In the classroom this week we learned about the labor leader and activist Larry Itliong, who immigrated to the United States from the Philippines when he was a teenager. We looked at several books that feature Itliong’s life and specifically his role in the formation of the United Farm Workers union during the Delano Grape Strike of 1965-1970. For Labor Day 2024, PBS News Hour aired an animated StoryCorps short film featuring Itliong’s son Johnny and his grandson Aleks, which we watched together.
In the kitchen we made lumpia filled with onion, garlic, carrot, Japanese sweet potato, Savory cabbage, and bell pepper. We learned to roll the filling in a wrapper not unlike the dumpling wrappers we worked with earlier and sealed each lumpia with an egg wash. The chefs took turns placing the lumpia gently into hot oil, waiting for them to turn golden brown, and removing them safely onto a paper-towel-lined plate. We enjoyed the lumpia with banana ketchup, a popular sweet/savory/spicy Filipino condiment.
