After a one-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, hundreds of union members, immigrant-rights advocates and community activists took part in marches Saturday in traditional May Day processions in support of worker rights and immigration reform.
The Full Rights for Immigrants Coalition started a march and car caravan at Broadway and Olympic Boulevard, ending at City Hall.
About 200 cars were driven in the caravan and about 500 people marched, said Jorge Mario Cabrera of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights.
“We are demanding prompt and meaningful relief for those impacted by Covid-19, including undocumented workers; respect and rights for all workers, including right to unionize; bold and humane immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship for all 11 million undocumented,” Cabrera said.
“Through the May 1 march and car caravan in downtown Los Angeles, we want to send a clear message to the Congress of the United States that our community will accept nothing less than what’s contained in the president’s U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021,” said Juan Jose Gutierrez, executive director of the One Stop Immigration and Educational Center.
Members of the Los Angeles May Day Coalition held a “socially distanced march” and car caravan beginning at Los Angeles State Historic Park. That march was also in support of the U.S. Citizenship Act, along with Sen. Alex Padilla’s Citizenship for Essential Workers Act.
Centro CSO: Community Service Organization held a march through Boyle Heights, rallying briefly outside the Los Angeles Police Department’s Hollenbeck Station and ending at Mariachi Plaza, where another rally was held.
The crowd was estimated at 500 by organizer Carlos Montes.
“Our focus this year was on legalization (of all immigrants) and police killings of Latinos and Blacks,” Montes said. He noted that officers were stationed atop the roof of the Hollenbeck station observing and appearing to photograph the demonstrators.
Members of the Bus Riders Union and the Labor Community Strategy Center, meanwhile, held an International Workers Day block party, including a screening and discussion of the film, “Finally Got the News,” which focuses on “the great organizing of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers and the Dodge Revolutionary Action Network.”