1965 Grape Strike, launched by Filipino farm workers, is part of US labor history

 

Filipino farmworkers voted to strike against the California grape growers in 1965.

On September 8, 1965, Filipino American farm workers organized as the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) voted to strike against grape growers in Delano, California, to protest years of poor pay and working conditions.

The Delano Grape Strike grew from a long history of labor organizing and protest by Filipino workers in agriculture and canning on the West Coast. Led by Larry Itliong, AWOC asked the more cautious National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), a mostly Latino farm workers union led by Cesar Chavez, to join their strike.

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," referring to Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965, when some 600 civil rights marchers headed attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge where state and local lawmen attacked them with billy clubs and tear gas and drove them back into Selma.

This decision by the Filipinos was a big risk for Delano’s grape workers. Many lived in company housing and could be evicted with little or no notice, and, indeed, many eventually were forced to leave their homes as a consequence of striking. There was also a risk that the growers might draw from the large population of Mexican and Mexican American farmworkers to replace the striking Filipino crews. Such tactics had long been an effective check on union power.

In August 1966, the two organizations merged to form the United Farm Workers (UFW), a union committed to nonviolent protest that sought to organize migrant farm laborers to improve their wages, education, housing, and legal protections.

The protest that began in the fields in Delano grew into a broader boycott that asked for help from consumers in urban areas. Filipino Americans living in the cities and suburbs supported the farm workers by bringing them groceries by the carload, lobbied their lawmakers and boycotted table grapes and wine.

By 1970, the UFW grape boycott was a success. Table grape growers signed their first union contracts, granting workers better pay, benefits, and protections.

In the decades that followed, the UFW continued to use nonviolent strikes, boycotts, marches, and fasts to help farm workers stand up for their rights and gather support from ordinary Americans to aid them in their efforts.

What began as a labor dispute in the fields of Delano blossomed into a civil rights struggle, a movement for achieving justice for farmworkers.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow me at Threads.net/eduardodiok, @DioknoEd on Twitter or at the blog Views From the Edge.