On October 17, University of California, Irvine students participated in Unity Through Service, a service-learning project held at Grace Community Farm in Orange. The event focused on exploring Filipino and Mexican American contributions to the farmworkers’ movement through volunteering, storytelling, and discussion.
The project was a collaboration between Grace Community Farm, CRECE Urban Farms, UCI’s Office of Campus Organizations and Volunteer Programs (COVP), and the Latinx Resource Center. Student organizations including Kababayan, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlan (MEChA), Students Advocating For Immigrant Rights and Equity (SAFIRE), Pilipinx-Americans in Social Studies (PASS), and Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics & Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) contributed to planning the day’s agenda.
The day began with students meeting at UCI’s flagpoles and completing a pre-event survey before taking a bus to the urban farm. Upon arrival, participants received on-site introductions and a land acknowledgment, followed by a tour of the grounds. Students visited the nursery and learned about the farm’s plants and composting practices, observing fruit trees, marigolds, and an area where worms aided in soil nutrient production.
At the farm, students engaged in hands-on work and learned about the communities behind the farmworkers’ movement. Participants rotated between farm service activities and a guided zine-making session. Farm tasks included supporting plant stems with sticks and twine to keep them upright, distributing mulch, working in the nursery, and tending succulents.
Student leaders contributed to the event’s agenda, presentation materials, and discussions. Cynthia Roxanne Ortiz, a fourth-year cognitive sciences student and COVP volunteer activities coordinator, helped facilitate the event. Ortiz noted that preparing for the presentation prompted her to research her own family’s connections to agricultural labor, stating she learned some of her family members were farm workers in the 1970s. She also indicated that hearing student speakers share experiences of farmworker exploitation through the Bracero Program and on Hawaiian plantations inspired her to delve deeper into her Mexican American family history.
Lizbeth Vargas, a fourth-year history student and MEChA’s advocacy chair, served as a student leader and presenter. Vargas emphasized the often-overlooked contributions of Filipino farmworkers to the movement. She stated that while many, particularly on the Latino side, typically view the farmworkers’ organization as primarily Mexican and Mexican American, “it was both Filipino and Mexican workers who worked in the fields.” Vargas highlighted that key figures like Larry Itliong, a Filipino American labor organizer, played a crucial role, including leading the 1965 strike against grape growers in Delano, California, and persuading the predominantly Mexican American National Farm Workers Association to join. She also mentioned other Filipino farmworkers such as Philip Vera Cruz, Cornelia Delute, and Lorraine Agtang. Vargas pointed to Dolores Huerta’s contributions, co-founding the National Farm Workers Association with Cesar Chavez in 1962, organizing boycotts, and serving as a lobbyist and lead contract negotiator.
Charlotte Dunlap, a fourth-year urban studies and criminology, law and society student and PASS’s external vice president, connected the physical farm work to her family’s experiences working on plantations in the Philippines. During the zine-making rotation, students assembled small booklets using historical information and images provided by the committee. The accompanying presentation covered the farmworkers’ movement’s origins, participants, outcomes, and contemporary relevance.
Discussions during the event addressed collective organizing and the contributions of individuals beyond the movement’s most recognized leaders. Dunlap expressed her hope that participants would recognize the role of communities collaborating across cultural differences, emphasizing that organizing was a joint effort involving “two whole communities coming together.”
The annual event’s October timing was chosen to coincide with Filipino American History Month and Hispanic Heritage Month. Kathy Dong, Assistant Director of Campus Organizations and Volunteer Programs, stated her hope that students would feel seen, empowered by their histories, and believe in resilience and the power of people.
Students concluded the day of service with the Unity Clap and Isang Bagsak. Isang Bagsak, a term coined by Larry Itliong, was a call-and-response used by Mexican and Filipino farm workers to signify their collective effort. The Unity Clap involves participants clapping slowly together, gradually accelerating and growing louder, ending with the “Isang,” then “Bagsak” call-and-response. Translated from Tagalog, “Isang Bagsak” roughly means “when one falls, we all fall; when one rises, we all rise.” Vargas noted the students’ interconnectedness and their desire to work together and contribute to the community.
UCI’s Campus Organizations and Volunteer Programs hosts service projects each quarter that highlight different forms of history. Ortiz expressed her desire for collaborations like Unity Through Service to continue in the future to raise awareness about the importance of cross-cultural solidarity in advancing human rights globally.