dia de los trabajadores

as some of you may know, yesterday May 1st is International Workers Day. For some reason we celebrate Labor Day on September 1st.. probably so that our workers are seperated from the rest of the world.. but the rest of the world celebrates on May 1st. So, naturally I went to the march.

It was a lot of fun! I went with Juliana, Jose, Marco, and Alejandra, who I work with at La Comision. As a foreigner, it is actually illegal for me to participate in anything political in Mexico.. so what extranjeros do it "take photos and observe." Which means that you can walk in the march, but just not be really loud or obvious. I took lots of pictures, mostly of the amazing graffiti and signs that the socialist youth (communist, anarchist? i'm not sure exactly what they were)plastered on the walls of the signs and stores of transnational corporations that we passed. Juliana also pointed out the man that works for the government and films everyone who is in the march, and so I avioded him and made sure my face was behind a sign when he showed up. pretty crazy that they do that, but also that the people all know who he is and what he is there for. here are some of my pictures:


the march


USA: No NAFTA! Movment for National Liberation


the PPP includes La Parota.. which we learned about in the Costa Chica


to refund the nation (with a picture of zapata)


"PEMEX is not for sale" this is referring to the movement against the privitization of Mexico's petroleum. Its actually a pretty big thing right now.. a few weeks ago some of the senators from the PRD took over the Congress so that a hasty privitization bill wasn't passed. maybe i'll write about this later


Killer Cola .. haha had to get that one in


this is a little hard to traslate exactly into English, but its basically like "up with the market and down with the transnationals." they wrote this on the side of the market walls, which is this big outdoor/indoor market in cuernavaca where lots of small vendors sell their vegetables and other products.


gathering in the zocalo


best sign ever.

then after, we went to Xoxocotla for their feria. Xoxo is the main town involved in a lot of organizing against giant housing developments that would be built directly over a spring that serves the community. we went and talked to a leader of the movement (called the 13 Pueblos) in Xoxo a few weeks ago and yesterday I went to the house of another leader to eat. it was pretty amazing to be in the presence of many campesino organizers and other people involved in the movement. at one point, I got to listen to a conversation about whether they wanted to ask the Zapatistas to officially support their movement or not. here are some pictures from Xoxocotla:


Indigenous danza


what better way to end the day than with a statue in honor of Zapata?