If you live in California, you’ve almost certainly seen Cesar Chavez’s name on street signs, libraries, public parks and schools. The famed Chicano labor leader helped start one of the first farmworker unions in the country and spent his life fighting to improve conditions for those toiling in the nation’s fields. In 1965, a labor organizer named Larry Itliong had just helped 2,000 Filipino grape workers in the Central Valley town of Delano organize a strike. And it wasn’t until after Mr. Itliong asked Mr. Chavez and Dolores Huerta to persuade Mexican workers to join forces with them that the U.F.W. Over the years, there have been efforts to better mark Mr. Itliong’s contributions, but his name still isn’t widely known or taught.

Source: New York Times October 21, 2019 13:07 UTC