Documentary / 2015
Delano Manongs
The story of Filipino farmworkers in Delano, California who started the Grape Strike of 1965 and helped bring Filipino and Mexican workers together in the United Farm Workers movement. Nominated for a 2020 Emmy Award.
The Delano Manongs tells the unknown history of a group of Filipino farmworkers in Delano, California who toiled under the yoke of racism for decades, then rose up in their twilight years to fight for fair wages and ethical work conditions.
The Manongs (a Manong is a Filipino term of respect for an older man) instigated one of the American labor movement’s finest hours: the Great Grape Strike of 1965 that brought about the creation of the United Farm Workers Union (UFW) and a successful joining of the Filipino and Chicano (Mexican-American) labor groups.
The documentary weaves together archival footage, present-day footage and interviews with key leaders, participants, and historians to put the Manongs’ story in a historical and modern-day context, from the time they arrived in the US in the 1920s and 1930s to the time of their demise in the 1970s and 1980s, and the significance of their legacy to thousands of Filipino Americans.