About Larry Itliong
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." He immigrated to the United States in 1929 and joined his first strike in 1930; Itliong was only 15 when he came to the United States. In 1948, Itliong (along with Rudy Delvo, Chris Mensalvas, Philip Vera Cruz, and Ernesto Mangaoang) became involved in the 1948 asparagus strike, which was the first major agriculture strike after World War II. Itliong served as the first shop steward of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 37, in Seattle, and was elected its vice-president in 1953. In 1956, Itliong founded the Filipino Farm Labor Union in Stockton.
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