Luis Alejo
"Positively No Filipinos Allowed"
“RESOLVED by the Assembly of the State of California, the Senate
thereof concurring, that the Legislature, on behalf of the people of the
state, apologizes to Filipino-Americans in California for fundamental
violations of basic constitutional and civil rights through de jure and
de facto discrimination committed during the 1920s through the 1940.” –
ACR 74, authored by Hon. Luis Alejo, August 2011, presented to the cast
and crew of The Romance of Magno Rubio on Nov. 18, 2011 at Inside the
Ford Theater in Hollywood.
Hon. Luis Alejo’s parents came to the United States under the bracero
program, where a million workers were imported from Mexico to work in
the farms of California in the 1950’s.
Although his father had 2nd grade education, his mother did not. His
American dream came true and more -- he was elected as an
Assemblymember, completed a Juris Doctorate degree at UC Davis, a
Master’s of Education in Administration, Planning and Social Policy from
Harvard University and earned two bachelor degrees in political science
and Chicano Studies at UC Berkeley.
It was in Berkeley where he got exposed to the history of Filipinos
in America, when he took a class in Ethnic Studies. It was a
century-old story which he became curious about. He remembered his
family’s neighbors, the Rosete Family, who took care of him. Their
children played together, while his parents worked in the fields.
He learned at UC Cal about Larry Itliong, Philip Vera Cruz and other
Filipino farmworkers who got increases of $1.40/hour from harvesting
grapes in Coachella Valley, later sold at $14 a lug.
Philip Vera Cruz documented the farm workers’ union organizing
activities in his book, “Philip Vera Cruz: a Personal History of
Filipino Immigrants and the Farmworkers Movement, written with Craig
Scharlin and Lilia Villanueva.
When these Filipino farmworkers travelled north to Delano, they got
paid $1.15/ hour by the growers, who charged lodging and several weeks
of farm labor were classified as training, henced unpaid, but they were
already skilled yet, their work devalued, a case of double injustice,
from the farmworkers’ perspectives.
Larry Itliong, one of the leaders of the Agricultural Workers
Organizing Committee (AWOC) approached Cesar Chavez and Mexicans of the
NFWA to join in with the Filipinos, or risk becoming scabs, compelled to
cross the picket lines by the growers. Cesar Chavez said no, that the
Mexicans were not ready. Filipinos started their own strike of the
Delano grape fields for weeks, when Cesar changed his mind to join them,
and the United Farmworkers Union was born out of these combined
efforts.
Full article here at Asian Journal......
