The overlooked story of Larry Itliong, the Manongs, and the Filipino workers whose courage helped change American labor history.
What if one of the most important chapters in American labor history began with a Filipino whose name many of us never learned?
In September 1965, Filipino farmworkers in Delano, California, made a decision that would change their lives — and help change America.
They walked away from the grape vineyards.
For workers who depended on every paycheck, striking meant risking their livelihoods. Some also risked losing their housing.
But they had endured enough.
Among the men leading the struggle was a Filipino immigrant from Pangasinan named Larry Itliong.
Eight days after the strike began, Mexican farmworkers joined them, turning a Filipino-led walkout into a historic movement for workers' rights.
The world would come to know César Chávez as one of the movement's most prominent leaders. But an important part of that history began with Filipino workers whose courage and determination helped make the movement possible.
This is the story of Larry Itliong — and the Manongs who refused to remain silent.
A Young Filipino With an American Dream
Long before he became a labor leader, Larry Itliong was a young Filipino searching for opportunity.
Born on October 25, 1913, in San Nicolas, Pangasinan, Modesto “Larry” Dulay Itliong left the Philippines for the United States in 1929, at just fifteen years old.
He hoped to continue his education and become a lawyer. But the America he encountered was far from the dream he had imagined.
Filipino immigrants faced racial discrimination, limited employment opportunities, and economic hardship. Agricultural work and jobs in Alaska's salmon canneries were among the few paths available to many Filipino men.
Itliong worked in those industries himself. He witnessed the struggles of laborers enduring exhausting conditions, low wages, and limited protections.
Instead of becoming a lawyer, he pursued justice in another way.
He organized workers.
By the early 1930s, Itliong was involved in labor activism. In the decades that followed, he helped organize cannery workers and farmworkers across the American West Coast.
His leadership did not emerge overnight. It was shaped by years of difficult work, organizing, negotiation, and persistence.
The Manongs: Filipinos Who Helped Build America
To understand Larry Itliong, we must also understand the generation of Filipino immigrants known as the Manongs.
Manong is a Filipino term of respect for an older brother or older man. In the United States, it became associated with early Filipino immigrants who worked in farms, fisheries, and canneries.
Many followed seasonal harvests, moving from place to place wherever work was available. They helped sustain industries that supplied American households, yet their own lives were often marked by discrimination, economic uncertainty, and isolation.
Some spent decades in America without achieving the stability they had hoped for. Others grew older far from the family networks they might have had in the Philippines.
But within these communities, something powerful was growing.
Solidarity.
Workers began organizing not simply to survive, but to demand dignity, fair treatment, and better working conditions. Itliong became one of their most influential leaders.
Alongside Philip Vera Cruz and other Filipino labor organizers, he helped lay the groundwork for a movement that would extend far beyond their community.
September 8, 1965: The Day Filipino Workers Took a Stand
On the evening of September 7, 1965, Filipino farmworkers gathered at the Filipino Community Hall in Delano, California.
They were members of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, or AWOC. Frustrated by low wages and difficult working conditions in the grape vineyards, they wanted better treatment and recognition of their right to organize.
A strike would be dangerous. Many depended on seasonal agricultural work, and some lived in housing connected to their employment.
But under the leadership of Itliong and fellow organizers, the workers voted to strike.
The following morning, September 8, Filipino farmworkers walked away from the vineyards.
The Delano Grape Strike had begun.
At that moment, these workers could not have known how far their decision would reach. They were ordinary people making an extraordinary choice — and facing the consequences together.
When Filipinos and Mexicans Stood Together
Larry Itliong understood something essential about the struggle.
Filipino workers could not win alone.
Growers had weakened earlier strikes by replacing workers from one community with people from another. Lasting change would require cooperation across ethnic lines.
Itliong approached César Chávez, whose National Farm Workers Association, or NFWA, organized primarily Mexican and Mexican-American workers. Chávez and Dolores Huerta were building their own movement, though they had concerns about whether their members were ready for a major strike.
On September 16, 1965, Mexican farmworkers joined the Filipino workers on the picket lines.
What began as a Filipino-led strike grew into a broader movement built on shared purpose. Filipino and Mexican workers stood together, organized demonstrations, and supported one another through a struggle that lasted five years.
The Filipino Community Hall became an important meeting place and shared strike kitchen.
In 1966, AWOC and NFWA combined their efforts in the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, which developed into the United Farm Workers union.
Together, workers and supporters organized strikes, marches, and nationwide grape boycotts that brought their demands to the American public.
By 1970, the campaign had helped secure important agreements with grape growers, improving wages and working conditions.
The achievements belonged to many people — Filipino and Mexican workers, organizers, families, and supporters who refused to abandon one another.
In that shared determination, we can recognize something familiar to Filipinos: the spirit of bayanihan.
The Leader Many Never Learned About
As the movement gained attention, César Chávez became its most widely recognized public figure. His leadership, alongside Dolores Huerta and many other organizers, helped bring the struggle before the American public.
But the Filipino workers who initiated the strike did not always receive the same recognition. Itliong's decades of organizing and his role in building the movement became less widely understood outside Filipino-American communities.
Disagreements eventually emerged within the union, including different approaches to leadership and strategy. Itliong resigned from the United Farm Workers in 1971.
Yet his commitment to Filipino farmworkers continued.
He helped establish the Paulo Agbayani Retirement Village in Delano, a residential community for aging Filipino agricultural workers. It opened in 1974, providing housing and support for men who had spent much of their lives working in America's fields.
Their struggle had never been only about securing better conditions for the next harvest. It was also about ensuring that people who had given so much would not be forgotten as they grew older.
Larry Itliong died on February 8, 1977, at age sixty-three.
But his story did not end there.
October 25: Remembering Larry Itliong
For decades, historians, educators, community leaders, and Filipino-American families worked to bring Itliong's contributions into greater public awareness.
In 2015, California designated October 25 as Larry Itliong Day, recognizing his contributions to American labor history and encouraging schools to teach students about his life and work.
The date is especially meaningful: October 25 is his birthday.
The observance invites younger generations to discover a part of Filipino-American history that has too often been overlooked.
It reminds us that Filipinos did more than travel to America in search of opportunity. They also helped shape its communities, institutions, and labor protections through courage, persistence, and solidarity.
Why Every Filipino Should Know His Story
There is something powerful about discovering that a Filipino from Pangasinan helped lead a movement that changed American labor history.
Not because his contribution makes us greater than anyone else, but because it broadens how we understand our place in the world.
Filipinos have crossed oceans for generations: to study, to work, to support their families, and to build new lives. Many encountered hardships they never expected.
Yet their stories are not defined only by sacrifice. They are also stories of leadership, creativity, resilience, cooperation, and meaningful contributions to the communities they came to call home.
Larry Itliong represents that larger history.
He was a young immigrant who never entered the profession he had once imagined. Through decades of organizing, however, he helped create opportunities for people facing struggles similar to his own.
His legacy is not simply that he helped initiate a historic strike. It is that he recognized the power of people standing together.
We do not have to share the same background to stand for the same dignity.
Filipino Stories Worth Remembering
At MadeInPinas, we believe Filipino heritage deserves to be remembered, shared, and carried forward.
That includes the celebrations that bring communities together, the artists who preserve traditions, the athletes who represent our country, and people like Larry Itliong, whose contributions helped shape history beyond the Philippines.
His story reminds us that the Filipino experience abroad has never been only about finding a new home. It has also been about contributing to the communities where we live.
Sometimes, those contributions become part of history. And sometimes, it takes generations for those stories to receive the recognition they deserve.
Larry Itliong was one of those Filipinos.
His name deserves to be remembered. His story deserves to be told. And his legacy deserves to be passed on.
Mabuhay si Larry Itliong. Mabuhay ang mga Manong. 🇵🇭
Discover More Filipino Stories
Every October 25, Larry Itliong Day commemorates the life and contributions of a Filipino-American labor leader whose work helped transform American history.
Explore more heritage observances, historical milestones, cultural celebrations, and community events through the MadeInPinas Pinoy Calendar.
Follow Pinoy Spotlight as we continue sharing the stories of Filipinos whose lives and contributions deserve to be remembered.
Sources and Further Reading
- U.S. National Park Service — Larry Itliong — Biography, early organizing, Delano strike, later work, and legacy.
- U.S. National Park Service — Filipino Community Hall — September 1965 strike timeline and Filipino-Mexican cooperation.
- Smithsonian Magazine — Why It Is Important to Know the Story of Filipino-American Larry Itliong — Historical background and efforts to recover the Manongs' stories.
- California Museum — Larry Itliong — Biography, leadership, and Agbayani Village.
- California Legislature — Assembly Bill 7 — Legislative history of Larry Itliong Day.
- Walter P. Reuther Library — Portrait of Larry Itliong — Archival portrait by Cris Sanchez; linked for readers but not republished in this article.
Photo Credits
Photo 1 — Delano grape strike, October 17, 1965. Photograph by Frank Q. Brown, Los Angeles Times. From the Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection, UCLA Library. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. View original and license. Photograph shown at reduced display size, without deliberate alteration. This is a movement photograph; no identification of Larry Itliong in the frame is claimed.
Photo 2 — Delano grape strike agreement, July 30, 1970. Photograph by John Malmin, Los Angeles Times. From the Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection, UCLA Library. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. View original and license. Photograph shown at reduced display size, without deliberate alteration. The photo documents César Chávez and growers at the agreement; it does not depict Larry Itliong.
Featured Photo - Larry Itliong, circa 1960s.
Photograph by Cris Sanchez. Courtesy of the Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University. https://reuther.wayne.edu/node/261