While May Day came from international origins, Cuban popular and political culture has embraced the holiday as its own and molded the celebration to render it useful to the goals of Cuba . Like all celebrations May Day is celebrated its own specific reasons, however May Day has evolved from an international workers rally organized by the working masses to a National Holiday used to reinforce the cultural values decided on by the leaders of the Nation. The number of participants attending the May Day celebration is growing but individual interest and enthusiasm in the actual celebration is decreasing as the typical Cuban participant is becoming alienated from the celebration's roots. Increasingly there is a gap between the values and significance of the May Day that was previously celebrated and the values it represents today. To examine this growing gap both May Day must be examined in its original context and then today's. The contrast between these two versions of the workers holiday will show the considerable difference in the role of the celebration in the cultural aspects of social structure and politics.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries May Day played a very different role then its current one in Cuba . May Day was celebrated by organized protests in order to promote worker solidarity to gain improvements in social conditions. While the first Cuban may day observance consisted of mainly protest rallies subsequent the actually May Day celebrations began after. Cubans celebrated May Day ideally by celebration through demonstration. These commemorative demonstrations included memorable instances as the May Day participants marched from Havana to a tree in planted in a square across the bay in Regla in that honors V.I. Lenin. In 1929, the march to Lenin's Tree which erupted in a confrontation between police and May Day marchers which resulted in two protesters deaths also, in 1930 during the same march, two more workers were killed in a second confrontation with police (Foner 1986: 111). The tradition of honoring both the Communist leader Lenin and the fallen protesters of the past May Day observers attempted to march even though it was made illegal in 1955. This March in 1955 lead to arrest and what was seen Cuban as more oppression of the working class. After the 1959 victory of the Cuban revolution, 500,000 Cubans were able to march in celebration of the governmental change and their newly found ability to organize and march peacefully on May 1 st (Foner 1986: 145).

These original examples of May Day show past values of the culture of the Cuban worker. The marches displayed the importance of working class solidarity. By marching to the Lenin Tree Cubans showed their desire for change and revolution to better their position in Cuban society. Cubans also marched in remembrance of others who led the way in their struggle who had made sacrifice for change.

Today the May Day festivities show little resemblance to the activist marches of the first half of the nineteenth century. The entire purpose for the celebration has changed with the difference of governmental structure in the post revolutionary era. Current May Day festivities revolve around huge rallies organized by top Cuban officials for the purpose of increasing governmental legitimacy through controlling information and interpretation of the celebration not by workers looking for change. By having the monopoly over the interpretation of the May Day celebration Castro is able to manipulate the celebration to increase his governments legitimacy which in turn enables him to stay in power (Aguirre 2002: 276) These rallies on the National holiday serve the purpose of unifying Cubans just as they did before, however the reason why this is done is completely different.

With the Keynote speaker of Fidel Castro the May Day rallies take a different focus. This focus is no longer one of Change but rather one of National Pride in the face of international opposition. Organizers of May Day festivities clearly look to harbor the idea of communitas defined as “ a bond uniting people over and above any formal social bonds… which is rather more than the casual camaraderie of ordinary social life” (Tuner 1982: 6). By uniting Cubans Castro and the other leaders look to quiet discontent from the repressed people of the nation while increasing legitimacy for the dictatorial regime. Recent speeches have focused on the topics of the struggle of the nation to remain free, independent sovereign and socialist, the successes of Cuba compared to other Latin American nations (Hillson 2002) and the evils of the United States and their plans to invade (Kinder 2004). With these speeches it can clearly be seen that Cuban May Day is about convincing the Cuban participants to be proud of their country, not to the old idea of fighting for change in the social situation.

Other aspects of May Day including the symbolic performances of stories of the revolution, displays of the words of Cuban unifying leader José Martí and the waving of the Cuban flag all call for Cubans to remember their revolutionary roots and because of this May Day can be compared to the definition of a revitalization movement “as a deliberate, organized, conscious effort by members of a society to construct a more satisfying culture.” (Wallace 1956: 265) With pressures from the outside capitalist world Castro and the organizers of May Day seek to revitalize the Revolutionary cause through mentioning José Martí, Waving the Flag and reciting revolutionary stories making it a revitalization effort, calling back to the early days of the revolution.

The forced nature of the May Day celebrations can be seen through reaction of participants and actions of the governmental organizers. Colleen Kinder discusses the indifference of Cuban participants in her first hand account of the celebration. She states that “there are times when Castro is not speaking to (them)” (Kinder 2004) and also references to her friend that rolls her eyes when commanded to stand during the rally. Furthermore nearly all media outlets in Cuba cover only the May Day events during the holiday even though the citizens who do not attend the rally prefer to watch other recorded events (Cubanet.org 2004).