11 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday at Forty Acres
Large crowd in Delano to honor ‘60s Filipino grape strikers at 40th anniversary of Agbayani Village
As many as 1,000 people are gathering to honor the Manongs—heroic Filipino farm workers who began the famed 1965 Delano Grape Strike—during the 40th anniversary celebration of the dedication of the Paulo Agbayani Retirement Village where many of them lived their later years on Saturday, June 21, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the farm worker movement’s Forty Acres complex just west of Delano. Some original 1965 grape strikers and Manong family members will attend. The Cesar Chavez Foundation and the United Farm Workers of America are organizing the observances.
Many of the Manongs, elderly and without decent housing after the Delano strike was won in 1970, lived the end of their lives in comfort and dignity at the Agbayani Village once it opened in 1974. California’s racist anti-miscegenation laws forbade these Filipino immigrants from marrying outside their race and few Filipino women came. Also recognized on Saturday will be many men and women who selflessly volunteered their labor to build the village.
Highlights of the day’s events:
• A brief formal program starting at 11:30 a.m. will honor the Manongs who resided at the Agbayani Village and the volunteers who built it. It will take place outside the union hall where Delano-area table grape growers sat down with UFW leaders Cesar Chavez and Larry Itliong to sign their first-ever union contracts on July 29, 1970, ending the five year Delano Grape Strike. Speakers will include participants from those times and veterans of the village’s construction, including 1960s Filipino grape strikers, village volunteer and now U.S. Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), farm labor icon Dolores Huerta, UFW President Arturo Rodriguez and Chavez foundation President Paul Chavez.
• Tours will be conducted of the Agbayani Village, including one of its 59 units depicting a typical Manong resident’s home from the ‘70s, as well as the nearby co-op gas station with a photo exhibit focusing on the Manongs from the 1965-1970 Delano walkouts.
• Exhibits will be on display about the Agbayani Village and the 1965 strike.
• A complimentary lunch will be served with Filipino cuisine.
• Entertainment will spotlight the legendary 1970s Filipino-Latin rock band Dakila, “the San Francisco-based group [that] uniquely fused rock, funk, soul and Latin to a historic, major label signing and album release… among firsts for an Asian American/Filipino American group,” according to examiner.com. Dakila performed at UFW benefit concerts during the ‘70s. See: http://www.dakilaband.com/
• A special screening will be presented by filmmaker Marissa Aroy of The Delano Manongs, a new 30-minute documentary about Larry Itliong, Peter Velasco, Philip Vera Cruz plus other leaders and members of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee. They began the 1965 Delano strike and then asked the mostly Latino National Farm Workers Association led by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta to join their picket lines. The film will be followed by a panel discussion including Marissa Aroy and ‘60s and ‘70s veterans who took part in those historic events. See http://www.delanomanongs.com/about and http://www.delanomanongs.com/filmmaker
The Forty Acres, now a National Historic Landmark, is located at 30168 Garces Hwy., Delano, Calif. 93215 (corner of Mettler Ave. just west of town). Access free parking off Mettler Ave. besides the Agbayani Village.
Saturday’s event celebrates the courage, sacrifice and important contributions of the Manongs as well as the genuine solidarity between Filipinos and Latinos that helped win the Delano walkouts and establish the first enduring farm workers union in United States history.
For background on the Manongs and the anniversary:
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Remarks by Arturo S. Rodriguez, President
United Farm Workers of America
40th anniversary of the Paulo Agbayani Retirement Village
June 21, 2014—Delano, California
The Great Delano Grape Strike wasn’t in the plans of Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and the other early leaders of the National Farm Workers Association in September 1965. Cesar thought it would take many more years of patient community-style organizing before his young union was ready for a major field walkout.
But when Larry Itliong and the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee approached Cesar and Dolores, asking them to join their picket lines, there wasn’t much of a debate.
Dolores knew and had worked with Larry and AWOC in Stockton.
Cesar had carefully studied farm labor history—how for generations growers pitted one race against another to break strikes and crush unions.
Every time I heard Cesar talk about the ’65 Delano strike, he gave full credit to the Filipinos for starting the strike—and he described the genuine solidarity between Filipinos and Latinos that helped win that tough five-year long struggle.
Cesar, Larry and the other leaders of both unions insisted that they share the same picket lines, union hall and strike kitchen.
But merging the two races wasn’t always easy, given the long history of racial hostility engendered by the growers.
Cesar talked about it in Peter Matthiessen’s 1969 book, Sal Si Puedes: Cesar Chavez and the New American Revolution. Cesar related how early in the strike a few Latino members of his union wanted to have a vote on whether or not to join = the Filipinos. “In other words, they wanted to take a vote to discriminate,” Cesar said.
“Over my dead body,” he told them. “There’ll be no vote taken here—and furthermore, before you get rid of the Filipinos you’ll have to get rid of me…Those of you who don’t like it, I suggest that you get out. Or even better, I’ll get out and join the Filipinos. And we’ll build a trade union, and work well together.” That ended the discussion.
Later, the day the 1966 march to Sacramento began in Delano, someone objected to an AWOC striker carrying the Philippine flag at the head of the march. Cesar took the Filipino brother by the arm, walked him up to the front of the march and placed him alongside standard bearers carrying the U.S., Mexican and California flags. That’s where he remained.
By honoring the Manongs of the Agbayani Village today we also honor the solidarity between Filipinos and Latinos that changed history. As an organizer for the last 41 years, I know that lesson is every bit as relevant today as it was five decades ago. We need to recognize that history, and keep repeating it.
As we prepare for ceremonies marking the 50th anniversary of the Delano Grape Strike a year from this coming September, we in the farm worker movement know it must also clearly acknowledge and honor the contributions of the Manongs.
You can get a copy here of Sal Si Puedes by Peter Matthiessen that UC Press re-issued this year with a new forward by Marc Grossman. The story of the Filipinos is one part of this inspiring book.
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Remarks by Paul F. Chavez, President
Cesar Chavez Foundation
40th anniversary of the Paulo Agbayani Retirement Village
June 21, 2014—Delano, California
Those of you who knew my dad or heard him speak remember how soft spoken and unassuming he was.
My father was always uncomfortable being singled out for praise. He rarely accepted personal awards or let people name things for him.
He knew there were so many men and women who endured real sacrifices and achieved great things, but whose names are mostly unknown.
We in the farm worker movement today recognize that my father’s story is about more than one man; it is also about the many people who made great sacrifices and whose contributions too often went unnoticed.
That is why we sponsored this historic celebration—and why so many people have worked so hard to make it happen.
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The Agbayani Village is also a reminder that from its earliest days the union’s leaders knew workers aren’t just workers. They knew that workers face injustices outside the workplace, in the community: miserable housing, lack of education and discrimination. They knew it would take more than a union to overcome the poverty and prejudice farm workers confronted; it would take a movement.
So early on, the union organized by providing services—such as the credit union and the co-op gas station here at the Forty Acres.
I was listening to a tape of my father speaking at the dedication 40 years ago today.
He talked of the Agbayani Village as an example of how the movement met the urgent needs of farm workers in the community.
“We’re here to honor the memory of Brother Paulo Agbayani and to dedicate this retirement village, a dream come true,” Cesar Chavez said. “We’re here to understand that retirement shouldn’t be the idea of junking senior citizens, but should instead be the beginning of a second good life…The building of this village is really the beginning to get them and us together so we can live together.”
My dad and so many others were inspired by the Manongs’s courage, self-sacrifice and initiative. We learned so much from them.
In his remarks that day, my father drove home the meaning of this place:
“The village reminds us of all the unsung heroes—the martyrs…the massacres…people killed, shot, hundreds of people deported in the 20s and ‘30s…Let this dedication be a reminder to us that there have been people before us who have given themselves to build a union for farm workers.”
We know our movement is about more than honoring one man; it is also about honoring countless men and women who made tremendous sacrifices and accomplished amazing things, but whose names are largely lost to history.
The original brothers of the Agbayani Village are all gone. Fred Abad, the last one, passed away in 1997.
I would come to visit Fred here at the village. By then, he was alone, the last of the original village residents.
He would talk about growing up and all the hardships he endured. Fred also related many fond memories of the movement. My dad had passed away, but Fred always asked about the people he had worked with in the union—including my mother and my brother Fernando, with whom Fred had worked on the grape boycott in New York.
I always left Fred with a new sense of purpose.
It is important that we remember—and keep alive—the memories of Fred and all the Manongs who lived here—and who helped build a movement that gives meaning to all of our lives.
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