Several people can be seen participating in The Great American Boycott, or what some have dubbed as "A Day Without an Immigrant" protest and demonstration. Most of the participants wore white clothing to signify peace, and waved American flags, Mexican flags and/or flags of different Central and South American countries, while others held signs and banners. In this photo, one man holds a poster-board painted to look like an American flag with red and white stripes, but in place of the stars there is a large photo of a young woman in military attire. Writing between the stripes reads: "Why are we called criminals when our sons fight in Iraq for you". The Great American Boycott (known in Spanish as "El Gran Paro Estadounidense") took place on May 1, 2006 and was a one-day boycott of U.S. schools and businesses by immigrants, most of Latin American origin, of both legal and illegal status - protesting the anti-immigration movement and demanding general amnesty and legalization programs for non-citizens. Organizers of this boycott called for supporters to abstain from buying, selling, working, and attending school in order to demonstrate the extent to which the obtained labor of unauthorized immigrants is needed for the economy of the United States; for this reason, the day was referred to as "A Day Without an Immigrant". It was estimated that over one million people across the U.S. participated in the protests and demonstrations - the largest of which were in Los Angeles and Chicago. The boycott and strike provoked controversy as soon as they were proposed, stirring up the sentiments of millions of people living in the United States legally and illegally and emphasizing the extremely emotional issue of illegal immigration in America, as well as initiating intense debate on all sides of the political spectrum. Photo dated: May 1, 2006.
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