Tulare County, CA — Last week, the Poplar Community Services District decided to maintain the name of the Nagi Daifallah Unity Park, located in Poplar, an unincorporated mostly farm worker community in Tulare County, CA. The park is named after Nagi Daifallah, a Yemeni immigrant farm worker and UFW organizer who was killed by Kern County Sheriffs in Lamont, California on August 15th 1973 while standing on the picket line during the 1973 grape and lettuce strike. Nagi was 24 years old at the time of his murder and is recognized by the UFW as one of its 5 martyrs.
“The agricultural economy of California has been built on the backs of immigrant workers from around the world, including thousands of Yemeni migrant workers who have left their mark on the Central Valley” said UFW President Teresa Romero. “Nagi Daifallah, a remarkable young man who spoke Arabic, English, and Spanish fluently, was instrumental in organizing these Yemeni workers to join the UFW. At a time when immigrants, particularly those of Arab heritage and Muslim faith, are being targeted for their free speech and political advocacy, and as U.S. bombs fall on Nagi’s native Yemen, commemorating the remarkable solidarity between American, Mexican, Filipino, and Yemeni farm workers in the fields of California is more important than ever. Nagi’s heroic life and tragic death exemplify the United Farm Workers’ proudest tradition of organizing and sacrifice. We are pleased the community of Poplar has chosen to continue honoring his life and legacy.”
“In the face of deceit and division, it was our unity—Filipino, Mexican, Yemeni, our youth and community members—that protected the legacy and honor of Nagi Daifallah, who was martyred during the 1973 farm worker strike, and saved the name of Nagi Daifallah Unity Park in Poplar,” said Poplar Community Services District Board Director Arturo Rodriguez Leon. “In a county where disdain for farmworkers runs deep, where our humanity and rights are seen as inconveniences by those in power, we stood firm. They tried to divide us, using familiar faces and false promises, but we saw through it. Our community refused to be broken. As César Chávez reminded us, La unión hace la fuerza—and ¡Sí se puede! We are the future, and together, we honor our past and shape what’s to come.”
The decision to continue honoring Nagi as the namesake of Poplar’s community park marked a strong and clear rejection by the majority Latino community of an extremely islamophobic campaign by a small group of disgruntled and uninformed individuals who ignorantly claimed honoring an Yemeni-American farm worker and labor organizer constituted support for terrorism.
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