The Challenges and Possibilities of Building a Movement: Supporting Question 5

About This Lesson

Students engage with Supporting Question 5 through a series of activities that examine both the challenges and possibilities of building solidarity within a movement for change. They will first explore Filipino farm workers’ feelings of marginalization in the farm worker movement and consider what those experiences reveal about the challenge of building solidarity and expanding a movement’s universe of obligation. To deepen their understanding of the concept of solidarity, students will then shift their focus to the role of allies in social movements. Students will analyze why Marshall Ganz, a Jewish college student, chose to join the farm worker movement, reflecting on what motivates individuals to take action on an issue even when they are not directly impacted. By examining the perspectives of Filipino farm workers and the mindset of an ally, students will gain insight into how to work across lines of difference to make social change.

Supporting Question

What do the experiences of participants in the Delano grape strike and boycott reveal about the challenges and possibilities of building solidarity in a movement for change?

Formative Task

Students will draw a connection to their own experiences, a text they have read, or current/past events in the world to explore a challenge or opportunity related to building solidarity within a movement for social change.

Lesson Plan

Day 1

Activity 1: Reflect on the Consequences of Being Overlooked

Open the class by sharing with students that in the next couple of days, they will explore the supporting question: “What do the experiences of participants in the Delano grape strike and boycott reveal about the challenges and possibilities of building solidarity in a movement for change?” 

Begin the lesson by asking students to respond to the following prompt in their journals: 

Think about a time when your or someone else’s contributions were overlooked, either in history, in your community, or in your own life. What happened? How did it affect you or the person—and others around you/them? 

Before students begin writing, acknowledge that the prompt may bring up personal experiences that some students may prefer to keep private. Assure the class that sharing their reflections is optional and they will not be required to share with their peers.

When students have finished writing, ask volunteers to share, assuring the class that they may keep their reflections private if they choose. 

Remind students that the farm worker movement fostered unity among Filipino and Mexican farm workers using a variety of tools, including visual art, music, theater, and rituals such as the unity clap. However, by the end of the Delano grape strike, many Filipino farm workers felt sidelined by the movement that they had started, which students will explore in more depth in the next activity. 

Activity 2: Analyze Filipino Farm Workers’ Experience Within the Farm Worker Movement

In this activity, students will watch a video clip from the documentary Delano Manongs, Filipino Experiences within the Farm Worker Movement, to explore why Filipino farm workers felt sidelined during and after the Delano grape strike. Distribute the handout Viewing Guide for Delano Manongs, Part 2 and read aloud the directions and video questions. Then begin the video clip. As students watch, pause the video at the following time stamps to give students time to answer each of the viewing guide questions. 

1. When the national media covered the farm worker movement, they left out the contributions of Filipino farm workers. What impact did this have on the farm worker movement? (20:25)
2. In 1970, the Delano grape strike ended after growers signed a union contract recognizing the United Farm Workers. Why does Alex Fabros say that Filipino workers had the “bad end of a contract”? (22:02)
3. Why did leader and co-founder of the United Farm Workers Larry Itliong resign from the union? (23:01)

Before continuing the video, review the following definition of “universe of obligation” with students:

Universe of obligation: The circle of individuals and groups toward whom obligations are owed, to whom rules apply, and whose injuries call for amends. In other words, those that a society believes have rights that are worthy of respect and protection.

Then pose the following question to the class:

• By the end of the Delano grape strike, how might Filipino farm workers have described their position in the farm worker movement’s universe of obligation? 

Resume the video clip, ending at minute 24:40 and providing students with time to respond to the final question on their viewing guide:

1. Why was the United Farm Workers’ decision to build the Agbayani Village retirement community important for Filipino farm workers? How might the creation of the retirement community have affected the way Filipino farm workers felt about their place in the movement’s universe of obligation? (24:40)

Discuss the question above as a class.

Activity 3: Explore the Power of Solidarity for Expanding a Universe of Obligation 

Explain to students that, according to sociologist Helen Fein, the universe of obligation of a group, community, or society can shift in response to certain conditions or factors. It may expand to include more groups of people, and it can contract to exclude groups as well. 

Share with students that according to Fein, the presence of solidarity is one factor that can cause the universe of obligation of a group, community, or society to expand. ¹ Next, share the following paragraph to further explore the meaning of the concept of “solidarity”: 

Acting in solidarity first involves a shift in mindset—from seeing yourself as an individual to part of a broader community or shared project. Acts of solidarity are not simply inspired by feelings of compassion or charity. They are grounded in the recognition that your fate is bound up in the fate of others, even if those others seem distant or drastically different from you on the surface. This recognition is even more important when trying to get a multitude of people with diverse backgrounds and experiences involved. ²

Then ask students to discuss the following question with a partner in a Think-Pair-Share: 

How can solidarity be fostered or strengthened? Why do you think solidarity would help to expand the universe of obligation of a group, community, or society? 

Ask volunteers to share their thoughts with the class. Then discuss the following questions together: 

1. How did those involved in the Delano grape strike and boycott foster solidarity? In what ways did they fall short? 
2. What does the experience of Filipino farm workers teach us about what it takes to sustain solidarity and expand the universe of obligation of a movement for social change?
3. Drawing on what you learned in class today, what are some concrete actions that your school, community, or society could take to expand its universe of obligation? 

Instruct students to turn one of their responses to the above questions into an exit ticket, and collect these at the end of class. Read through students’ responses before the beginning of the next class to identify interesting ideas or patterns to share at the start of the next lesson. 

Day 2

Activity 1: Connect to Students’ Responses from the Previous Class

Begin by sharing some key takeaways from students’ responses on the exit tickets from the previous class. You might share patterns that you notice in students’ responses or anonymously share several responses that resonated with you.

Then explain to students that they will continue exploring the supporting question, “What do the experiences of participants in the Delano grape strike and boycott reveal about the challenges and possibilities of building solidarity in a movement for change?” Explain that in today’s class, they will analyze one person’s decision to become actively involved in the farm worker movement in order to explore what can inspire individuals to cross lines of difference, understand others’ experiences, and contribute to a collective struggle for justice.

Activity 2: Explore Why People Unite Across Difference to Create Change

Explain to students that they will work in groups to analyze why Marshall Ganz, a Jewish college student, decided to drop out of school to become an active participant in the civil rights movement and, later, the farm worker movement. 

Distribute the reading Why Marshall Ganz Joined the Farm Worker Movement and read it aloud to the class. As you read aloud, have students make the following annotations on the text:

• Write an exclamation mark (!) in the margin alongside information that surprises you. 
• Write a question mark (?) alongside passages in which the author assumes you know something you don’t. 
• Write a “C” in the margin alongside information that challenges your thinking.

When students have finished reading and annotating, ask them to go back to the text and underline one word or phrase that resonates with them or that they would like to discuss with a classmate. In a Think-Pair-Share, have students share with a partner the phrase they selected and discuss why it resonated with them. 

Next, break the class into groups of three or four students and have them discuss the text in their small groups using the following questions:

1. What key lessons did Marshall Ganz take from his family background, religious traditions, and encounters with Holocaust survivors? How did these lessons influence his decision to join the civil rights movement? 
2. Ganz writes that he “had never really seen” the farm worker world, even though he grew up near it. How did the civil rights movement change the way he saw his own community in California? How did it shape his universe of obligation?
3. How does Ganz define the term “prophetic imagination”? How does this idea help explain why young people were drawn to social movements like the civil rights and farm worker movements?

Regroup as a class and ask volunteers to share takeaways from their small-group discussions.

Activity 3: Students Reflect on the Lessons of the Farm Worker Movement

Close the lesson by asking students to write a journal response connecting Ganz’s story with their own lives. Have students journal in response to the following questions:

1. What aspects of your background, upbringing, or experiences have shaped the way you view your community, nation, or the world? How have they shaped the changes you’d like to see? 
2. What do you think inspires people to take action for change, even when they are not directly impacted by an issue? Could you see yourself joining a cause that does not directly impact you? Why or why not?
3. What lessons might you take from Ganz and the farm worker movement as you think about how to take action to enact change?

Ask students to share their responses with a partner, and then have volunteers share out. 

Formative Task

Write a Reflection in Response to the Supporting Question

Students will create a list, based on what they’ve learned in this consideration of Supporting Question 5, of at least three challenges and opportunities related to building solidarity within a movement for change. In their list, students should include at least one challenge and at least one opportunity. 

Finally, students will choose one challenge or opportunity from their list and make a Text-to-Text, Text-to-Self, Text-to-World connection with it. They should describe the connection in a short paragraph. Offer the following prompts to help students draw a connection. 

1. Text-to-Text: How does this challenge/opportunity connect to something else we’ve read, viewed, or discussed? 
2. Text-to-Self: How does this challenge/opportunity connect to something in your own life or identity? 
3. Text-to-World: How does this challenge/opportunity connect to something happening in the world—past or present?

• 1Helen Fein, Accounting for Genocide: National Responses and Jewish Victimization During the Holocaust (New York: Free Press, 1979), 33–35.
• 2Quote adapted from Astra Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix, Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea (Penguin Random House: 2024), xx–xxi.