Stockton museum highlights Filipino American heritage
(FOX40.COM) — The city of Stockton is home to the Filipino American National Historical Society Museum, which tells the rich and diverse history of Filipinos, including the hardships they faced and overcame when coming to America.
“We started from the beginning, the Spanish-American War,” said Irwin Mina, museum board president.
The museum chronicles the thousands of Filipinos who migrated to America and worked in the fields and canneries, including the struggles and injustices they faced.
“We’re trying to tell that story and not let history repeat itself,” Mina said. His goal is that newer generations learn history from those who overcame struggles so that they can do the same.
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Those historical challenges are perhaps best illustrated through the life of Larry Itliong, an icon to Filipino migrants and a key person in the farm worker labor movement in California.
Larry came to the U.S. in 1929 at age 15 and immediately began harvesting crops and canning fish across many states. He later moved to Stockton and got involved in the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, which was attempting to form a union for farm laborers.
“The whole tactic was to divide and conquer, and his (Itliong) tactic was to unite,” Mina said.
Committee leaders saw his success with organizing workers and asked him to move to Delano, where thousands of Filipinos worked in grape fields.
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In 1965, Itliong led more than 2,000 Filipino farm workers to strike in Delano, demanding higher wages, better working conditions and the right to form a union.
Irwin said, “He staged a strike, a walkout, and the way he did it, it was during picking season and that’s the most lucrative time, and they walked out.”
Itliong also approached renowned labor leader Cesar Chavez to join the strike and the two groups became United Farm Workers, with Itliong as assistant director.
The Delano workers’ strike lasted five years and resulted in one of the most important victories in American labor, ending with a contract.
“The country was ripe for social justice,” said Irwin.
Itliong’s role in California history continues to be commemorated in different ways, with the state observing Larry Itliong Day every October 25.
This spring a Delano park will be dedicated to him. It will feature an aquatic center, an amphitheater, and sports fields.
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