Although the temperature in downtown Los Angeles uncharacteristically reached nearly 90 degrees Thursday afternoon, it was not enough to keep hundreds of Angelinos from marching in support of their various causes.

Different groups of people from all walks of life gathered at around 9 a.m. in L.A.'s Chinatown district waving banners, flags and signs while fiercely chanting like the whole world could hear them.

Between rousing speeches, music blasted through the stereo system while many danced, sang or played their own music using drums, water jugs and drumsticks.

Their voices along with many others were shared and carried across the nation as many citizens of metropolitan areas participated in the annual May Day marches that occur on the first day of May every year.

With the Los Angeles Police Department safely leading the way, followed by a group collectively holding a large American flag, the demonstrators walked a half a mile, starting from Cesar E. Chavez Avenue and Broadway to the Metropolitan Detention Center where they would continue their protest until the late afternoon.

Formerly known as International Worker's Day, May Day traditionally represents a celebration of workers' rights. However, during the past decade in the U.S, it has become a day to advocate for several issues, including immigration reform and raising the national minimum wage.

"Si se puede!" -- Yes, we can -- rang throughout the air as immigration reform and undocumented immigrants' rights were the main focus of this year's march. The theme, Keeping Families Together, resonated with all the different racial groups that came out to support an end to deportations, which have significantly increased under President Barack Obama's administration.

Several civil and human rights groups have ramped up their demonstrations in the past year, calling on President Obama to halt deportations until Congress can pass comprehensive immigration reform that could provide a pathway to citizenship for the millions of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S.

A bipartisan immigration overhaul bill passed in the Senate last year, but fell to the wayside in the Republican-led House amid GOP claims that the president would not properly enforce immigration laws.

In the last few months, however, House Speaker John Boehner has been vocal about passing an immigration bill this year despite his previous objections.

Nationwide activists rallied in the face of government inaction on immigration reform and in California, where more than 2.6 million undocumented immigrants reside, other rallies were staged in San Diego and the San Francisco Bay Area.

One San Diego rally took place at San Diego State University, where students protested against tuition hikes while rallies planned in San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland were similar to the one in L.A., according to the Associated Press.

In a city known for its diverse and ethnic population, Los Angeles' May Day is simply about uniting all the cultures that share similar issues, said Nat Lowe, a Chinatown resident representative for the Chinatown Community for Equitable Development (CCED), an organization that advocates for workers' rights in the district.

"It's really awesome that we're starting in Chinatown because we're also saying that May Day is also diverse," Lowe said. "It's also the issues of Latinos, Asian-Americans, African-Americans all coming together to fight for immigrants' rights and workers' rights."

The CCED has staunchly advocated against a new Wal-Mart that was built in Chinatown, which members claim has been paying low wages and pushing away mom and pop shops in the community.

Lowe, 26, said after May Day his organization would continue pushing against the global giant.

"We really want to say that we're here to stay as a community," Lowe said. "We're really here to stand and connect the issues of immigrants and workers and we're here doing the work in the community, fighting everyday to make sure workers and immigrants are represented."

May Day is personal for Lowe because his grandfather, who immigrated to California from China and found work as a butcher, came to the U.S. to build a better life for him and his family.

His grandfather lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and is a union member of the United Food and Commercial Workers organization.

Laphonza Butler, president of the United Long Term Care Workers association, gave one of the opening speeches at Thursday's rally in L.A. where she expressed that all ethnicities stand to gain from fighting for civil, worker and equal rights.

"Are we ready to fight?" she exclaimed multiple times. "Los Angeles, this is an incredible May Day. We have the courage ... to talk not just about immigration, reform and a pathway to citizenship this May Day, we want to also talk about workers this May Day. We want to talk about low wages this May Day. We want to talk about how the tide that binds us all, whether we're immigrant or foreign born or American born, we want to talk about this May Day the dignity that each and every one of us deserves."

She continued to speak about the importance of dignity and how it relates to all the different causes advocated for during the rally on Thursday.

"That's what providing a pathway to citizenship really is. That's what keeping our family together really means. That's what being able to have a wage that allows anyone to provide for their families, make sure their kids have a good way to go to college, to be able to buy a house if you choose to," Butler said. "That's really what that is. It's all about dignity."

About halfway through the march, Jonathan Alpizar, a 24-year-old physics junior at California State University, San Marcos, led a wave of several demonstrators to hold their signs high above the Hollywood Freeway overpass on Broadway, inciting passing vehicles to honk as a show of solidarity with the march.

Alpizar, who took a semester off from school so he could catch up on his tuition payments, moved to the U.S. when he was nine years old with his mother. His father had already been living in the states when they had crossed the border through Arizona.

"He wanted us to come to the U.S. to have a better life," Alpizar said, who failed to cross the California-Mexico border three times with his mother before making it across the Arizona border.

The physics major chose that field of study because he said he is an admirer of science and the benefits that come from scientific discovery. He said it allows him to keep learning new things even beyond earning a degree as scientific improvements continue to occur.

Alpizar was trying to get back to his home in Burbank when he decided to stick around and participate in the May Day march. He said he has attended previous immigration rallies before as a way of representing other undocumented immigrants that cannot make it to protests.

"It's important to express your opinion especially when everyone's working. We have to show support for our people," Alpizar said. "We got to tell our government that we're not leaving, even though you're trying to kick us out."