ON A summer morning two years ago California awoke to find that its 14 million Hispanic residents had disappeared.

Within hours rubbish was piling up in the streets. There was nowhere to buy a meal, or nannies to take children to school. Farms sat desolate, fruit and crops unpicked. Lawns remained unmowed. Work on construction sites halted. Lavatories became filthy.

Within days California, the world’s fifth largest economy, was in a state of chaotic paralysis. This was the fictional doomsday scenario contained in the 2004 film A Day Without a Mexican. On Monday, not just in California but across America, it is set to happen.

Promising the largest mass boycott and protest since the civil rights era of the 1960s, millions of America’s Hispanic immigrants will refuse to work on May 1 to demonstrate just how reliant the country is on its 11 million illegal workers to brew its Starbucks coffee, build its homes, trim its hedges and clean its kitchens.

In Los Angeles, an estimated three million Latinos are expected to take to the streets. Some of America’s largest meat processing companies, including Cargill and Tyson Foods, have announced that they will close. Tens of thousands of Hispanic school children will fail to attend classes, and teaching unions across the country have said they will not be punished.

In Chicago, hundreds of restaurants are expected to close. According to a recent study, almost all kitchen help and cooks in the city’s restaurants are Mexican. Even a third of its sushi chefs are Mexican. Its meat-packing plants will be crippled — 95 per cent of its meat cutters are Mexican.

Latino truckers, who haul supplies and food across the nation every day, are vowing to cut their engines. Beds in hundreds of thousands of hotel rooms will remain unmade. Millions of gardens will stay unwatered.

A Spanish version of The Star-Spangled Banner, Nuestro Himno (Our Anthem) was even released yesterday. Recorded over the past week by Latin pop stars including Gloria Trevi and Tito “El Bambino”, it is sung to a backtrack of rhythms and instrumentation straight out of Latin pop, angering many traditionalists who consider it disrespectful.

In California, the state senate passed a resolution recognising “The Great American Boycott of 2006”, saying that it would educate Americans about the contributions made by immigrants. In New York, many businesses have pledged to close and let their workers attend a rally in Union Square. In Mexico there is a parallel “No Gringo Day”, where a boycott of US goods is being planned.

The job walkout, buoyed by the success of massive demonstrations across the US this month, which forced immigration reform to the top of Congress’s agenda, will come as the Senate resumes debate on the issue.

America’s Latinos now account for 40 million of the total US population and in 2000 became the largest minority in the US, surpassing blacks. They are demanding that the 11 million illegal Hispanics who carry out many of the low-paid jobs that white America refuses to do be given the chance to obtain US citizenship.

They have been galvanised by a Bill passed in the House of Representatives in December, which would make it a federal crime to live illegally in the US. Conservative Republicans want all illegal immigrants deported and a security wall built along the US-Mexican border.

“We want to make it clear to the American people and to the world that undocumented immigrants are not criminals,” Juan José Gutierrez, co-ordinator of Latino Movement USA, told The Times. “We are workers, who work very hard for low wages and contribute a great deal to the American economy.

Times Recommends

• Mandela’s tribe threatens President Zuma
• The French empire strikes back
• Wife of cheating governor exacts a political revenge