POPLAR, CA – 24OCTOBER21 – Farmworker movement activists celebrated the birthday of Larry Itiong at the Larry Itliong Resource Center in Poplar, and walked and caravanned to Delano. Itliong was a Filipino labor leader, starting in the 1940s, when he helped organize farmworkers and Alaska cannery workers, and was dispatcher of UCAPAWA Local 7 (now the Inlandboatmen’s Union of the ILWU). He organized farmworkers through the 1950s with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, and in 1965 he and other Filipino workers started the 1965 grape strike, which led to the organization of the United Farm Workers. A day in honor of his birth was declared by the California state legislature.
Among the people celebrating his birthday were California Attorney General Rob Bonta, UFW co-founder Dolores Huerta, Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, Sacramento LCLAA chapter president Desiree Rojas, Filipina academic Robyn Rodriguez, Central Valley Empowerment Alliance organizers Mari Perez and Arturo Rodriguez, longtime Filipino community activists Cyntia Bonta, Lillian Galedo and Edwin Batonbacal, members of the Itliong family, including Johnny Itliong, and many others.
Copyright David Bacon
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