On September 8, 1965, over 800 Filipino farmworkers affiliated with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) went on strike at 10 grape vineyards around Delano, California. Led by Larry Dulay Itliong, Philip Vera Cruz, and Peter Gines Velasco, these workers had the courage to organize and take a stand against powerful growers in the grape industry and fight for higher wages, better working conditions, and basic dignity.
Larry Dulay Itliong: Modesto "Larry" Dulay Itliong brought attention to the plight of farmworkers. Born in the Philippines in October 1913, he emigrated to the United States in April 1929. While working in the canneries and the agricultural fields in Alaska, Washington, California, Montana, and South Dakota, Itliong witnessed the plight of working-class communities of color. He passionately began organizing to demand fair pay and more humane working conditions for his fellow workers.
After serving on a U.S. Army transport ship during World War II, he became a U.S. citizen and resumed his labor activism. In September 1965, Itliong galvanized Filipino American farmworkers to establish the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC). The following year, AWOC joined forces with the National Farm Workers Association to form the United Farm Workers (UFW) of which César Chávez served as Director and Itliong as Assistant Director. His tenacious drive and strategic move to collaborate with Chávez and Mexican American farmworkers resulted in the Delano Grape Strike's eventual success in May 1970 when growers agreed to provide higher pay and better working conditions. His work did not end there. Itliong continued to champion the funding and construction of Agbayani Village, which still exists today, as an affordable retirement facility for Filipino American farmworkers in Delano, California.
Recognizing Larry Itliong's legacy of seeking justice and equity for all workers, the State of California declared October 25 as "Larry Itliong Day."
Philip Vera Cruz: As one of the founders of AWOC, Philip Vera Cruz was an inimitable leader dedicated to improving the lives of farmworkers. Philip Villamin Vera Cruz was born in the Philippine province of Ilocos Sur, then a U.S. territory, on December 25, 1905. As a child, he cared for the water buffalo on his family's farm. In his youth, Vera Cruz traveled 140 miles from his home to be educated in Lingayen by teachers from the United States. When Vera Cruz was 20 years old, he journeyed to the United States on the steamship, Empress of Asia, arriving in Seattle, Washington in 1926.
Vera Cruz was one of the leading organizers of the Delano Grape Strike and served the ranks of UFW as its second vice-president. Not only was he tenacious in action, rallying droves of supporters, he was also a commanding oralist, illuminating the challenges of the "manong generation," one of the first waves of Filipino migrant workers to the United States during the 1920s and 1930s. His impactful words, especially that which championed education and knowledge as the power of the downtrodden, are memorialized in Philip Vera Cruz: A Personal History of Filipino Immigrants and the Farmworkers Movement, published by the UCLA Labor Center and Asian American Studies Center Press in 1992, and reprinted by the United Washington Press.
Peter Gines Velasco: Peter "Pete" Gines Velasco unified Filipino migrant workers on September 8, 1965, marking the start of the Delano Grape Strike. Pete was born in Asingan, Pangasinan, Philippines on August 18, 1910 to a farmworking family. He arrived to the United States, serving as a Private, First Class, in the American Armed Forces in Europe from 1942-1945.
Pete worked in various jobs from working in restaurants to then finding kinship with those working in the fields. Velasco epitomized the "manong," a term of reverence for elderly Filipino men, many of whom immigrated as bachelors and endured racism and exclusionary laws in the United States in the first half of the 20th Century. Velasco worked alongside Itliong, Vera Cruz, and other advocates in organizing for better working conditions for migrant farmworkers.
Velasco served in numerous UFW positions. He was the Stockton, California Field Office Director, the Director of the Strike Defense Fund, a board member of the Farm Workers Credit Union, and the third vice-president of the UFW.
Velasco met his wife Dolores in Baltimore in 1974 when he was the union boycott director in Maryland. Together, they dedicated their lives to the UFW and the farmworker movement.
Manongs Itliong, Vera Cruz, and Velasco rallied farmworkers—who endured prejudice, low wages, and poor working conditions—to courageously organize for fairer wages and humane treatment, all while providing food for homes across the nation. These three leaders instilled change and continue to inspire change for those who valiantly labor in the fields. Unfortunately, despite these historic efforts, Filipinos in the farm labor movement have largely remained unsung heroes.
The induction of Larry Itliong, Philip Vera Cruz, and Peter Gines Velasco into the U.S. Department of Labor's Hall of Honor puts these giants of the labor movement in their rightful place in the history of labor in the United States.