On Asian American Timelines and What They Leave Out

L: Philip Vera Cruz. R: Larry Itliong.

This morning, Dawn Bohulano Mabalon, a scholar of Filipina/o American history and American Studies, posted a “rant” regarding the timeline posted on the website “A Different Asian American Timeline”: https://aatimeline.com/intro. The site does not identify its originators; thus it appears generic and authoritative (as timelines often do). Her complaint is the latest among many that have emerged from Filipina/o American communities in response to omissions or misrepresentations of their history from various parts of the Asian American narrative over the years:

I appreciate and am grateful for the hard work that many folks, including friends and colleagues, put into this project. However, it ONCE AGAIN erases the Filipina/o American narrative in the Delano Grape Strike and the formation of the UFW. HOW COULD AN ASIAN AMERICAN HISTORY TIMELINE NOT EVEN NAME LARRY ITLIONG AND PHILIP VERA CRUZ IN THE ENTRY ON THE UFW?!?!?! [ok, sorry to shout. But come on. It’s 2018. There’s no excuse for shoddy research, especially when a website proclaims itself to be a brand new historical resource for the community.]

It reads like this: “Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta found the United Farm Workers association in Delano, California, which would become the largest and most important farm worker union in the nation. Under their leadership, the UFW joins a strike started by Filipino grape pickers in Delano.”

This is historically WRONG. It completely mischaracterizes the Filipina/o American labor movement as well as the history of Mexican American labor. At the very least, it should read like this: “The mostly Filipino grape workers of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, led by Larry Itliong, launch the Delano Grape Strike in 1965. Itliong asks the National Farm Workers Association, led by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, to join the strike. In 1966, the two unions merge and become the United Farm Workers, with Chavez as director and Itliong as assistant director. Filipina/o American labor leaders Philip Vera Cruz and Pete Velasco also served on the board of the UFW.” I left a comment with the correction but it is awaiting approval. AGAIN, Filipinas/os get shafted in larger Asian American historical narratives. It almost would have been better to not even have been included in the timeline than to have perpetuated this myth that the UFW was founded by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta and only them, and that Filipinos were some random folks who happened to start a grape strike.

Shortly afterward, the site revised (deleted) the original text, inserting Mabalon’s text. To which she responded: From what I’ve heard, the site corrected the entry. It’s not 100% correct, but I’ll grade the correction a B+. The AWOC was founded in Stockton in 1959 with a lot of different people including Larry Itliong, Dillon Delvo’s dad Rudy Delvo, and Dolores Huerta, and it was the Delano local of AWOC that included Pete Velasco and Philip Vera Cruz. Thanks everyone for standing up for our histories! 

You can read the Facebook thread here: https://www.facebook.com/dawn.mabalon/posts/10157480754798378?comment_id=10157482219653378&reply_comment_id=10157482308003378&notif_id=1525895355571699&notif_t=feed_comment_reply&ref=notif

UPDATE: From what I've heard, the site corrected the entry. It's not 100% correct, but I'll grade the correction a B+….

Posted by Dawn Bohulano Mabalon on Tuesday, May 8, 2018

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