On September 7, 1965, farmworkers in Delano, California, began a strike against the grape growers. They were led by a man named Larry Itliong.
The strikers were migrant workers, most of whom came from the Philippines. Two weeks later, the Mexican migrant workers joined the strike. They were led by Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez. The workers wanted contracts that would ensure better working conditions. The grape growers refused.
The migrants toiled in terrible conditions from sunrise to sunset without rest. They had no toilets in the fields where they worked or cold water to drink as they labored beneath the burning sun. Their families were poor and lived in terrible conditions, often without good food for their families. For their hard work, they earned only about seventy cents per hour.
The Filipino and Mexican workers joined forces to form a union called the United Farm Workers. The workers marched and protested. Dolores Huerta created a slogan to inspire them: Sí, Se Puede! It means “Yes, it can be done!”
The strike was difficult and dangerous. Workers were sometimes met with violence from local authorities or arrested. Even so, they used nonviolent resistance and community organizing to tell people about their cause. The strike lasted for years, but the grape growers would not agree to contracts for the workers.
The strike organizers and workers came up with a new idea. They called for a boycott. They asked people around the country to stop buying and eating grapes unless they were picked by union workers. Over seventeen million people listened and stopped buying grapes. Finally, in July 1970, the grape growers agreed to contracts, and the strike ended. The strike revolutionized the farm labor movement in America.