![]() "I'd known of Cesar Chavez and Hispanics being involved," she says. "So it was active family history, but it was not taught - or talked about - at all," she says.Įven though she's in her late 20s, Melanie Retuda says she learned about the Filipino origins of the strike only last year. Anhelica Perez says her Latina grandmother and other relatives actually participated in the strike and ensuing boycott. He gave his guts," Gadiano says.ĭuring Philippine Weekend, a cultural celebration and kind of family reunion, a group of young women say they never learned about the farmworker movement in school. Roger Gadiano (left) and Alex Edillor hold a photo of grape strike leader Larry Itliong, whom they respectfully refer to as "The Man." Itliong convinced Filipino grape worker to go on strike in 1965, a step that set in motion the Farmworker Movement. It's a community center, but to Gadiano, "this is a shrine. Long-time resident Roger Gadiano leads college students and others on tours of these places and to Filipino Hall. Bobby Kennedy spoke in support of the farmworkers. There's a white stucco building on the edge of town where Chavez held his first hunger strike, and a high school auditorium where then-Sen. In this town's unassuming corners, the true story of the Delano Grape Strike unfolded. But there's a part of that movement's history that's rarely told - and it traces back to Delano, Calif., a pretty typical hot, dry farm community. The United Farm Workers and Cesar Chavez are widely known: They first came to prominence as the face of a strike of grape pickers in the 1960s that prompted an international boycott of table grapes. But 50 years ago, a historic workers' strike in the vineyards of California's Central Valley set in motion the most significant campaign in modern labor history: the Farmworker Movement. These days, grapes in the grocery store don't seem that controversial. ![]() They would join forces with Mexican laborers led by Cesar Chavez to form the United Farm Workers.įarmworker Movement Documentation Project/University of California San Diego Library Filipino farmworkers, including Larry Itliong (left), were the first to walk out of vineyards, prompting the Delano Grape Strike.
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