Strike!: The Farm Workers' Fight for Their Rights

Gr 6–9—Brimner's comprehensive history of the United Farm Workers (UFW) begins not with Cesar Chavez but with the action of a group of Filipino farm workers who walked off the California fields in 1965. He combines the little-known story of the Filipino workers, a significant segment of migrant farm workers, with that of Chavez and the Hispanic workers, whose actions have received far more attention. Brimner is sympathetic to the plight of all the farm workers and emphasizes both their poverty and powerlessness and the dangers and bravery of their long struggle to win bargaining rights from their powerful employers. He is objective about Chavez, providing both praise and criticism of his role as union and civil rights leader. One of the book's strongest points is a discussion of how Hispanic organizers Chavez and Deloris Huerta and their Filipino counterpart Larry Itliong worked to overcome grower-exploited cultural differences between the two groups and persuade them to trust and work together. The text is supplemented with well-chosen primary source quotes, large period photos and political cartoons, and sidebars. Although many titles such as Barbara J. Davis's The National Grape Boycott: A Victory for Farmworkers (Compass Point, 2008) offer general background and well-written coverage of Chavez and Hispanic workers, Brimner's inclusion of information about the Filipino workers who began the movement, quotes and balanced discussion of Chavez's strengths and weaknesses provides a fresh perspective on the movement, making this book a first-purchase choice for middle-level researchers.—Mary Mueller, Rolla Public Schools, MO