Larry Itliong

Modesto 'Larry' Itliong (1913 – 1977) was a pioneering Filipino-American labor organizer. Emigrating to the United States in 1929 at age fifteen, Itliong worked in salmon canneries in Alaska and agricultural fields across California, enduring fierce anti-Filipino race riots during the Depression.

A cigar-chomping organizer nicknamed 'Seven Fingers' after a cannery accident, Itliong became leader of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), representing the aging generation of unmarried Filipino bachelors known as the 'Manongs'. On September 8, 1965, Itliong led 1,500 Filipino workers in walking out of the Delano grape fields to demand minimum wage equality. Recognizing that growers historically broke strikes by pitting races against each other, Itliong approached César Chávez, forging an historic alliance that merged their unions into the United Farm Workers (UFW), serving as its assistant director and building the Agbayani Village retirement community for veteran laborers.