Each year, people across the globe take to the streets to commemorate International Workers' Day, or May Day. And today it hasn't been an exception. Hundreds of people took the streets in the main European and Asian capitals this morning to protest against labour rights violations, such as racial and gender discrimination. 

In the U.S, an explosion of activism is expected across the nation, not simply as a celebration of labor politics, but in a massive show of solidarity for the immigrant communities threatened by President Trump’s administration.

“There’s a real galvanization of all the groups this year,” Fernanda Durand, who works with the immigrants rights group CASA in Action, told USA Today. “Our presence in this country is being questioned by Donald Trump. We are tired of being demonized and scapegoated. We’ve had enough.”

The group is expected to bring an estimated 10,000 protesters through the streets of Washington D.C. today—one of dozens of similar marches planned across the country.

In San Francisco, workers are expected to join a massive march protesting for immigrants.

“All immigrants — whether we are from Mexico or (are) Muslims or Asian immigrants — we should be able to work freely and in peace,” 57-year-old Yolanda Barron Carmona, a legal permanent resident who works at a local hotel, told the San Francisco Gate.

Trump released a statement on Friday declaring May 1 “Loyalty Day” to “recognize and reaffirm our allegiance to the principles” upon which America was built.

The protests come just days after thousands of people marched in D.C. to protest the Trump administration's policies on the environment and climate change.

In France, 1 May 2017 has been riven with political, personal and social divisions before next Sunday’s final round vote in the French presidential election, as well as violence and clashes between police and masked youths. Six riot police officers were injured, one with third-degree burns to his hand and face, in Paris when a group of about 150 people armed with molotov cocktails, stones and sticks hijacked the traditional May Day march organised by French unions.

In Spain, trade unions called today on all workers to march on May Day demanding job stability and decent wages, while in Russia tens of thousands converged on Moscow's Red Square to celebrate Russia's -Spring and Work Day- organized by the official Trade Unions and backed by President Putin's United Russia party. "For a decent life, work and wages" was the chosen slogan this year; other banners, however, alluded to the scourge of terrorism.

Although today is was a normal working day for many Americans, International Worker's Day, or May Day,  has its origins in the US and recalls the violent riots happened in Chicago in 1886 in the so called Haymarket affair. 

In 1891 the Second International, a worldwide socialist and communist parties organization, chose May 1 as a day to march for workers’ rights to commemorate a demonstration that had taken place in Chicago five years earlier. What became known as the Haymarket Affair began as a protest for an eight-hour workday that turned violent when a bomb went off killing police officers who were monitoring the gathering. After the bomb exploded, police began shooting into the crowd of protesters, killing four. The Second International declared May Day a date of remembrance for the protesters who were killed, blaming the police for attacking what they said was a peaceful protest.