Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Marchers mark May Day
At least 100 turn out for what planners hope will be annual event
SPRINGDALE — The first of what organizers hope will be an annual May Day march for workers’ rights drew at least 100 people in Springdale on Monday.
Marchers started at Shiloh Square and ended in the green space at Emma Avenue and Thompson Street.
The crowd of 100 compares to, for instance, a crowd of 500 appearing in New York City for a similar event in midtown Manhattan, according to news reports. Larger crowds were reported in Los Angeles.
May Day, which is also known as International Workers’ Day, is a public holiday in other countries much as Labor Day is in the United States.
The local march was organized by the Northwest Arkansas Worker’s Justice Center, a labor advocacy group, and Ozark Indivisible, a political group formed in opposition to President Donald Trump’s policies on health care, immigration and other issues.
Speakers before and after
the march voiced opposition to current immigration policies and said workers’ rights and immigration rights should coincide.
“They are welcome to take my job back any time,” rally attendee Roman Villagran of Lowell said, when asked if Northwest Arkansans had any grounds to complain about immigrants taking jobs. “My work is not an easy one.”
The event lasted from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. with speeches at the beginning and end.
Thousands of people chanted, picketed and marched on cities across America. Protesters flooded streets in Chicago, and they sparked at least four arrests after creating a human chain to block a county building in Oakland, Calif., where demonstrators demanded county law enforcement refuse to collaborate with federal immigration agents.
Trump, in his first 100 days, has intensified immigration enforcement, including executive orders for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and a ban on travelers from six predominantly Muslim countries. The government has arrested thousands of immigrants in the country illegally and threatened to withhold federal money from jurisdictions limiting cooperation between local and federal immigration authorities. The travel ban and sanctuary cities order were temporarily halted by legal challenges.
Trump has said his policies are meant to keep America safe.
The Springdale march drew no counter protest or complaints along its route, which took the sidewalk along the north side of Emma Avenue, then crossed to the south side of that street at Thompson Street. A Springdale spokesman said dispatchers received no complaints about the march.
At least two passers-by honked and waved in support as marchers stood along Thompson street, waving signs. Most drivers, however, paid the protesters no visible attention.
The march passed in front of the Springdale Chamber of Commerce, which had no comment on the event, a spokesman said.
Springdale has seen May Day marches before, but they have been sporadic events, organizer Magaly Licolli said. Licolli is executive director of the Worker’s Justice Center. She said she hopes the event will become a regular one in Springdale and will grow.
Speakers included Marisol Soto Cladeva of Pea Ridge, who was brought to the United States when she was 7 years old and whose residency status is still in question, she said. She asked the crowd to “speak up and stop being afraid.”