About

Welga! Filipino American Stories of the Great Grape Strike of 1965 (“welga” is the Tagalog term for “strike”) aims to bring Filipinos’ leadership and engagement in the strike to light through the acquisition and digital archiving of strike-related material as well as the collection of oral histories of strike participants and supporters.

The materials gathered through this 15-month project will be housed on a publicly accessible website and physical archive which will be launched in September 2015, the strike’s 50th anniversary. Indeed, in collaboration with key community stakeholders in the city of Delano, California (where the strike took place), permanent QR (Quick Response) markers will be installed at appropriate sites. These QR codes will link directly to audio and visual material on the website. The groundbreaking for the QR codes as well as a documentary film that highlights both the Welga research process and the stories gathered through it will take place during Filipino-American History month (October 2015). Finally, a teacher’s resource guide will be produced to support the implementation of AB123, legislation recently signed into law by the state of California, which mandates the teaching of Filipinos’ contribution to the farm worker struggle.