Filipino-American Farmworkers Leaders

 

With the bombshell revelations of sexual abuse involving United Farm Workers Leaders Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, stories about the role Filipino Farmworker's Leaders have started to resurface, things that are supposed to be common knowledge but aren't.

Good Out Of The Bad

Granted Spanish speaking people in the West Coast claim that Filipino farmworkers leaders have always been taught in higher education. Okay, except not everyone went to UC or live in Delano. 

Dolores and Cesar

Huerta, Chavez

Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Gilbert Padilla and other Mexican-American farmworker leaders are household names. They are well known and celebrated as leaders of the UFW (United Farm Workers of America) Union.

But what about Larry Itliong? Philip Vera Cruz? Peter Gines Velasco?

These are just three Filipino-Americans and there are more.

Yes, if you took Asian studies in UC Berkeley, you would.

The sad truth is that despite their leading roles, these Filipino leaders were marginalized within the union, and their contributions were largely omitted from mainstream history books.

Larry Dulay Itliong, Philip Vera Cruz,  Peter Gines Velasco

Larry, Philip, Pete

Modesto "Larry" Itliong was a master communicator who spoke nearly 10 languages (including Philippine languages Tagalog and Ilocano, Japanese, and Spanish), which allowed him to bridge ethnic divides of the diverse farmers in California. He resigned from the UFW in 1971, feeling the union was neglecting the specific needs of aging Filipino workers.

He was a militant organizer who led the walkout of over 1,500 Filipino workers on September 8, 1965. He approached Chavez to join the strike, recognizing that unity between the two largest farm groups (Filipino and Mexican workers) was the only way to prevent growers from using one group as strikebreakers against the other. And the rest is history and so is Larry.

Philip Vera Cruz: A co-founder and the longtime second vice president of the UFW. He was a radical intellectual who later resigned from the union in 1977 due to political disagreements with Chavez, who did an unthinkable act and knew it will make Vera Cruz terribly offended. And yet Chavez did it anyway.

[Vera Cruz was outraged that Chavez accepted an award from a regime that had declared martial law and suppressed labor rights in his homeland. He also criticized the UFW's "Viva la Raza" rhetoric, arguing it was ethnocentric and made Filipinos outsiders in a movement they started.]

Peter Gines Velasco: A third key Filipino leader alongside Itliong and Vera Cruz, Velasco was a founding member of the UFW and served as its secretary-treasurer. Velasco was the logistical engine. He organized the massive food caravans that kept strikers fed for five years.


These are just three Filipinos and there are more, more unsung heroes and not to mention the thousands of Filipino "manongs" who together all had a hand in American farmworkers today having rights and privileges because of their sacrifices in the 1960s.

We can add a lot more about these unsung heroes of the farmworkers union in the West Coast but it will not be enough to give them justice.

Watch this video instead if you want to learn about things not taught about in school or generally not spoken around in America.

The truth is out there. And they do come out, eventually.

Half Filipinos

Jo Koy, Tia Carrere, Lou Diamond Phillips

After all these years, Filipino Americans can now be Filipino Americans.

And it took Steven Spielberg and a few Half Filipinos to give us that chance. Filipinos in America aren't just one of the lesser known Asians anymore. For the first time a major Hollywood Studio has produced an American movie about Filipinos by Filipinos for Filipinos and the world.

Easter Sunday, the Movie

Yet, Filipino Americans even with all the struggles they went through and still going through in America are typically where all the hate for this movie will come from. Typical. 

Click to watch the

Exclusive conversation with the stars of Easter Sunday, 

Jo Koy, Jimmy O Yang, Tia Carrere, Lou Diamond Phillips, and director Jay Chandrasekhar

The typical Filipino crab mentality is a big part of the reason why other Asian groups have a lot more success and representation in America than Filipinos who despite their numbers and contributions are still largely under represented and unappreciated.

Easter Sunday Trailer

Alen Stajcic

Alen Stajcic & The Incredible Filipinas

Following the footsteps of and in the same mold as Coach Tab Baldwin of Gilas Pilipinas, is another Coach, this time, the coach of Malditas, now renamed to Filipinas (wonder when we will change the name of Gilas).

Ok, so obviously, like Coach Tab, Coach Alen is also not Filipino, we know that.

But for someone not having Filipino blood, he sure has the heart and soul of one. He has the right attitude, never say die and the vision to turn the Philippines into a football nation. And believing that Filipinos can be Goliath beating Davids in the world of sports.

Late To The Party

The country is probably one of the last remaining nations on earth who haven't fully embraced the sport that the whole world loves to play. Don't get me wrong, of course Filipinos have long played football, millions of Filipinos love the sport, they have produced world class footballers. But we all know majority of the Filipinos are head over heels in love with basketball.

Interview with Coach Alen

Adopted

Since taking over the head coaching job for the Malditas in the middle of this pandemic, the turn around has been ridiculous.

From nowhere to barging into the semi finals of the AFC Womens Asian Cup, to winning a game in European soil (yes against a European team), to defeating Vietnam and Thailand convincingly and win the AFF Womens Championship, to bringing the Filipinas to the World Cup in 2023 and packing over 8,000 fans at the AFF Women's Championship Game at the Rizal Memorial Coliseum.

Photo from news.abs-cbn.com

There is only one way for football in the Philippines now -- up. Football is alive and well in the country and that's all that matters. Millions of young Filipinos and Filipinas will be inspired to be part of this shift.

Laban Filipinas!

Fil Ams Representing

Filipino Bamboo Dance

While many Filipinos in the Philippines continue to bash the Philippines and their fellow Filipinos, more and more Filipino Americans continue to identify with their Filipino heritage and represent being Filipino.

It's not always easy being a Filipino in a foreign country. There is constant pressure to fit in and be like everyone else.

And even though Filipinos are among the largest Asian groups in the United States, they always seem to be the least represented, always the invisible minority even when they are all over the place.

Tinikling Dance

Anyway, these students belonging to the Georgia Tech Filipino Students Association recently posted a video online where they not only manage to be a young adult and be a normal American college student but also found a way to highlight their culture.

Filipino Bamboo Dance with a twist

Filipino American History Month

October

In 2009, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution to commemorate Filipino History Month on October.

In so doing, this measure states that it:

Recognizes the celebration of Filipino American History Month as a study of the advancement of Filipino Americans and as a time to renew efforts toward the examination of history and culture in order to provide an opportunity for all people in the United States to learn more about Filipino Americans and their historic contributions to the Nation.

It is unfortunate that a decade after, there has been no buzz about Filipino American Month and so most people are still saying "that's the first time I've hear about this".

And this is precisely why this house resolution was passed so that Americans can be taught their history as a nation and to find out how we all got to where we are right now.

Asian Hispanics

National Hispanic (Latinx) Heritage Month is celebrated September 15th to October 15th and it is widely advertised and celebrated.

It is unfortunate that it coincides with the Filipino American History Month and overshadows it.

Hispanics and Filipinos have much in common, so it is fitting that both share half of the month to celebrate these similarities.

But it is also just fitting that starting October 16th to October 31st, the buzz needs to simmer down for Latinx and shift to Filipinx, for while there are similarities between the two cultures, there are also a lot of differences (let's do lumpia after a burrito). 

Why October

In 1991, October was chosen by the Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS) as the month to celebrate Filipino American History Month.

This is to commemorate the arrival in the United States of the first Filipinos, who landed in Morro Bay, California on October 18, 1587. For over two hundred years Filipinos have routinely arrived in the U.S. mainland through the Manila Acapulco Galleon Trade (1565 - 1815).

This year, it will be 434 years since the first Filipinos arrived in North America. In contrast, Jamestown was established in 1607 (414 years ago) and the Mayflower arrived in 1620 (401 years ago).

Workers Rights

Incidentally, October is the birth month of Filipino American labor leader Larry Itliong (born October 25th, 1913). He is one of the founders and first leaders of the United Farm Workers Union (a fact that has been largely lost through the passage of time).

First Filipino Settlement

A casual google search should tell us that as early as 1763, Filipinos established their first (recorded) North American settlement in St. Malo, Louisiana.

There were other Filipino settlements throughout the Louisiana bayous, with the largest being the Manila Village in Barataria Bay. 

Waves of Immigrants

From 1763 to 1906 other Filipino groups arrived in the U.S., settled in, started families and started businesses. Millions of Americans may be surprised when they check their DNA and notice they have Filipino blood. This is why. 

In 1906, after the Philippine Islands was bought by the U.S. from Spain, Filipinos became U.S. Nationals and more Filipinos were able to travel, study, work and migrate to the U.S., for 40 years up until the Philippines declared independence in 1946.

Today Filipino Americans can be found in all industries across the United States and is one of the largest Asian groups in America along with the Chinese and Asian Indians.

Whang-Od

Whang-Od is the last practitioner of the head hunting Kalinga tribe of the Philippines' art of tattooing. 

She was presumably born in 1917 but because there weren't birth certificates issued in that place and time, no one really has an actual official record of her real age.

1904 World's Fair

To put her in perspective, the Kalinga head hunting tribe was part of several Filipino tribes featured in the Philippine Exhibit in the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. 

The tattooed head-hunting, dog-eating tribes of the Philippine Exhibit was by far the biggest attraction of the 1904 fair.

Whang-Od was still a teenager when she started tattooing the headhunters and other women of their tribe. She learned this art from her father. This was well before the second world war.

Their tribal traditional tattooing art was mainly used to adorn the bodies of their tribe's warriors, to celebrate their kills and the heads of their enemies which they bring back home from their battles (this is why they were labeled as head hunters).

The women they tattoo for embellishment, to make them attractive and in preparation for marriage.

Documentaries

Numerous reporters and visitors to their tribe have covered Whang-Od through the years after the world first got to know about her when she was in her late 80s and early 90s. She probably first became widely known outside her tribe through a documentary aired by the Discovery Channel. 

Oldest

Today, Whang-Od is over a hundred years old. Their tribe's art and tradition will live on after she has passed on through two grand nieces who have been her apprentices.

We can watch a documentary about her below. This is about two individuals who went to the Philippines to visit the mountain top where Whang-Od's tribe lives in the hope of getting inked by the legendary Philippine national artist.

Recommended Reading: 

THE LAST KALINGA TATTOO ARTIST OF THE PHILIPPINES 
LARS KRUTAK, Tattoo Anthropologist

Hidilyn Diaz - Olympic Gold

 

The Philippines used to have the uneviable reputation as the country having the most Olympic medals won without ever winning a gold.

Hidilyn Diaz herself has a silver medal from 2016 in Rio, as do two Philippine boxers who settled for second place.

Points Scoring System

Most observers believe that the Filipino boxers have traditionally not been given a fair enough treatment in terms of point scoring and presumably have been "robbed" a few times of the chance to win Olympic gold. But this is the risk of any sport using a judges based scoring system. It will always be inherently subjective and prone to human error.

Weightlifting

In other sports, like weightlifting, one do not have to score against an opponent. One just needs to be faster, higher, stronger than everyone else and do so within the rules of the game.

Hidilyn Diaz did this in a dramatic way, outlifting her closest opponent on the last lift and by one kilogram, establishing an Olympic record in the process.

Inadequate Funding

The Philippines is one of those less fortunate countries where individual athletes basically need to train and fend for themselves, especially in a pandemic.

Beating all the odds and the lack of comparable support and training which other countries enjoy, Hidilyn on her winning lift just lifted on her back and carried on her arms and shoulders the dreams of the entire Philippine nation, through her grit, passion and sheer determination -- truely a notable Filipina.

Another Filipina athlete, Arianne Cerdena technically won the Philippines' first Olympic gold medal, in the 1988 Seoul Olympic games. Bowling was a demonstration sport at that edition of the games and all the medals won in that sport at that time were not counted in the official medal tally.

Multiple Medals

Hidilyn joins fellow Filipino athlete, swimmer Teofilo Yldefonso as being the only Filipinos to win a medal in two Olympic games. Yldefonso won the bronze medal in the 1928 games in Amsterdam and repeated his podium finish in 1932 in Los Angeles.

Tokyo 2020 (2021)

Japan made it possible for dreamers like Hidilyn and other athletes from countries who have yet to win medals in the Olympics to achieve their dreams. They could have easily cancelled these games but they didn't. 

In doing so, the glass ceiling has been broken for Philippine sports. Push onwards athletes, the best is still to come.

If one athlete can do this, imagine what the Philippines can achieve when they all support one another and support their country.

Flag and anthem. Salute and tears. (Hidilyn is a sergeant in the Philippine Air Force)

96 years in the making

Let's watch how Hidilyn lifted her nation on her back and shoulders.

Drama all the way

Bowling

Arianne Cerdena winning the Olympic gold medal in Seoul 1988