A previous Pastors for Peace Caravan school bus in Vedado, Havana: defying the U.S. blockade for eighteen years.

Ahead of the Organization of American States summit in April 2009, President Barack Obama announced that visits by Americans to Cuba will be allowed once annually instead of once every three years, and the $300 per quarter limit on remittances will be lifted – but only if they have relatives on the island nation. Restrictions on investment in Cuba will also be eased – but only in telecommunications. Obama has signalled his willingness to ease the 47-year-old U.S. economic embargo on Cuba, but not yet for the rest of us. While still couched in the language of regime change, Obama’s overtures represent a ray of hope for breaking down the barriers that have separated Americans and Cubans and prevented them from learning from each other.

Meanwhile, the effects of the U.S. embargo (Cuba calls it a blockade) are much more intrusive than the mere absence of American goods. Patient monitors and CT scanners from Europe and Japan that have seen only a few years of use are often idled by the inability to procure assemblies or accessories that contain U.S. parts. Despite these difficulties, the Cuban health system guarantees every resident access to care, resulting in a life expectancy (78 years) equal to that of the United States. There are no denials of claims here, no patients turned away for lack of insurance.

Thousands of Cuban doctors and medical personnel continue to serve in countries ranging from Bolivia to Pakistan to South Africa. Meanwhile, Cuba brings in hundreds of new foreign students for medical school from poor countries and the United States alike, completely free of charge. And Cuba’s biotechnology industry is a leading-edge exporter of both genetically-engineered and low-cost generic drugs.

Yes, the dug-up roads are decaying. The crumbling houses are discolored with mildew. The sputtering cars are American antiques of the 1940s and 1950s, frozen in time, but kept running through miraculous Cuban ingenuity. That is the tunnel image most Americans have of Havana. The images are there along the fabled seaside Malecón, in Habana Centro, and in Habana Viejo, where most of the historical tourist attractions are located. But outlying suburbs like Miramar, smaller cities like Santa Clara or Sancti Spiritus, and even rural villages have houses and shops that are more modern and well kept, roads that are nicely paved, and newer motor vehicles from Europe, Canada, Japan, and China. It is just the inverse of unequal development in most other Latin American countries. Cuba has chosen to focus its finite resources on ensuring that everybody has housing first, and only afterwards renovating existing buildings for the eyes of foreign visitors. There are no foreclosures here, no tent cities of the homeless.

The U.S. notion that the embargo is needed to pressure Cuba to embrace “democracy” and ultimately expedite “regime change” is based on the assumption that the Cuban people have no say in the affairs of their country. In fact, people routinely chose representatives to municipal assemblies, which in turn elect members of the provincial assemblies, and in turn elect the 614 members of the Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular (National Assembly of People’s Power). The constitution calls for the National Assembly to elect the State Council, and the State Council to elect the president. So while Cuban citizens do not directly elect the president and members of the National Assembly, they do so through a tiered pyramidal democratic structure that ensures greater accountability of each of each layer of representation to the layer below it because electors at each level are actually able to get to personally know those whom they are electing.

The Cuban electoral system is in effectively a one-party democracy in which candidates for elected office are pre-screened by a participatory nominating process. The U.S. electoral system is in essence a two-party dictatorship in which the two major parties and the media collude to systematically deny credibility and electability to any candidates of third parties, or even candidates within the two dominant parties who are outside of the “mainstream.” It is far from clear that one system is really more politically democratic or dictatorial than the other. While both systems are flawed (they both perpetuate incumbency and state power), it would be a gross misstatement to call one an unqualified “dictatorship” and the other an unconditional “democracy.”

On freedom of the press, Cuba is not a place where one can buy a foreign newspaper or magazine on the streets. But then neither is Granma, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba, readily available on the streets because it is largely distributed through the vast array of political, economic, and social organizations through which every Cuban citizen is engaged in one way or another. Freedom of the press is one area in which Cuba would do well to lift restrictions. Having survived the extraordinary stresses of the Special Period in the 1990s, Cuba can rest assured that allowing independent Cuban media and opening up to responsible news sources from Latin America and the world will not degrade, but rather invigorate, the public intellectual discourse, the perceived quality of life, and Cuba’s strength as a nation.

The distorted view most Americans have of Cuba is molded by their inability to visit Cuba to see for themselves. People in the United States and Cuba have much to learn from each other. In April 2009 a Congressional delegation, led by Congresswoman Barbara Lee, visited Cuba to review policies on trade and cultural and academic exchanges. The same opportunity needs to be afforded to all Americans in order to formulate a rational national policy towards Cuba based on realism and mutual respect.

The international community of nations has spoken out against the U.S. embargo on trade and travel to Cuba through 17 consecutive years of resolutions in the United Nations General Assembly. With each passing year the United States government has become more and more politically isolated on this issue. The last vote on October 29, 2008 was 185 to 3 against the U.S. blockade, with 2 abstentions. Those opposed were the United States, Israel, and Palau. Palau, along with the Marshall Islands and Micronesia which abstained, are all former U.S. colonies that remain highly dependent on the U.S. economic and military umbrella. Palau, incidentally, is so dependent on the United States that when no other country on the planet would agree to take 17 Chinese Uighurs held in Guantánamo Bay as so-called “enemy combatants,” because no country wanted to legitimize the systematic U.S. denial of protections guaranteed to prisoners of war under international law, Palau agreed in June 2009 to take them after intense U.S. pressure. Only afterward did Albania, in no less desperate economic situation itself, ultimately relent to taking four of the 17 Uighurs.

Even the Cuban-American exile community, which has traditionally backed the U.S. embargo because their families lost properties in the 1959 Revolution, has been gradually shifting in preference to selectively lifting the embargo and travel restrictions to ease family visits and for the younger generation to rediscover the land of their parents. Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba has not posed any conceivable threat to the security of the United States.

On the contrary, the United States is harboring a Cuban-born Venezuelan man – Luis Posada Carriles – who has been convicted in absentia for various terrorist attacks and conspiracies in Latin America, including the 1976 bombing of Cubana Flight 455 that killed all 73 people on board. Detained in 2005-2007 for illegal presence in the United States, Carriles is now free. If President Obama is truly concerned about security and thwarting future terrorist attacks, he would move to extradite Carriles to Venezuela or Cuba, both of which have demanded that he face trial in their courts.

On the other hand, the Cuban Five (Los Cinco) – Fernando González, René González, Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino – were arrested in 1998 for activities related to gathering intelligence on a number of militant Cuban-American exile groups, including Brothers to the Rescue, that have been accused of organizing illegal and often violent activities inside Cuba. The Five were convicted in 2001 on all 26 counts by a Federal District Court in Miami, where they could not possibly have received a fair trial. So far, the Obama administration has refused to reconsider the case, and, in fact, successfully pressured the Supreme Court to deny a review. If President Obama is truly interested in justice, he should reopen the case against the Cuban Five for independent review, and allow visits by family members from Cuba. If The Five’s only crime was thwarting terrorism, then they must be freed.

A parallel opportunity for rapprochement between the U.S. and Cuba is arising out of acknowledgements by both the Bush and Obama administrations that harsh interrogation methods and torture were used at the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay, and President Obama’s announced intention of closing the prison within a year of taking office. In fact, the prison itself appears to violate the very terms of the lease agreement of February 23, 1903 that grants “the premises for use as coaling or naval stations only, and for no other purpose.” One aspect of putting this dark period in U.S. human rights history behind us is to terminate the lease and return Guantánamo Bay to Cuba once the prison is closed. This will be another substantive gesture that the U.S. and Cuba can live together with mutual respect for each other’s sovereignty.

Having lifted the embargo just a little and let the Pastors for Peace Friendship Caravan through, President Obama needs to carry through on his promise of change by ending the U.S. embargo once and for all.

But on August 10, 2008, two small Greek-flagged boats finally arrived from Greece to Chania, Cyprus. They were the 21-metre long SS Free Gaza (غزة الحرة) and the 18-metre SS Liberty, named in memory of the 34 American sailors who were killed when Israel attacked the USS Liberty in apparent error during the Six Day War in 1967. Before their arrival in Chania, the identity of the vessels had been a closely-guarded secret for genuine fear of Israeli sabotage. Once the vessels were renamed and presented at a press conference, activists remained on board both vessels 24 hours a day for security reasons.

After days of additional delays due to soaring prices for supplies and diesel fuel, a shortfall in funds, and turbulent weather, the vessels finally departed Crete en route to Cyprus, where they will take on the remaining half of the activists waiting apprehensively in Nicosia. Along the way, the activists have received tremendous support, including material assistance, from local residents in Crete and Cyprus.

Some forty peace and justice activists from 17 countries will be on board, including Israeli peace activist Jeff Halper, founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) and nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize. Other notable individuals include 84-year-old Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein of Saint Louis, Missouri; Lauren Booth, sister-in-law of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair; members of the European Parliament; a survivor of the Palestinian catastrophe (al-Nakbah); and Free Gaza Movement co-founders Paul Larudee and Greta Berlin. Including professional crewmembers and journalists, the number of people on the two boats could reach as high as sixty.

Threats

The Israeli government and Zionist organizations like the Anti-Defamation League have tried (unconvincingly) to link the Free Gaza Movement and its affiliations to the International Solidarity Movement to armed Palestinian resistance organizations that they have labelled as “terrorists.” In fact, the Free Gaza Movement and the Break the Siege campaign in particular have received no funding from any Palestinian organizations, armed or otherwise. The $200,000-300,000 raised for the voyage from Cyprus to Gaza has been entirely from small fundraising dinners in private homes and restaurants, individual contributions, and from the sale of fair-trade Palestinian olive oil rebottled in Berkeley, California by community volunteers. Donna and Darlene Wallach, twin sisters of Eastern European Jewish descent who have lived for many years in Israel and the Palestinian territories, were among those tireless volunteers and will be on the boats to Gaza.

More ominously, Lauren Booth reported on August 15, 2008 that a dozen threatening anonymous calls, text messages, and voice mails had been received by Free Gaza participants in Nicosia. This escalated to family members of activists. Booth reported that on August 14, an anonymous call to her husband in France threatened, “Your wife is in great danger. These ships will be blown up.” Who but a state intelligence agency like the Mossad could readily obtain private telephone and mobile numbers around the world?

Meanwhile, the Israeli daily newspaper Ha’aretz reported on August 17, 2008 that Israeli “defense officials favor forcefully blocking two boats which a group of U.S.-based activists plan to sail to Gaza to protest what they call ‘the Israeli siege on the Strip.’” The statement was based on a position paper by the legal department of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, arguing that Israel has the right to use force against the protesters under the Oslo Accords, which gives Israel responsibility for Gaza’s territorial waters.

Why Gaza?

When the Israeli government withdrew thousands of Israeli settlers and troops from Gaza at the end of 2005, it called the move “disengagement.” Many thought that the occupation of Gaza would come to an end. But on January 25, 2006, the day of Palestinian elections, Israel sealed off Gaza by closing the last open crossing at Erez owing to “security concerns” relating to the anticipated strong turnout for Hamas. Karni crossing had been closed since January 15, 2006, and three other checkpoints had been open only intermittently.

The final election results gave Hamas 74 seats out of 132 in the Palestinian Legislative Council, and an overwhelming majority in Gaza. After the elections, Israel proceeded to tighten control over the flow of goods and people into and out of Gaza in an attempt to destabilize popular support for Hamas and block Hamas’ participation in the Palestinian government headquartered in Ramallah in the West Bank.

Gaza is a strip of land approximately 40 kilometres long by 7 kilometres wide. It includes cities, towns, 8 major refugee camps and several minor ones, agricultural land, and uncultivable sand dunes and saline intrusion areas. With nearly 1.5 million people, Gaza has an overall population density twice that of a typical large U.S. city or roughly comparable to a European city. Gaza cannot possibly feed itself. It has no natural sources of energy — neither fossil fuels nor hydroelectric potential. It has no natural aquifers to provide a renewable source of fresh water. As a relatively unindustrialized territory, it is completely dependent on the outside for nearly all of its consumption needs and the majority of its viable employment.

After 1967, Gaza residents gained employment inside Israel and became dependent on the crossings for daily commutes to their jobs in Ashkelon, Tel Aviv, the Negev, and elsewhere. But that source of employment was largely cut off by Israel during the Second Intifada, and completely eliminated with the economic siege imposed on Hamas in Gaza in 2006. In reality, the drastic lack of employment, and the obstacles placed on the supply of food, drinking water, medicines, fuel, and electricity became a chronic collective punishment on all Gaza residents in full violation of international law.

Israeli “disengagement” from Gaza changed nothing with respect to the wall and fence that completely encircle Gaza from its northern boundary with Israel to its southern boundary with Egypt. Even the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt is effectively controlled by Israel through European Union monitors who have acceded to Israeli demands to have veto power over any person or baggage moving through the Rafah crossing. The Kerem Shalom crossing for goods from and to Egypt is controlled directly by Israel because it operates on an intervening sliver of Israeli territory. The remaining checkpoints not only are opened by Israel very sparingly, but are each used by Israel for very restricted purposes. The Erez crossing in the north is the primary gateway for people, but not for goods. Nahal Oz crossing is exclusively for liquid fuels. Karni crossing is the primary entry point for food, medicines, and manufactured goods. Sufa crossing is mainly for bulk aggregates and building materials. Kissufim and Elie Sinai crossings are effectively closed.

Gaza has a commercial airport southeast of Rafah, but all Palestinian air traffic is banned by Israel. That leaves the sea. The Israeli Navy controls all waters around Gaza and does not allow any vessels in or out of Gaza’s fishing limits. There are over 700 boats, mostly fishing boats, registered in Gaza. The boats provide a livelihood for 3000 Palestinian fishermen according to a United Nations survey. Under the 1993 Oslo Agreement, the fishing limit for Gaza fishermen was set at 20 nautical miles from the shore. A “no fishing zone” 2 nautical miles wide was established as a security buffer from the Israeli sea boundary (as if fishermen were a threat to Israel’s security) within Gaza’s territorial waters and extending out from shore to the fishing limit. A similar “no fishing zone” one nautical mile wide was established on the sea border with Egypt. But in 2002 as a result of the comprehensive Israeli military assault on all the occupied Palestinian territories launched at the end of April, the Bertini Agreement restricted Gaza’s fishing limit to 12 nautical miles. Then, as part of the ever-tightening noose around Hamas-ruled Gaza, the Israeli Defense Forces began enforcing a 6-nautical-mile fishing limit from October 2006. Not only has Gaza effectively become the world’s largest open-air prison, but some of the walls of the prison have been progressively closing in on the inmate population.

So it is not surprising that perhaps hundreds of Gaza fishing boats may be preparing to greet the uncertain arrival of the SS Free Gaza and the SS Liberty. In Gaza Port alone, there are over 470 registered boats. If the Israeli siege is broken by sea, it will be a tremendous morale boost to Gaza fishermen whose operating territory has shrunken from the Eastern Mediterranean before 1967 to a mere sliver of coastal water under Israeli military control. Even in the years following the Israeli occupation, Gaza Port continued to be a bustling hub not only for fishing but for international shipping as well. I remember well in 1973 how ocean freighters used to wait in queue offshore for a berth in Gaza City’s cargo port. Few places on Earth have witnessed such a drastic and comprehensive economic decline under military occupation.

The SS Free Gaza and the SS Liberty either may pave the way for unrestricted international access to Gaza by symbolically breaking the Israeli naval blockade, or they will be stopped by the Israeli Navy which will prove that Israel still occupies Gaza despite its denials. The action places the Israeli government on the horns of dilemma, out of which neither outcome will work in its favor. It is only regrettable that no Arab government or organization has had the courage to challenge the Israeli blockade.

It is the responsibility of all activists for human rights and social justice worldwide to stand behind the courageous passengers of the SS Free Gaza and SS Liberty in the coming critical days as they prepare to depart from Cyprus. This is an act of nonviolent civil disobedience following in the footsteps of Mahatma Gandhi — unarmed ordinary people with an unshakable moral conviction facing down one of the most powerful military machines on Earth. Global awareness is key. The probability that they will be harmed is drastically reduced if the eyes of the world are focused on Gaza’s coastal waters. The siege of Gaza must be broken!

This story of a Palestinian village in the Negev is a perspective on al-Nakbah (النكبة) at the age of 60.

Sheikh Ibrahim is the leader of the Palestinian village of Qiryeh al-Sir (قريۃ السير) just beyond the outskirts of Be’er Sheva, Israel’s fourth largest and fastest growing city. His red kafiyeh is traditional among Bedouins in the Negev, Jordan, and the Arabian peninsula. But most Palestinian Bedouins have long since given up on a former nomadic lifestyle and have taken up permanent residence in spread-out impoverished villages.

Sipping a cup of Arabic tea on the carpeted earthen floor of his tent, the Sheikh recalls how 90 per cent of Bedouins were evacuated from the Negev to Jordan in 1948 as part of al-Nakbah. In 1953, Israel imposed military rule in the Negev, he says. Had the remaining Bedouins not abandoned their once nomadic lifestyle, they too would have been expelled, losing their claims to their houses and fixed lands under military occupation. Even then, they resisted expulsion under threats of death. Those who fled and later tried to return to their pre-1948 settlements were killed, he said.

Sheikh Ibrahim complains that 21 Palestinian houses were demolished here just the week before this interview. Israel never offered land for legal settlement in Qiryeh al-Sir, which has a population of 4000. While Israel strictly prohibits Palestinians from digging water wells, it never offered to provide a water connection to the village. Only after years of struggle, the village finally negotiated a supply of water from an industrial pipeline that runs through the village.

In fact, the State of Israel provides Qiryeh al-Sir with no roads, no sewage, no schools, and no social services. Even though a thermal power plant was built in the midst of the village and a myriad of high voltage transmission lines tower above its houses, Qiryeh al-Sir receives none of that electricity. Instead villagers must use generators to supply their electricity needs. This is despite the fact that residents pay all Israeli taxes, except property tax since the Israeli government does not recognize Bedouin claims to the land. In contrast, Jewish settlers — many arriving for the first time directly from foreign countries — are provided will all services and leasehold titles before they even move in, Sheikh Ibrahim laments.

In Ottoman times, Bedouins used to move from hill to hill, grazing their flocks, within territorial limits that were registered by the Ottoman administrators. But Israel has persistently refused to recognize Ottoman and British land titles, even when presented with written documents. The only pre-Israeli land titles recognized are those issued by Jordan during its administration of the West Bank from 1949 to 1967.

Why? Because Qiryeh al-Sir is one of scores of ‘unrecognized villages’ that the State of Israel wants vacated by moving all Bedouins into five recognized Palestinian towns in the Negev. The reason is basic. Bedouin villages, though relatively sparsely populated, sprawl over vast tracts of land. The Israeli government wants the land for future Jewish settlements and desert agriculture. Therefore, it wants to concentrate all Palestinian Bedouins into five compact recognized towns by providing full services to lure them.

One such recognized town is Shqeeb al-Salaam (شقيب السلام) whose houses and shops look much like any modern Palestinian town in the West Bank. Unlike the unrecognized villages, there are paved roads, streetlights, schools, shopping centres, and petrol stations, but no tents, few animal sheds, and not much land in between the buildings.

There are estimated to be 160,000 Palestinian Bedouins living in the Negev. Some 80 per cent live in 53 unrecognized villages. As residents within Israel’s pre-1967 borders, they were granted Israeli citizenship in the 1970s on the condition that they join the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), yet they enjoy few of the rights and privileges of citizenship on their ancestral lands. Thousands of additional Bedouins live in small unrecognized villages scattered in the Judean Desert of the West Bank.

Economically, they are also second class citizens. Privately-owned factories only hire Bedouins to do cleaning jobs, explains Sheikh Ibrahim. But even those jobs are increasingly being given to Ethiopian or Russian Jewish immigrants. That explains the makeshift sheds that many villagers live in. It is an increasingly hard life in a modern industrially-advanced society.

It is fitting to ask whether al-Nakbah could be repeated, whether in the name of fighting ‘terrorism’ or in the name of Eretz Yisrael (the land of greater Israel). In the Negev today, the systematic and deliberate expulsion of Palestinian Bedouins from their traditional homes is a slow process. Once in a while, a handful of houses are administratively selected for demolition, thus attempting to isolate individual families and divide the community. But at the current rate, if it took 60 years to expel 20 per cent of the Bedouin population, it will take another 240 years to expel all of them. The remaining residents of Qiryeh al-Sir are determined to resist displacement, Sheikh Ibrahim insists. For the Bedouins of the Negev, al-Nakbah, albeit slowly, has never ended.

This year in 2007, the fear is surprise raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that are terrorizing hard-working undocumented immigrants who have no criminal history. The ICE raids have broken up families, and too often have inadvertently turned children who were born in this country into orphans. The raids have equally terrorized family members who are undocumented immigrants, legal residents, or US citizens.

Another fear they have in 2007 is that the new immigration reform laws being introduced in Congress will create a legal underclass of workers on temporary visas, so-called “guest workers.” One new bill being offered as a carrot to the more than 12 million undocumented workers in the United States is the STRIVE Act (Security Through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy Act – HR 1645) introduced by Congressmen Luis Gutiérrez and Jeff Flake. Unlike HR 4437, HR 1645 would provide a path to citizenship, albeit a very long and tortuous one involving four stages: a two-year security waiting period, a six-year wait on a temporary work visa, a minimum five-year wait as a permanent resident before applying for citizenship, and finally the processing queue for citizenship. Most importantly, the STRIVE Act continues to stress border security over immigrant worker security. The temporary work visas for low-skilled jobs would make “guest workers” vulnerable to abuse by employers, a pattern that is widespread among temporary foreign workers in the oil-exporting Arabian Gulf countries.

Thus, the importance of May Day 2007 for immigrant communities in the US is not only of demanding fundamental constitutional rights for immigrants, but for economic rights as immigrant workers. It was chosen because May Day is a living tradition in the Latin American countries from which most of the undocumented immigrants in the US come. May Day is also an international day of labor solidarity.

May Day itself was born, in part, out of fear of police raids on immigrant workers. In 1884 the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, predecessor of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), called for an eight-hour workday. When implementation appeared unlikely, a general strike was called in Chicago on May 1, 1886. On that day, some 80,000 workers marched down Chicago ’s Michigan Avenue in what is generally recognized as the first May Day parade. In the succeeding days, supporting strikes broke out in other cities, such as Milwaukee, Cincinnati, and New York City.

On May 3, four striking workers were killed by police at the McCormick Reaper Works in Chicago. At an evening rally on May 4 in Haymarket Square, called to protest the killings, police moved in to disperse the crowd when a bomb went off, killing seven policemen. Police retaliated by firing into the crowd of workers, killing and wounding an unknown number of civilians.

Determined to crush the labor agitations, police interrogations and arrests went on through the night and the ensuing days. Homes of workers, most of whom were immigrants from Europe , were raided in the middle of the night. Hundreds of immigrants were rounded up without charges. A police rein of terror descended on the organized workers of Chicago and their families.

Eight people, including five German immigrants, were eventually charged and convicted for the deaths of the policemen, even though no evidence was ever presented directly linking them to the bombing in Haymarket Square. Four of the defendants were publicly hanged in 1887.

In Paris in 1889, the International Workingmen’s Association (Second International) called for worldwide demonstrations on May 1, 1890, commemorating the struggle of Chicago workers. The international tradition of May Day was born.

It took another three decades for workers to incrementally win the eight-hour working day through struggles with individual companies. Finally, the Adamson Act was passed by Congress in 1916, establishing a statutory eight-hour working day for railway workers with additional pay for overtime work.

Today May Day is traditionally celebrated in most industrialized and developing countries around the world as International Workers’ Day. Among major nations, the United States is the only one to have successive governments and the trade union bureaucracy consistently resisting recognition of May Day, fearing the connection with labor movements around the world. Seeking an alternative date, Labor Day was created to recognize the contribution of American workers on September 5, 1882 in New York City. In 1884, the first Monday in September was selected as a holiday from labor. However, it was not until 1894 that Congress made Labor Day a national holiday. But without the heritage of strikes and labor struggle, Labor Day emerged and remained a completely depoliticized day.

In contrast, May Day, because of its deep roots in US working class struggle, is richly symbolic of labor activism. Contrary to popular myth in the US, May Day did not originate abroad, but rather from the very US trade union movement that brought about the basic eight-hour working day that is taken so much for granted today. From the struggle against a guest worker program that would create a stratum of second class workers to opposing the ICE police raids, the immigrant workers’ rights movement of today is following in the footsteps of the heroic Chicago workers who gave birth to May Day. May Day is a true American immigrant worker tradition. Now being revived after 70 years of dormancy, it is gradually regaining support among established labor unions that a slowly coming around to back the movement for immigrant workers’ rights.