The very diverse crowd was composed of members of at least two dozen organizations: Labor unions including LIUNA (homebuilders), Domestic Workers of America, Warehouse Workers United, SEIU locals, and day laborers from Rancho Cucamonga and Pomona, Students organizations, mostly from UCR and the Claremont Colleges, faith-based organizations including CLUE, the San Bernardino and Riverside chapters of the Peace and Freedom Party, Citizens Against Private Armies, Riverside and Corona chapters of Food Not Bombs, the
Save Our Chinatown Committee, musicians, families, and independent activists.
Speakers talked about the Employee Free Choice Act, the DREAM Act, family separation due to raids and deportations, Obama's promises to the immigrant community, and the history of May Day and the labor movement.
Participants handed out flyers urging marchers to call Mayor Loveridge of Riverside to end Riverside PD collaboration with the Border Patrol. His number is (951) 826-5551 and his e-mail address
isrloveridge@riversideca.gov. Other handbills included an invitation to the Riverside Human Relations Commission on May 21 at six p.m. on the seventh floor of Riverside City Hall (3900 Main Street) to demand an end to the RPD-Border Patrol "memorandum of understanding." An activist handed out a pamphlet with an image of a guitar bearing the words "This machine kills fascists." It contained the lyrics to several movement songs in English and Spanish.
The Save Our Chinatown Committee invited people to their fundraiser concert that evening at Back to the Grind coffeehouse, and the Fernando Pedraza Day Labor Coalition invited us all to the May 5
memorial for Fernando Pedraza, who died while defending the rights of Rancho Cucamonga day laborers from the Minutemen. The memorial will be held from 10-12 on Tuesday, May 5 at the corner of Arrow and Grove in Rancho Cucamonga. Finally, members of the Coalición Pomona Habla warned us of checkpoints occurring in Moreno Valley and Pomona.
