The San José State community came together on Tuesday morning to discuss and honor the alliance of the Filipino and Chicano Farmworkers movement that started in 1965 when the United Farm Workers union formed, according to a PBS webpage.
The 1965 Filipino and Chicano farmworkers movement were a series of protests, rallies and boycotts demonstrated by both Filipino and Chicano farmworkers in an effort to demand better work conditions and raises in hourly wages, according to an article by the Asian American Education Project.
The movement brought awareness to the unfair treatment Filipino and Chicano farmworkers were undergoing, according to the same article.
San José State’s Mosaic Cross Cultural Center hosted the event at the Student Union Ballroom.
The Mosaic Cross Cultural Center is a resource center on campus providing support, advocacy, empowerment, and a safe space for all students on campus, according to its website.
Christopher Yang, director of the Mosaic Cross Cultural Center, said the event is a piece of representation for Filipino Farmworkers born out of student activism from last year.
“Students for the Filipino Farmworkers movement made activism efforts last spring by hosting a rally, protesting under the Arch of Dignity,” Yang said. “They were the ones that really spearheaded this.”
The Arch of Dignity is an artistic structure located on Seventh Street Plaza, created in 2008 by activist and artist, Judy Baca, according to an SJSU webpage.
Baca created the arch in celebration of the farmworkers movement and honoring leaders like Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and Mahatma Gandhi, according to the same website.
Matthew Mangoni, environmental graduate student, said he wanted to attend the event because he wanted to expand upon his knowledge of Filipino farmworkers during the 1960s.
“I work at the campus garden and I'm very invested in farmworker rights and stories,” Mangoni said. “I want to be here to support the event and to learn more for myself.”
Theresa Kodenkandeth, industrial and systems engineering freshmen, said she wanted to use her free time to learn something new.
“I had a lot of free time and I just wanted to learn more about Filipino culture,” Kodenkandeth said. “I think these events give you that kind of opportunity to learn more about other cultures.”
Jonathan Gomez, assistant professor of Chicana/Chicano studies and one of the speakers at the event, said all types of ethnic studies should credit people from different marginalized communities who fought for justice in the past, like Filipino farmworkers.
“Filipinos did not just bring themselves to the United States,” Gomez said. “They also brought ways of knowing, ways of being and ways of creating community that are so important to our own notions of justice now.”
Joanne Rondilla, assistant professor of Asian American studies and the second speaker of the event, said two Filipino farmworkers who ignited the movement before Cesar Chavez were Larry Itliong and Philip Vera Cruz.
She said though they are usually overshadowed by Chavez as he is one of the most prominent figures of the movement, they started off the plans to strike against farm owners and negotiate their contracts.
“If you think a grape is so insignificant, think about how this movement dismantled the grape industry and made problems for other industries like wine,” Rondilla said.
Rondilla also said part of the reason people don’t always credit Itliong and Cruz is because they don’t exhibit the same morally-pleasing and polished image as Chavez does.
“Larry Itliong is not a nice person, he's older, he smokes, he swears up and down,” said Rondilla. “He is not good for American television, he's not polished.”
She also said Itliong deserves the same kind of recognition as Chavez because he was less hesitant to start protesting against farmowners when Chavez wanted to wait two to three years longer to start the movement.
Gomez said even though the event was about shedding light on Filipino farmworkers and what they contributed to the farmworker movement, the alliance, or coalition, between the Chicanos and Filipinos during the movement was a sign of strength.
“A coalition is defined by an alliance for combined action and it usually takes place for a particular amount of time, in a particular place,” Gomez said.
Rondilla said acknowledging the leaders of this movement also means recognizing they are human and taking them off a pedestal, as the leaders are not immortal but the movement they created is.
She also said the movement was successful because it included people of different ethnicities, different ages, even people who spoke different languages like Spanish, Tagalog and other Filipino languages.
“The most successful social movements are multi-generational, multi-racial and multi-ethnic,” Rondilla said. “They also, like Philip Vera Cruz said, have to move beyond their leaders.''
Keana Pineda, public health senior and member of Akbayan, said she is happy to see representation of historically-important Filipino leaders.
Akbayan is a cultural group at San José State providing a community for Filipino students and informing students about Filipino culture, according to their website.
“It’s really good to see a space like this acknowledging that history,” Pineda said. “It’s important to share those conversations and acknowledge those struggles”
Mangoni said he thinks this event is important because many students are invested and want to uplift minority voices.
“Part of the reason why it’s so important to recognize the coalition is because it's important for students to stick together and fight for the rights that they believe all of our communities deserve,” Mangoni said.
Mangoni also said these stories of Filipino farmworkers are first-hand accounts of struggle left untold by the mainstream media and need representation.
Chris Yang, director of the Mosaic Cross Cultural Center, said this event is important because people need to know the history of social movements, and the different people and aspects that played a role in it.
“It's important to remember as affirmation to people's identities now and to know that the struggles have existed and the people have always been here,” Yang said. “I think it can be very easy to look at a sixth grade history textbook and not see your face in history and think, ‘Oh, until my generation we were never in the United States,’ but we were.”
