Normally, one might find the sight of hooded anarchists singing “We’re Not Gonna Take It!” a strange one. Not in Portland. This May Day, Portland citizens and organizations from around the area marched in support of workers’ and immigrants’ rights in solidarity with dozens of other marches happening in cities around the globe.

This year’s May Day rally featured numerous speakers on topics such as workers’ rights, social justice and immigration—all delivered in Spanish and English. Though May Day is traditionally recognized as a day for labor support and protests, the biggest draw to this year’s event appeared to be the issue of immigration and a recently passed law in Arizona. Arizona SB1070 allows for police officers to demand identification proving citizenship from anyone they find “reasonably suspicious” of being an undocumented immigrant. May Day attendees had serious criticisms of the bill, with many wearing shirts that read “Do I Look Illegal?”

“There’s no other way to decide if someone is suspected of being an illegal immigrant except by looking at their skin color,” said Marika of the International Socialist Organization. “[Arizona SB1070] is just racial profiling, plain and simple.”

May Day is celebrated around the world as International Worker’s Day, with traditions drawing back to the Haymarket Square massacre in Chicago in 1886, when police opened fire on demonstrators during a general strike in support of an eight-hour work day. By the early 1900s, May Day became an official day of celebration of the social and economic achievements of the labor movements around the world. In the U.S., Labor Day was honored in September in an efford to disassociate labor movements from some of their more radical elements, and the government instead declared May 1 to be “Loyalty Day.”

As marchers passed by Niketown, a large banner was dropped from the roof that read, “Nike: Just Pay It,” in reference to a $2.2 million severance the company owes hundreds of laid off factory workers in Honduras. Official holiday or not, labor activists were out in full force this year, which marked the 10th anniversary of the May Day march in Portland. Many unions, activist and anti-capitalist groups were in attendance for what they saw as a common struggle for workers’ and immigrants’ rights, especially in the aftermath of SB1070. David Delk, of the Portland chapter of the Alliance for Democracy, said the Arizona law was “outrageous.”

“[Immigrants] have come here primarily to escape economic conditions in their own country, which we had a big hand in creating,” said Delk. “Rather than saying, ‘You need to go back,’ we really should be talking about changing our own policies like NAFTA and other free trade agreements and getting rid of those, or reconstructing them so that they actually encourage local development instead of forcing people to leave their homelands.”

Not ones to be left out, a number of black-clad anarchists were also in attendance at the march and rally.

“… There’s tons of reasons people are out here, and we’re in solidarity with these people’s struggles,” said one activist, who asked not to be named and instead preferred the pseudonym “Father Christmas.” “I’m not sure people are going to get much out of a sign and marching, but if anyone comes and talks to us, we’ll try to give them a more radical analysis. Anti-capitalism, anti-state.”

While Father Christmas was adamant about noting that he only spoke for himself, many others in attendance seemed to agree with his reasons for participating in this year’s May Day celebrations.

“I’m here to remember the Haymarket martyrs and the fight for the eight-hour day,” said Catherine of the International Socialist Organization. She added, “we also need to not just be on the defensive all the time,” supporting recent student activists conducting walkouts in Arizona in protest of the bill. “We need to make sure that people know that the Democratic Party is also not the answer, that they’re not going to save us.”