Emotion:stressed.
Random Thought:educate yourself.
What:kyxy 96.5



Filipino Farm Workers. October 1997 was Filipino American History Month, which prompted several stories on the "forgotten legacy" of Filipino farm workers in California. In 1965, some 1,500 Filipino grape pickers in the AFL-CIO-affiliated Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee went on strike in Delano and Cesar Chavez's National Farm Workers Association joined the strike 11 days later.

Most historians say that Filipinos were squeezed out of Chavez's union. Historian Alex Fabros of San Francisco State says that "Filipinos were marginalized and never given true power within the [UFW] union." Filipinos Larry Itliong and Philip Vera Cruz resigned from the UFW, but Peter Velasco remained secretary-treasurer until his retirement in 1988.

In 1973, UFW volunteers built the 60-unit Agbayani Village in Delano for retired Filipino farm workers. Most were single-- Filipino men outnumbered women 14 to 1. In 1997, the last Filipino resident who participated in the 1965 strike died. In his autobiography, Philip Vera Cruz, a former UFW officer, decried California's anti-miscegenation laws that prevented Filipinos from marrying whites and restrictive immigration laws that prevented them from bringing in Filipina brides.

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Suggested Reading: Autobiography of Phiip Vera Cruz