In the response to a New York Times investigation, Larry Itliong’s Son Responds to Cesar Chavez Abuse Revelations in this Emil Guillermo Op-Ed. Jonny Itliong tells Guillermo:
I’ve been fighting people for years who think Cesar Chavez was a saint.He never f****ing was.
For those of you who don’t know, Larry Itliong was a Filipino labor leader who was a co-founder of the United Farm Workers. The abuse news and Dolores Huerta’s account that Chavez raped her did not surprise on Johnny. He and others have long been upset about how Filipino Americans’ role in the UFW has been downplayed by Huerta and in movies like the 2014 Movie Cesar Chavez.
Jonny Itliong has some other choice words in Guillermo’s piece. Check it out. Some other pieces that may be of interest:
- StoryCorp animation about Larry Itliong and the men that he tried to organize
- Another interview of with Johnny Itliong on the Chavez case
- Short introduction on Filipino Farm Workers.
- Smithsonian Institution Exhibit on Filipino Farm Workers
(Cesar Chavez photo credit: the Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection at the UCLA Library the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.)
(Larry Itliong Mural photo credit: Timothy Biley under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license)
