Professor Mabalon Brings to Life the Story of Labor Activist Larry Itliong

NBC NEWS -- Dawn Mabalon, History professor at San Francisco State, a FANHS trustee and an Itliong researcher, said by the time Chavez was getting his full recognition in the ’90s, Itliong had been dead for nearly 20 years. “The tragedy is compounded by invisibility of Filipinos in general, from the foreign policy in the Philippines to general labor history in K-12 and college, and it’s an absence in all these places,” Mabalon said. “In 1965, people weren't thinking about farm workers’ wages, pesticides, organic food or how workers were treated. ... The farmworkers movement was a social justice movement. The humblest people showed they can make change and have tremendous power.”