Zayn: Eliseo Art Silva

This Filipino mural, painted in 1995 by Eliseo Art Silva, serves at a basic level to bring to light the huge number of Filipino farmworkers in California. They are often grouped together with Mexican or Chinese people, even though many Filipino American workers played a huge part alongside figures such as Cesar Chavez in fighting for farm workers’ rights. In fact, although the top central figure in the mural is Philip Veracruz, he is often dismissed as Chavez. The other central figure, Larry Itliong, is one of the catalysts for the Labor Workers Movement-- he was one of the first people to go on strike and spark the movement. I like this piece because it brings to light important Filipino figures of the Labor Workers Movement that often go unmentioned as Filipino.