Filipino Experiences within the Farm Worker Movement

SPEAKER 1: Everybody!

(SINGING) Solidarity forever. Solidarity forever.

SPEAKER 2: Nobody exactly knew what was going to happen. I mean, I think, all of us thought that it was going to be a short strike. But it didn't happen that way. The growers fought back very fiercely.

CROWD: Boycott grapes! Boycott grapes!

SPEAKER 3: Weeks became months. Months became years. What had started as a walkout by a small group of Filipinos became a boycott and a nationwide movement.

ROBERT KENNEDY: It's a question of-- a basic question of hope for the future. And that's what this committee is dedicated to trying to do something about. We're going to try to improve not just your lives, but more importantly, the lives of your children.

[CHEERING]

RONALD REAGAN: The grape boycott? Well, I've classified that in the past in a number of public occasions as immoral. And I think it is.

CESAR CHAVEZ: You're talking about recognition. You're really talking about the guts of the union. We're not striking for, really, for a wage increase or for a pension fund. We're striking for the very elemental things of labor.

SPEAKER 4: Now, what's happening is that you get all this national publicity coming in, but it's focused on the Mexican workers. All the volunteers are going there. All the organizing is happening there. The Filipinos are not the spotlight for the strike.

SPEAKER 5: To hear what's going on, in the newspapers and TV and everything is done by Mexicans. Nothing is done by us. So naturally, the Filipinos started drifting away.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

SPEAKER 3: And as time went on, many of the Manongs began leaving Delano, to continue working the crop cycle in order to survive. In 1970, five years after the Filipinos walked out of the fields, one of the longest strikes in labor history, the growers finally agreed to recognize the United Farm Workers Union and sign a union contract.

SPEAKER 6: Larry Itliong, what do you have-- what do you have to say about seeing grapes at the stores after all this time?

LARRY ITLIONG: Well, I think that it's great. And thanks to the co-op store that have been supporting the grape boycott, to help bring about justice and dignity on behalf of the farm workers. And unless you see this label on the box, that says the Union Label grapes, then you don't buy grapes.

SPEAKER 3: But as the Manongs returned to Delano for the new grape harvest season, they found themselves marginalized from the work.

SPEAKER 4: The Filipinos discovered that they had the bad end of a contract being part of the United Farm Workers. When they went back to the union hiring hall the day after the strike was over, to get their job assignments, they discovered that they couldn't get the jobs because they weren't senior enough in this new union.

SPEAKER 7: The new union rules favored the local farm workers and not the migrant workers. So many of the Filipinos lost their jobs. Worse still, the farmers closed the labor camps, so they lost their homes.

SPEAKER 4: I think deeply that a lot of these guys, I think, they had a lot of respect for Cesar Chavez. I think that's the reason they didn't want to say anything negative, because you know, they had accomplished something. They had a union. They had a Farm Workers Union.

But I don't think it was in the image that they wanted. They didn't control it. We started it. We lost in the end.

SPEAKER 5: To tell you the truth, I never think the that I've been taking in this organization. But I do it because I think, it's bigger than me for the farm workers to have an organization. The reason I do it.

SPEAKER 8: I remember my father being upset. I remember him on the phone with the other Filipinos, saying that we're not being heard, and we're getting pushed aside.

SPEAKER 9: Finally, he called a press conference, and he said, "I quit."

SPEAKER 3: Larry continued working for the Filipino community, and he left behind a vision of a retirement home for the Manongs. In 1974, just three years before his death, the UFW built the home.

SPEAKER 10: We put out the word, and sure enough, we got a lot of people to come and help. Then, the hordes of people would come on the weekends, and they were all put to work. And that's the way it was built.

PHILIP VERA CRUZ: Just like a family, we have our disagreements. But in fact, basically, we all do agree that all people should live better, and we know that we are all brothers.

[CHEERING]

SPEAKER 11: What do you think of the celebration today?

SPEAKER 12: Oh, it was one of the most exciting points of my life, because that celebration has given me hope that I am going to be in a home that I might call it, my own. Our own, yeah.