There was no unity between the Mexicans and the Filipinos. More than one thousand Filipino workers walked out of their grape farms to picket, however, farmers replaced them with Mexican workers. As fellow striker Andy Imutan recalls, It was like an incendiary bomb, exploding out the strike message to the workers in the vineyards, telling them to have sit-ins in the labor camps, and set up picket lines at every grower’s ranch. The decision was to strike and it became one of the most significant and famous decisions ever made in the entire history of the farmworkers struggles in California.

in Delano, the Filipino members of AWOC held a mass meeting to discuss and decide whether to strike or to accept the reduced wages proposed by the growers. 8, 1965, at the Filipino Hall at 1457 Glenwood St. On September 8, 1965, Larry Itliong, a member of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, called a strike against the Delano, California, grape growers in order to demand salaries equivalent to the federal minimum wage and the right to form their own union.

Mural in Los Angeles depicting Philip Vera Cruz and Larry Itliong.

United farm workers strike