City of Carson Celebrates Larry Itliong Day

Video by Harry Bugarin

On Oct. 22, the City of Carson celebrated the life and legacy of labor leader Larry Itliong. The Filipino American labor leader gained wide recognition due to the Delano Grape Strike of 1965. In October 2010, Carson’s City Council passed a resolution establishing Oct. 25 as Larry Itliong Day in Carson and has annually celebrated his life ever since.

Before this strike, the Itliong led Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee and Cesar Chavez’s National Farm Workers Association merged to form the National Farm Workers Union. The AFL–CIO union’s AWOC sent Itliong to Delano, California in the early 1960s, sent by the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, of which the majority of its members were Filipinos who had arrived in the United States in the 1930s.

Up until that point, he had decades of labor organizing experience with the Alaskan salmon cannery union and the ILWU, Local 37. He organized a failed 1948 strike of the asparagus workers in Stockton and a successful strike in 1949. Arguably, he had more organizing experience than Dolores Huerta or Cesar.. Unfortunately he died a few years after the UFW was founded. He was pivotal to the Delano Grape strike and the early years of the UFW.

The Delano grape strike was organized against table grape growers in Delano, California for better wages and work conditions. The strike began Sept. 8, 1965. A week later, the predominantly Mexican National Farmworkers Association (NFWA) joined the cause. In August 1966, the AWOC and the NFWA merged to create the United Farm Workers (UFW) Organizing Committee.

The strike lasted for five years and relied on consumer boycotts, marches, community organizing and nonviolent resistance, gaining the movement national attention. In July 1970, the strike led to a collective bargaining agreement with the major table grape growers, affecting more than 10,000 farm workers.