UFW Organizer Shares Lessons of an Activist’s Life : Labor: Philip Vera Cruz tells Cal State Northridge students that minorities must stand together. His visit comes during a time of racial strife on campus.

Philip Vera Cruz came to Cal State Northridge on Friday to talk about his historic role in the creation of California’s United Farm Workers, a union formed by Filipino and Mexican laborers during the late 1960s.

The lessons from that time, said the 87-year-old Filipino immigrant, still apply: Ethnic minorities and others exploited by a more powerful majority, be it business owners or government, must stand together.

“The difficulties we suffered because of racial friction were also faced by others,” said Vera Cruz, speaking to about 75 members of the school’s Filipino American Student Assn. “We are all together in the same boat.”

The appearance of Vera Cruz, long revered among Filipinos for his organizing efforts, comes amid growing racial tension at the Northridge campus, touched off last month by a racially offensive party flyer that drew strong protests from Latino students and school administrators.

Officers of the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity, which is predominantly Jewish, have admitted responsibility for the flyer, publicly apologized and resigned, but they maintain that their group is being unfairly punished for the incident. The fraternity was temporarily suspended and awaits a final judgment by school officials next week.

Vera Cruz said he had much experience dealing with such friction among different groups while organizing the UFW, which began with a grape strike in 1965 by Filipino workers. The event launched what has become the farm worker movement.

In 1966, the striking Filipinos were joined by what was then the predominantly Mexican National Farmworkers Assn., led by Cesar Chavez. The two groups merged.

There was sometimes friction among farm workers, usually directed at the most recent immigrants who would compete for jobs, Vera Cruz said in an interview.

Vera Cruz was among the wave of Filipinos that emigrated to the United States in the early part of the century in expectation of a public education, but who found that in general they had to survive as manual laborers.

One of the hardest lessons he learned was that workers who were suspicious of one another because of ethnic differences were often equally exploited by business.

“The differences are all on the surface,” Vera Cruz said. “It is no good to point out some as scapegoats. Immigrants come here for a better life and they’re not going to disappear after the crops are picked. It doesn’t matter whether you came first or second or third.”

More education and the understanding of how different groups arrived in the United States--their shared struggles and common goals--will reduce the misunderstandings, Vera Cruz said.

“We’re all human beings,” he said. “To know them is to first know yourself. What hurts you, hurts them.”

The subject of a recently published book, “Philip Vera Cruz,” he was crowded by Filipino students following his talk.

CSUN senior Arnold Gatilao, 21, said he appreciated the message of unity, especially among Asian groups that have long been estranged.

“We’re not really taught this part of our history in school,” said Gatilao, whose parents emigrated from the Philippines in the 1960s. “We have to take the initiative to learn about our past history, because most of what is taught at the university is European history.”