However Modest, May Day Rally Showcases Immigrants' Reawakening

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. -- Today's May Day rallies in favor of immigration reform may have been smaller than the historic mass demonstrations of 2006, but they carried an important political message.

They represent the reawakening of a pressure group: immigrants and their families.

It's a grassroots lobby that has lain mostly dormant for three years. In large part, immigrants were scared into political hibernation by the backlash against them that followed immigration reform's collapse in the 2007 Congress.

Since that defeat, immigrant communities have faced increased raids, deportations, and scrutiny by local law enforcement.

Now, encouraged perhaps by a more flexible White House stance on immigration, they're beginning to speak out again. They've heard Obama's vague promises to "move" on immigration reform this year, but haven’t seen any concrete results. Impatience is beginning to show.

"In 2006, we said si se puede (yes we can)," thundered one rally organizer onstage, trying to rile up the crowd here, just after a female singer in short shorts had sung a Venezuelan protest ballad, Casas de Cartón, or "Cardboard Houses."
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