OAKLAND, Calif.— They marched holding up signs for workers’ and immigrants’ rights.
They protested the nationwide burgeoning of food prices, forcing millions to choose between feeding their families or paying for health insurance.
They spoke out against the rise in gas prices and the wars Trump has begun without congressional approval.
Affordability a key issue
An estimated 1,500 people of various religious and political stripes assembled at the Fruitvale Plaza here shortly after noon May 1 to let people know that they did not like the rapidly swelling billionaire class under President Trump, nor his administration’s policies on climate change and the environment. While the rich grow richer, they said, too many do not know where or when their next meal is coming from.
“I have to choose between paying my health insurance and feeding my children,” said 27-year-old Berkeley resident Leana, a protestor and a mother of three children all under 6. (She only give her first name.) “Guess what I chose?” She wore a sign that simply said, “F — Trump.”
In all, some 20 Bay Area groups expressed their solidarity with workers’ rights. One group condemned Oakland officials for giving the nod to building a coal export terminal in West Oakland, which will likely spew coal dust into working class neighborhoods.
A few marchers used bugle horns to amplify how they felt. “We the People, Have the Power,” was one message that rang out across Fruitvale Plaza.
Marchers denounce planned ICE detention center
The Trump administration’s use of ICE personnel to arrest immigrant workers has fanned anger and fear among the public. ICE agents fatally shot two people in Minnesota earlier this year. That was on display at the protests where signs condemned ICE with messages including, “ICE Out of Our Schools and Towns.”
Women’s rights activists expressed their fear that the Trump administration would carry out its plans to reopen a federal facility in the city of Dublin that once served as a women’s prison.
In December 2024, the federal government shut down the notorious facility, after years of complaints from its inmates of its toxic sexualized culture and unsanitary living conditions. Inmates dubbed the prison a “rape club.”
Although the Bureau of Prisons at the time of the settlement agreed with 103 of its inmates who sued for $115 million, it has in recent months been looking to repurpose the facility as an expanded immigration detention center, causing former inmates and the general public to protest. At the May Day demonstrations, dozens of them were on hand to pressure the Trump administration to keep the facility shut permanently.
Wearing a black T-shirt that said at the back “No More US Concentration Camps,” Berkeley resident Marla Kamiya stood with members of Indivisible Tri-Valley to show her solidarity with the Dublin protestors.
She pointed out that just earlier that day, the Bureau of Prisons published an environmental assessment of the facility that showed that it was unfit for housing people.
“And yet, they want to reopen the place,” she said.
California is home to eight of the nation’s 20 privately-run immigrant detention centers.
‘Workers over billionaires’
“I am protesting the dismantling of democracy and the illegal wars we have been forced to fight” by Trump, said Oakland resident Richard Bolecek, a retired union member who wore a sign across his shoulder that said “Workers Over Billionaires.”
Did that mean he would not consider voting for California gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer, a former hedge fund manager who touts his longtime financial support of many a candidate over the airwaves?
Steyer has drawn criticism from political groups for supporting Trump’s business ventures in the past. But “I still might support Steyer because he believes in heavily taxing billionaires,” Bolecek said.
Oakland was among hundreds of cities and towns nationwide that held May Day rallies to show support for workers and immigrants.
In San Francisco, around 25 people, including a state senator including several supervisors were arrested outside SFO’s international terminal as they protested over wages and working conditions.
SEIU United Service Workers West Vice President Sanjay Garla reportedly confirmed that all 25 arrests were planned acts of civil disobedience. Connie Chan, who’s hoping to succeed Nancy Pelosi in Congress, was among the protestors.
Viji Sundaram is an independent journalist in the Bay Area.
