California Legislature—2013–14 Regular Session

Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 156

Introduced by Assembly Member Weber

(Coauthors: Assembly Members Alejo and Bonta)

June 2, 2014

Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 156—Relative to the Itliong-Vera Cruz Memorial Bridge.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

ACR 156, as introduced, 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.

Fiscal committee: yes.

WHEREAS, Larry Itliong was a Filipino American labor leader
who founded the Filipino Farm Labor Union (FFLU) in 1956. He
was also the President of the Agricultural Workers Organizing
Committee (AWOC). He was born in 1913 in the Pangilinan
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.