Today is May Day. When I was a child, it was so much fun! Our school put up a May Pole, and kids held onto long colorful streamers and wound their way around it. We didn’t have a May Queen, like in England, although my friends in Catholic School celebrated the Virgin Mary as Queen. We sang songs and did dances and enjoyed this traditional spring festival. We weren’t aware that May Day (called “Labour Day” by some back then) had been co-opteded by Communists and Socialists into an International Workers’ Day in the late 1800s. And we were many years away from today, when the labor movement has claimed the day as its own, celebrating it yearly to point out injustices people face in the workplace. When I was a child, I was blissfully unaware of prejudices and inequalities. When I was a child, I was powerless to do anything about it.
Today, I am an adult.