Filipino American Farmworkers | Asian Americans

Learn how Filipinos and Mexican Americans farmworkers formed the United Farm Workers (UFW). In September 1965, Larry Itliong, a manong labor leader and co-founder of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), inspired Filipino farmworkers in Delano, California to initiate a strike against the grape farm owners. After they began striking, Itliong and other Filipino leaders urged Mexican Americans to join Filipino farmworkers and fight for civil rights instead of being used as strikebreakers. Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez, civil rights leaders who had been organizing Mexican American farmworkers, were convinced by Filipino leaders to strike together.