BILL NUMBER: ACR 156	CHAPTERED
	BILL TEXT

	RESOLUTION CHAPTER  145
	FILED WITH SECRETARY OF STATE  SEPTEMBER 2, 2014
	ADOPTED IN SENATE  AUGUST 14, 2014
	ADOPTED IN ASSEMBLY  JUNE 23, 2014
	AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY  JUNE 17, 2014

INTRODUCED BY   Assembly Member Weber
   (Coauthors: Assembly Members Alejo and Bonta)

                        JUNE 2, 2014

   Relative to the Itliong-Vera Cruz Memorial Bridge.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   ACR 156, Weber. Itliong-Vera Cruz Memorial Bridge.
   This measure would designate the overpass on South Woodman Street
that crosses State Route 54, also known as the Filipino American
Highway, in the City of San Diego as the Itliong-Vera Cruz Memorial
Bridge. The measure would request the Department of Transportation to
determine the cost for appropriate signs showing this special
designation and, upon receiving donations from nonstate sources
covering that cost, to erect those signs.



   WHEREAS, Larry Itliong was a Filipino American labor leader who
founded the Filipino Farm Labor Union (FFLU) in 1956. He was also a
member of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC). He
was born in 1913 in the Pangasinan Province of the Philippines and
immigrated to the United States in 1929. His first involvement in a
labor strike was one year later in 1930. Itliong was a self-taught
labor leader and was instrumental in leading protests in California
and Alaska; and
   WHEREAS, After he founded the FFLU, Larry Itliong became the
assistant director of the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee
(UFWOC) which eventually became the United Farm Workers (UFW).
Itliong is viewed as "one of the fathers of the West Coast labor
movement"; and
   WHEREAS, On Sept. 8, 1965, Filipino farm workers, known as
manongs, organized by Itliong began the grape strike that set the
stage for the boycott that would lead César Chávez and thousands of
farmworker families to create the nation's pioneering agricultural
labor union, the UFW; and
   WHEREAS, Mexican and Filipino workers had been historically pitted
against one another to suppress wages or break strikes. Yet Itliong
approached César Chávez, then busy organizing the National Farm
Workers Association (NFWA). For the first time, Filipino and Mexican
workers became "brothers," eventually forming one organization -- the
UFWOC -- with Itliong as an assistant director, one of several
Filipino leaders on the executive board; and
   WHEREAS, Larry Itliong resigned from the UFWOC in 1971 and
dedicated the remainder of his life to improving the lives of retired
Filipino farm workers, and to a wide variety of community and civic
projects, many of which were related to the Filipino American
community. He died in 1977; and
   WHEREAS, Philip Vera Cruz was a Filipino American labor leader, a
farm worker, and a leader and activist for the Asian American civil
rights movement. He was one of the founders of the AWOC, which later
merged with César Chávez's NFWA and gave birth to the UFW. Philip
Vera Cruz was a long-time vice president of the UFW; and
   WHEREAS, Philip Vera Cruz was born in Ilocos Sur in the
Philippines in 1904 and immigrated to the United States in 1926. Vera
Cruz also worked in canneries and restaurants and attended Gonzaga
University in Spokane, Washington, for a year. He joined the National
Farm Labor Union which was affiliated with the American Federation
of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations in the 1950's.
Along with Larry Itliong, Philip Vera Cruz convinced César Chávez and
Dolores Huerta's predominantly Mexican/Latino NFWA to join the Grape
Strike and Boycott of 1965 demanding better pay and benefits; and
   WHEREAS, One week later César Chávez and Dolores Huerta joined the
strike that eventually brought an end to the unfair wages and
benefits with a 300 mile pilgrimage from Delano to Sacramento; and
   WHEREAS, After Philip Vera Cruz resigned from the UFW in 1977, he
remained loyal to the UFW and the unionizing movement and maintained
his dignity as a Filipino American supporting his community and
fighting for worker's rights. He affirmed an embodiment of
internationalism and believed in serving the people instead of making
profits. He died in 1994; and
   WHEREAS, The contributions of Larry Itliong and Philip Vera Cruz
and other Filipino American farm workers were instrumental in
starting the Grape Strike and Boycott of 1965; and
   WHEREAS, Together the Filipino and Mexican farm laborers formed
the United Farm Workers union (UFW), which would not have been as
successful without this coalition of Filipino and Chicano workers
coming together in unity; now, therefore, be it
   Resolved by the Assembly of the State of California, the Senate
thereof concurring, That the Legislature designates the overpass on
South Woodman Street that crosses State Route 54, also known as the
Filipino American Highway, in the City of San Diego as the
Itliong-Vera Cruz Memorial Bridge; and be it further
   Resolved, That the Department of Transportation is requested to
determine the cost of erecting the appropriate signs, consistent with
the signing requirements for the state highway system, showing this
special designation and, upon receiving donations from nonstate
sources covering that cost, to erect those signs; and be it further
   Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies of
this resolution to the Director of Transportation and to the author
for appropriate distribution.