Larry Dulay Itliong Biography

Larry Dulay Itliong (25 October 1913 – 8 February 1977), also known as "Seven Fingers",[4] was a Filipino American labor organizer. He organized West Coast agricultural workers starting in the 1930s, and rose to national prominence in 1965, when he, Philip Vera Cruz, Benjamin Gines and Pete Velasco, walked off the farms of area table-grape growers, demanding wages equal to the federal minimum wage, that became known as the Delano grape strike.[5][6][7] He has been described as "one of the fathers of the West Coast labor movement."[8]
Contents [hide]
1 Biography
2 Legacy
3 See also
4 References
5 External links
Biography[edit]
Itliong was a native of Pangasinan Province in the Philippines.[9] One of six children of Artemio and Francesca Itliong,
Army transport ship as a messman.[13] After the war, he settled in the city of Stockton in California's Central Valley.[13] In 1948, Itliong (along with Rudy Delvo, Chris Mensalvas, Philip Vera Cruz, and Ernesto Mangaoang) became involved in the 1948 asparagus strike,[16] which was the first major agriculture strike after World War II.[17] Itliong served as the first shop steward of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 37,[1] in Seattle,[18] and was elected its vice-president in 1953.[1] He served as secretary of the Filipino Community of Stockton from 1954 to 1956.[13] In 1956, Itliong founded the Filipino Farm Labor Union[2] in Stockton.[13] In 1957, he was elected president of the Filipino Voters League in Stockton.[13] By 1965, Itliong was leading the AFL–CIO union Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee;[19] the majority of members of the committee were Filipinos who had in the 1930s arrived in the United
After leaving the United Farm Workers, Itliong assisted retired Filipino farmworkers in Delano, and was a delegate at the 1972 Democratic National Convention.[2] Together with Vera Cruz, Itliong worked towards building a retirement facility for UFW workers, known as Agbayani Village.[29][30] Although no longer in the United Farm Workers, Itliong continued to support others in the organized labor movement, such as helping others plan a strike against Safeway supermarkets in 1974.[31] Itliong also served as President of the Filipino American Political Association,[2] a bipartisan lobbying organization.[29] He died in 1977 at the age of 63 in Delano of Lou Gehrig's