Modesto "Larry" Dulay Itliong, also known as "Seven Fingers", was a Filipino-American union 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. He has been described as "one of the fathers of the West Coast labor movement."
Larry Itliong
The Delano grape strike was a labor strike organized by the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), a predominantly Filipino and AFL-CIO-sponsored labor organization, against table grape growers in Delano, California to fight against the exploitation of farm workers. The strike began on September 8, 1965, and one week later, the predominantly Mexican National Farmworkers Association (NFWA) joined the cause. In August 1966, the AWOC and the NFWA merged to create the United Farm Workers (UFW) Organizing Committee.
César Chávez shakes hands with John Giumarra Jr. after signing an agreement to end the strike
The Forty Acres complex in Delano was made a National Landmark in 2008
Francisco 'Pancho' Medrano speaks at conference on the boycott of grapes around 1965–1967. In the back, an unidentified man holds a sign that reads "Don't buy grapes"
Black and white brochure highlighting the solidarity between Black and Latino communities during the Delano Grape Strike.