This week the second graders learned about the labor leader Larry Itliong and the role he played in the creation of the United Farm Workers. In the classroom, we watched an excerpt from the film Delano Manongs about the Delano Grape Strike, which lasted from 1965 to 1970. Itliong and his fellow Filipino farmworkers are often left out of the narrative around California’s agricultural labor movement, but it was Itliong who approached César Chávez asking him and his fellow Mexican farmworkers to join together and work in solidarity with the Filipinos. They achieved something together they would never have accomplished had they continued to protest and strike alone.
In the kitchen, we made lumpia, a fried spring roll common in Filipino food culture. Lumpia are traditionally made with ground pork, but our vegetarian version featured cabbage, celery root, bell pepper, carrot, and Japanese sweet potato. Everyone got a chance to practice rolling the lumpia tightly and brushing with an egg wash to ensure a good seal once they went into the hot oil. We enjoyed them with a sweet and sour dipping sauce, and had time at the end of class to plant the fava beans we started in small paper cups a few weeks back! We look forward to all those fava plants being taller than all the second graders’ heads by the time the school year ends.
