2. Delano '65: AWOC and NFWA

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Button pin commemorating the joint strike with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee and the National Farm Workers Association.

During the mid-20th century, farmworkers were grouped by ethnicity. Working crews were divided by race and farmworkers joined race-specific unions. Mexican farmworkers joined groups such as the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA). Filipino farmworkers joined groups such as the National Farm Labor Union, and later the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC). 

Earlier on 1965, Filipino AWOC members at Coachella Valley successfully demanded a $.10 hourly wage increase. The Coachella growers reluctantly accepted the conditions due to the onset of the harvest season. However, Grape growers in Delano refused to make similar concessions, quickly angering Delano's AWOC members. On September 8, 1965, AWOC members congregated at Delano’s Filipino Community Hall and overwhelmingly voted to strike against the grape growers. An estimated 2,000 Filipino farm workers went on strike under the AWOC banner. To combat the striking Filipinos, Delano's table grape growers brought in Mexican workers to break the strike. Larry Itliong, the leading Filipino organizer of AWOC, realized that only a unified strike would pressure the growers to concede to the wage demands. Itliong approached Cesar Chavez, leader of the National Farm Workers Association, and asked if he and NFWA would join the Filipinos. [4]

On September 16, the NFWA discussed whether to join the strike. Despite the associations’ treasury holding only $70, Chavez and the NFWA agreed to join the picket line. On March 17, 1966, AWOC, NFWA and their political and religious supporters set off to Sacramento from Delano and reached the State Capitol on April 11 with over 10,000 farm worker supporters. Shortly after the march to Sacramento, AWOC and NFWA officially merged into the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC), AFL-CIO. Cesar Chavez was named as UFWOC director while Larry Itliong was named assistant director. [5]



[4] Mabalot, “Barrientos Interview 1,” https://welgadigitalarchive.omeka.net/items/show/9.

[5] Marissa Aroy, Delano Manongs, Forgotten Heroes of the UFW Trailer 1, 5:05 https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=621826228093.

Andy Imutan, “What Happened When Mexicans and Filipinos Joined Together,” United Farm Workers, December 2005, http://www.ufw.org/_page.php?menu=research&inc=history/04.html.