By: Emil Guillermo, September 17th, 2015 01:56 AM The Filipino Community Hall in Delano, California looks like an old gym with a clock on the wall that looks like it’s permanently stuck in the 1940s. That’s when the building was built, but it was in 1965 when this was the place where Filipinos made history. Forget the champagne, pop a fresh grape in your mouth, hopefully the kind from Delano that comes with a snap. You can find them at Costco. Fifty years ago this month, the Delano Grape Strike began. Hey, wasn’t that the strike that turned Cesar Chavez into an American saint? Yeah, sort of. Let’s take nothing away from the non-violent protest acumen of Chavez.But it all came at the expense of the veteran labor strategist who made the strike happen— Larry Itliong. You don’t have to be Filipino to make a mecca-like journey to 1457 Glenwood St. in Delano. But it wouldn’t be a bad idea. The Grape Strike was started by Itliong (left) and the Filipinos on September 8. Itliong asked Chavez (right) to join the strike Sept. 16. Together Chavez and Larry Itliong merged their groups to form the United Farm Workers. Courtesy of Filipino American National Historical Society-Delano chapter This is where where Itliong and members of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee made history. It’s a seminal Asian American/Filipino American story. Like many of the strikers, my father was one of the original Filipinos to arrive in America in the ’20s. He came Read More …
