Chris Mensalvas
| Chris Mensalvas | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Chris Delarna Mensalvas June 24, 1909 San Manuel, Pangasinan, Philippine Islands |
| Died | April 11, 1978 (aged 68) United States |
| Occupation | labor union organizer |
Chris Delarna Mensalvas, also archived as Chris D. Mensalvas and Chris D. Mensalves, (June 24, 1909 – April 11, 1978) was a Filipino American union organizer most active during the 1940s and 1950s. A communist and leader of the immigrant Filipino labor movement in the Pacific Northwest, Mensalvas was closely associated with famous Filipino American author and activist Carlos Bulosan, as well as Ernesto Mangaoang and Philip Vera Cruz.
Mensalvas was born to Mr. and Mrs. Juan Mensalvas in the San Manuel, Pangasinan province of the Philippines. As the third youngest son in a family of five siblings, he belonged to a group of educated Filipinos whose ownership of small plots of land became increasingly threatened by wealthy landlords The Philippines had just become a colonial territory of the United States as a result of the Spanish–American War at this time. Because trade relations between the Philippines and the United States protected both from tariffs, the Philippines experienced rapid urbanization that put pressure on the agricultural sector to be more efficient through economies of scale. His primary schooling at Lingayen, the only school in Pangasinan, and the increasing economic pressure on his family pushed him to migrate in 1927 for educational opportunities.
At first, Mensalvas aspired to attend college in the University of California, Los Angeles to be a lawyer. He provided for his tuition and board by working as a "school boy" while getting involved with the community to establish the Pangasinan Association of Los Angeles. Dissatisfied with the discrimination and racism that he experienced as a Filipino immigrant, he ended up dropping out after three years to work in the farms. Despite the racial and gender discrimination that prevented him from access to opportunities, his years as a student still endowed him status and credibility within the Filipino community.
"I thought I was going to complete my education here. I went to school in LA to be a lawyer. But I finally found out that Filipinos cannot practice law in this country. They cannot even own farms, nothing we can do. I got so disgusted I said, "Why am I studying law when I can't practice law in the United States.["] So I quit. I spent three years in college. And then I went to organize people on the farms.
In those three years, his exposure to communism and labor activism prepared him to work as the business agent for Local 266 of the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packinghouse, and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA), which represented Filipino-American Alaska cannery workers based in Portland. After the death of his second wife, Margie Leitz, from childbirth in 1947, he served Local 7, based in Seattle, as their publicity director for a year before moving to Stockton to lead efforts in the 1948 Stockton Asparagus strike. The strike ended up being disastrous notwithstanding the subsequent court cases that drained the union members of their financial resources.
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