Rosario Reyes, widow of Wilfredo Navares, stands in front of the Larry Itliong Resource Center in Poplar, where the couple received food and support during his illness.

The assistant director under Cesar Chavez when the United Farm Workers (UFW) was created, Larry organized and led protests for equal pay and dignified living conditions for farm and cannery workers throughout the West Coast and Alaska from the 1930s to when the UFW was created in 1966.

This is the story we want and need to tell, in all its brilliant beauty, about Larry and the Filipinos who fought for dignity in the fields and united for the first time with the Mexican community in Delano, California.

This is historic and will take the artistry of the creative team but the collective power of stakeholders including the Filipino American and Mexican American communities at-large in San Francisco and beyond. To date, Filipino American artists from the Bay Area to Broadway have joined with us in telling this important story.

Support Farmworker Children or Deliver Gifts to: Attn: Farmworker Children’s Toy Drive 14665 Road 192, Poplar, Ca. 93257

“Coming here in the civil rights movement where there was so much movement so much action folks really asserting their rights and their power to change their future. You know I was so happy to be part of that,” said Cynthia Bonta a member of the Board of Directors of Central Valley Empowerment Alliance.

Iconic labor leader Dolores Huerta joins California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta and State Treasurer Fiona Ma in Poplar California to Celebrate Larry Itliong Day.

In California’s agricultural heartland, farmworkers are fighting back against expensive rents, substandard housing, and economic disenfranchisement.

By David Bacon

The Trump administration has suspended family visa applications – and Trump has ordered an end to the census count three weeks early.

With a population of 2,500, you could say the Tulare County community of Poplar is so small that it could easily to be overlooked when it comes to government help in dealing with all the consequences of the current coronavirus pandemic.

That is why Mari Pérez-Ruíz and Arturo Rodríguez, both with the Central Valley Empowerment Alliance, are kept busy at the Larry Itliong Resource Center handing out food and needed supplies to the homeless and those on the verge of having no home. They also arrange for teachers to help students with at-distance learning for the upcoming school year.