For May Day and Immigrant Workers

In the '70s, a layer of young revolutionaries and communists emerging from the great social upheavals of previous decade set out to revive May Day, International Workers Day, here in its nation of origin. Marches, rallies, celebrations and other events sank new roots for the holiday.

However, as an excellent May Day editorial by Freedom Road points out, it was the great immigrant levantamiento of earlier this decade that really reclaimed May Day for the working class here. No surprise--since Germans and other Europeans fled the repression of the revolutions of 1848, immigrants from around the world have been the sparkplug of militant struggle and revolutionary movement in the class here again and again.

Now, as the editorial points out, the deepening depression has reactionaries scapegoating and attacking immigrants, just as they have in similar crises in the past. One of this country's finest songwriters, Tom Russell, has an answer for them.

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A New One On Me

Maybe I'm just late to the picnic again, but here's a tune I found last night by one of this country's best songwriters, Tom Russell. I wanted to pair it up with another tune by an Anglo living in Aztlan, James McMurtry's "Safe Side," but I couldn't find it on YouTube.




UPDATE

Shoulda thought to look for this cut by Molotov. I've had the tune, "Frijolero," for a while but now find out it's got a cool video too. (Note to impatient Anglo types: it is bilingual, don't check out after 30 seconds.)

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