MUST READ ALERT: 8/22/11 California Apoligizes to all Filipino-Americans for fundamental violations of basic constitutional and civil rights

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......