Hundreds gather in Chicano Park on May Day calling for workers’ rights, protection for immigrants and environmental justice
Protestors gave speeches during a rally under the Coronado Bridge before marching through Barrio Logan to the Federal Building in downtown San Diego.
Photo Essay by Lauren J. Mapp, Edited by Kate Morissey and Maya Srikrishnan
Hundreds of union members and demonstrators gathered at Chicano Park on Friday, calling for stronger immigrant protections, workers’ rights, environmental justice and renewed momentum behind democratic socialism.
After speeches in the park, the crowd marched through Barrio Logan to the Edward J. Schwartz Federal Building in downtown San Diego, filling the streets with chants, colorful banners and signs during one of more than a dozen marches planned across San Diego County to commemorate May Day.
Many demonstrators carried signs against the Trump administration, calling for an end to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Iran War. Some other protestors wore keffiyehs, Middle Eastern scarves, blew bubbles or chanted from a caravan of cars following the march through Barrio Logan. Others carried Palestinian, Haitian, Mexican, Puerto Rican and other flags.
“Justice for the people means a livable, thriving planet. It means a future for humanity, and to that end, it actually means socialism because socialism is a system where working class and oppressed people like you and me, we have the political power to ensure that society’s wealth goes toward peoples’ needs.”
— Emily Von Gerichten from the Party for Socialism and Liberation
Left: A crowd of demonstrators listen to speeches during the May Day protest. Right: Protestors in Chicano Park hold signs with messages like “Abolish ICE,” “Impeach, Remove, Convict” and “Our government is run by pedophiles.”
“I truly believe that the workers, our labor, creates all of the wealth in the entire world. “We should be the ones that should run the economy, decide what happens with industry. I believe that the workers need to come together united and fight against capitalism and imperialism that shows up in the form of, like, ICE terrorizing our immigrant communities, and I think that the workers are the only ones that can fight back against that.”
— Stacia Smith from the Revolutionary Communists of America
“We need to end the cancerous, unnatural, unsustainable disease that is the capitalistic system itself. [It’s] a system that treats human beings as exploitable and disposable, a system that creates and rewards monsters like Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein and Elon Musk.”
— Anthony Ferretti from the San Diego Socialist Alternative
Left: Protestors walk through Chicano Park with an “Abolish ICE” banner on Friday, May 1, 2026. Center: A protestor carries the Haitian flag and a “Land back” sign. Right: During the march in Barrio Logan, a protestor in a mobility scooter holds a “No ICE. No War” sign with pro-immigrant and anti-Trump signs attached to the back of the scooter.
Left: Protestors hold a collection of signs that read “Workers over Billionaires” as they march through the corner of Evans Street and Newton Avenue. Center: Protestors holding signs, banners and flags march through Barrio Logan. Right: Someone blows bubbles out of their car window while following in a caravan behind marchers in Barrio Logan on Friday, May 1, 2026.
