The first of May is a holiday for both Felipe and I. Here in Minnesota, we celebrate May Day, or at least we used to. My mother's parents met when my grandpa and a couple of his siblings delivered May baskets to my grandma and her family, the new neighbors in the area. May baskets were little baskets usually filled with flowers or treats of some kind. They were hung on a front door, and the person delivering would ring the bell and run. The person receiving had to catch them and once they were caught they had to deliver a kiss. I never asked my grandma if she actually caught my grandpa that day but she certainly caught his eye. Apparently this basket tradition is still around because my sister had two baskets delivered to her house on May Day by family friends. Nobody was caught and kissed though!
In Mexico, May 1st is International Worker's Day or "Labor Day" where everyone has the day off and it is a common day for protests. This is actually a world-wide event celebrated in places like India, Sweden and Australia as well. Since 2006, the Immigrant community across the US, mainly Latino immigrants, have chosen May 1st as a day to lead rally's for immigration reform. Felipe and I were considering going to Saturday's rally in Minneapolis but unfortunately, when I woke up my left foot looked like a swollen sausage and I could barely get a shoe on my foot. I did not know if it would be wise to squeeze into a shoe and then waddle for a mile or two at eight-and-a-half months pregnant. Thankfully the rally in Minnesota was peaceful and about 2000 people turned out to show support for immigrant rights. The rally was lead by a huge Mexican flag. For a while in 2007 I was attending meetings for an Immigrant rights group. I did raise the point at one meeting that if you were fighting to become a US citizen you should show pride in the US by carrying our countries flag and not your home country. It was not a well received point but it seemed to make sense to me.
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