Grape strike anniversary: Delano '"is our Selma."

Cesar Chavez, left, and Larry Itliong united two rival unions to launch the Grape Strike and Boycott..

FIFTY YEARS AGO, today, Sept. 7, Filipino farmworkers in Delano, Calif. voted to go on strike: Leave the grapes on the vine, walk out on their livelihood, suffer the consequences of no paycheck.

To Delano resident Roger Gadiano, the nondescript Filipino Hall in town is a shrine. “This is our Mecca,” he says. “I guess it’s our Selma. This is it!” Because in this building, on the night of Sept. 7, 1965, farmworkers voted to go on strike the next day. They were almost all Filipino.

You have to remember, back then, farm workers didn't even have portapotties in the fields, no water breaks, no shade for breaks. They had to use the short-handed hoe to cut  asparagus and strawberries, requiring workers to stay in a bent-over position all day and they worked for minimum wage, which was a little more than a dollar an hour.

Journalist Lisa Morehouse recently visited Delano, where the strike began, and did a podcast for KQED that's pretty good.

I remember, growing up in California, when the strike started Filipinos and sympathizers everywhere rallied around the farm workers. Table grapes disappeared from our dining room table. 

My dad and his friends, though not farm workers,  would buy groceries from the commissary at the Oakland Army Base. He loaded them in the trunk of his old Buick and then haul them over to Stockton and Delano for the farm workers.

To this day, I still avoid certain wine products because the grapes were grown by the worst growers.

RELATED: Celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1965 Grape Strike 

Delano's chapter of the Filipino American National History Society along with other groups planned a series of activities to commemorate the anniversary this weekend. 

Assemblyman Rob Bonta, the only Filipino American serving in the California legislature and the son of union organizers, sponsored and passed a bill requiring this chapter  of California history be taught in school and a day was set aside in October to honor Larry Itliong, who spearheaded the strike.

"It's really on us. It's our story," said the late historian Dawn Mabalon. "It's our story,"

If you can't make it to Delano today, this Labor Day, it is appropriate that we remember this seminal moment in labor history, in Filipino/American history - hell - American history.

Listen, remember, honor - then act.

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CONTINUE THE CELEBRATION!

The Labor Day celebration launches a year of observances. The next event will be on Sept. 26 at Agbayani Village, the retirement home for farm workers.

The United Farm Workers will have an all-day celebration at the historic site, from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 26, 2015, outside Delano at the farm workers’ “Forty Acres” complex, now a National Historic Landmark.

Click here to register!

For more information about the event or to tell others where they can go to attend, visit http://delanograpestrike.org.

DETAILS:
What: 50th anniversary of the Delano Grape Strike
When: Saturday, September 26, from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Where: Forty Acres
             30168 Garces Highway
             Delano, CA 93215

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