Filipino Farmworkers: Did they Achieve Justice?

• In Event: Unforgetting Ethnic Studies’ Radical Roots when Developing Curriculum on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders

Abstract

Purpose
This paper highlights one of the foundational lesson plans created for the Foundations and Futures: Asian American and Pacific Islander Multimedia Textbook (MMT)—a curriculum rooted in the Ethnic Studies Praxis Story Plot (ESPSP) framework (Curammeng et al., 2016) and guided by the critical question: Did Filipino farmworkers achieve justice? Centering the lives and resistance of Larry Itliong, Philip Vera Cruz, Carlos Bulosan, and Filipina laborers, the curriculum reclaims voices that have long been silenced or distorted in dominant narratives of U.S. labor and civil rights history. In a time when our stories are devalued, politicized, and treated as if they should be erased, this work is both an act of refusal and remembrance. It affirms that Filipino farmworkers were not passive victims of injustice, but organizers, cultural producers, and movement builders.

Pedagogical Framework
The curriculum follows the five ESPSP coordinates:
1. Exposing the Problem: Students identify the invisibility of Filipino farmworkers in U.S. labor history by examining how colonialism, racism, and labor exploitation shaped Filipino migration and labor placement in agricultural fields.
2. Oppressive Action: The curriculum highlights systemic injustices Filipino farmworkers faced, including racial segregation, exploitative wages, and exclusion from union leadership.
3. Tension and Trauma: Students study events such as the 1965 Delano Grape Strike’s internal union conflicts and the forced invisibility of Filipinos in mainstream civil rights narratives.
4. Taking Action / Resistance / Healing: Through lessons on the organizing strategies of Itliong, the writings of Bulosan, and the caregiving labor of Filipinas, students explore how Filipino farmworkers resisted dehumanization and asserted dignity. Students connect this to contemporary labor and immigrant rights movements, reflecting on how healing and resistance can be collective acts of justice.
5. Resistance and Revolution: Students conclude by assessing whether Filipino farmworkers achieved justice. They analyze lasting impacts of the Filipino farmworker movement, engage in dialogue about ongoing struggles, and articulate their own visions for justice.

Curriculum Sharing
The curriculum includes the following five modules: (1) Overview: Labor & Activism of Filipino Farmworkers, (2) Larry Itliong, (3) Filipinas in the Movement, (4) Carlos Bulosan, and (5) Philip Vera Cruz. Each module includes a narrative, lesson plan, and discussion while incorporating primary sources, literature, film, and oral history, emphasizing student-centered inquiry and critical thinking. This curriculum challenges dominant narratives and affirms the radical legacy of Filipino labor activism. By using the ESPSP framework, students critically investigate injustice, understand power, and imagine liberatory futures.

Learnings & Findings
Through narrative inquiry and critical historical analysis, students examine labor struggles while developing their own frameworks for justice, resistance, and solidarity. More than a history lesson, this curriculum equips students with tools to recognize mistreatment in their own lives and communities, and to respond with principled action. It calls on them to carry forward the legacy of those who fought before them—to speak truth, resist erasure, and envision liberated futures.

Reflections & Significance
In alignment with AERA 2026’s theme of Unforgetting Histories and Imagining Futures, this project models principled Ethnic Studies pedagogy that transforms classrooms into spaces of remembrance, resistance, and revolution.

Authors

• Lauren Arzaga Daus, University of California - Los Angeles

• Aldrich Limpin Sabac, Stockton Unified School District

• Rod Daus-Magbual, Pin@y Educational Partnerships