Old News:
Larry Itliong and the Delano Grape Strike
http://www.hyphenmagazine.com/blog/2009/09/old-news-larry-itliong-and-the-delano-grape-strike-.html
September 10, 2009
This week marks not only Labor Day but also the 44th anniversary of
the Delano Grape Strike: on September 8, 1965, 1,500 Filipino
American workers walked off their jobs on grape-growing farms in
California in order to demand fair wages and benefits.
It made history. When the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee,
composed mainly of Filipino American workers, merged with the Mexican
American-led National Farmworkers Association (NFWA) to form the
United Farm Workers of America (UFW), the grape strike grew to
include tens of thousands of farm workers and eventually achieved a
national boycott. The strike would continue until 1970, and is now
known as a linchpin in the the modern farm labor movement. Cesar
Chavez and Dolores Huerta, the leaders of the National Farmworkers
Association, are well-known and regarded as organizing heroes for
immigrant farm workers' rights. But lesser known are the Filipino
workers who led and originated the strike efforts and were often
marginalized within the union itself -- like Larry Itliong.
Born in the Philippines in 1913, Larry Dulay Itliong immigrated to
the US in 1929. He worked in Alaska and California before founding
the Filipino Farm Labor Union in 1956. Itliong served as the
assistant director of the union that later became the UFW, and
eventually as national boycott coordinator. Along with labor leaders
Philip Vera Cruz and Pete Velasco, he was instrumental in getting
Chavez's NFWA to join the Delano strike. An alliance between Mexicans
and Filipinos had, at first, seemed unlikely -- one initial reason
the Filipino workers had gone on strike was that they were being paid
thirty cents an hour less than Mexican workers. This pan-ethnic
alliance later proved to be a strategy for the strike's success,
recognizing commonalities between both groups' exploitations and
ultimately resulting in wage increases, medical benefits, and the
establishment of services like the Pablo Agbayani Village for retired
farm workers, named after a worker who had died while picketing.
After the Delano Grape Strike, Itliong resigned from the union and
became the president of the Filipino American Political Alliance, the
first national political Fil-Am organization and a crucial alliance
between Filipino professionals and laborers that grew out of the
strike. Itliong died in 1977 at the age of 63, leaving behind his
wife and seven children. Cesar Chavez spoke at his funeral and called
him "a true pioneer in the farm workers movement."
Chavez remains a household name, while Itliong and other Filipino
leaders are widely unknown. Yet Filipino farm workers had toiled in
the lettuce and asaparagus fields of California for decades,
migrating north during the winters to work in Alaska's canneries.
They weren't new to organizing in 1965, either, having been striking
and working in farm fields since the 1920s and even maintaining a
reputation as being militant and demanding.
History rewrites itself, though, and despite evidence to the
contrary, Asian Americans are still falsely perceived as being
passive and politically docile. How can we counteract historical amnesia?
.
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Sixties-L" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected]
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/sixties-l?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
