, well, they certainly can't file income tax returns if they're here illegally, paying sales tax is only part of the tax obligation as a citizen.
Look, we're a society of laws, and that includes immigration laws too.
The way you worded this, you make it seems like a bad thing. This along with eliminating Bin Laden have been his most impressive accomplishments. He still need to do more, such as mandatin E-verify and I-9 workplace audits, but I think he will.
From the Los Angeles Times:
"By 10 a.m. only a few hundred immigrant rights and labor activists had gathered at Broadway and Olympic Boulevard in downtown Los Angeles to rally public support for legislation that would legalize the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants."
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/05/small-turnout-at-may-day-march.html
Record breaking 3.57% of illegals deported annually = in 60 years, there will still be 1.22 million illegals left to deport
Subject to ZERO new illegal entries and ZERO re-entry of illegals during this time period
The people entering illegally as well as the ones overstaying their Visas is the problem that the government will not address. If the border was secured permanently, you wouldn't have to do the 400k deportations a year.
But you are right, it seems that the march does indeed continue - across the border. But that is the whole point - it is against the law and must stop! As much as you feel you need to be a martyr, no matter how much you try to make this a Latino issue or immigration issue there is no entitlement there!
This is about illegal immigration and the majority of people choosing to break the law so happen to be hispanic.