Did You Know Filipino Workers Started the Delano Grape Strike - Not Cesar Chavez? Did you know Filipino farmworkers started the Delano Grape Strike? Larry Itliong led 1,000 Filipino workers who walked out on September 8, 1965. Cesar Chavez joined 8 days later on September 16. They merged to form the United Farm Workers, but Chavez gets all the credit in history books. Itliong resigned in 1971 feeling Filipino workers were sidelined. He died in 1977 largely forgotten. Schools teach Chavez but not