Raising a Cup to Larry Itliong Way

I can’t wait to drink a Tantalizing Turkish on Larry Itliong Way.

Right now, an effort is underway to rename Paseo de San Antonio in downtown San Jose after Larry Itliong, the legendary Filipino American labor organizer whose role is often overlooked in the history of the modern labor movement.

I was first schooled on Itliong ten years ago, at what was then called the J-Town Film Fest, while watching a 30-minute documentary, Delano Manongs. Itliong and a group of Filipino farm workers instigated the legendary Delano Grape Strike of 1965, an event that essentially led to the creation of the United Farm Workers (UFW). The strike went down in history as a Chicano movement under the leadership of Cesar Chavez, but the role Filipinos played in the adventure often gets forgotten. The cigar-tot