Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

West Bank Town Becomes ‘Big Prison’ as Israel Fences It In

1 day ago

Trump Says He’s Willing to Let Migrant Farm Laborers Stay in US

1 day ago

US Electric Vehicle Tax Breaks Will Expire on Sept. 30

2 days ago

Eyeing Arctic Dominance, Trump Bill Earmarks $8.6 Billion for US Coast Guard Icebreakers

2 days ago

Trump’s Sweeping Tax-Cut and Spending Bill Wins Congressional Approval

2 days ago

Americans Celebrate Their Independence With Record-Breaking Travel Numbers

2 days ago

US Supreme Court to Decide Legality of Transgender School Sports Bans

2 days ago

Nvidia Set to Become the World’s Most Valuable Company in History

2 days ago

Poll: 41% in US ‘Extremely Proud’ to Be American, Near Historic Low

2 days ago
This Unsung Valley Hero Fought for the Dignity of America's Farmworkers
Opinion
By Opinion
Published 5 years ago on
February 17, 2020

Share

Gilbert Padilla is one of the most unheralded and relatively unknown heroes who made major contributions to the national farmworker movement between 1962 and 1980.
A co-founder of the National Farm Workers Association with Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, he never sought the national spotlight or gained public recognition during his approximately 20 years of selfless service to the union. He worked in relative obscurity, yet his footprints were on virtually every successful union organizing strategy and accomplishment.

Paul Garcia
Paul Garcia
Opinion

Personification of ‘Grapes of Wrath’ Hero

Padilla, who grew up in Los Banos, is the personification of Tom Joad, the fictionalized character in Grapes of Wrath. There are striking resemblances between Joad, the son of a tenant farmer, and Padilla, the farmworker organizer.
Upon his release from prison, Joad learns of his family’s dire circumstances: forced off their Oklahoma tenant farm, refugeed, and determined to seek work in California. During the family’s trek, Joad is castigated and called derogatory terms, like Okie and communist. After Padilla’s discharge from the U.S. Army, he faced indignant treatment as a farmworker. He and his brothers quit the fields after a supervisor’s admonishment for taking a cigarette break. These experiences form the genesis for both Joad and Padilla to fight for social justice.
On his journey home, Joad meets Jim Casey, a former preacher, who fosters a social consciousness in him. Casey is eventually killed defending strikers and Joad realizes the sacrifices required to serve others. Padilla also benefited from a preacher’s relationship.

Stopped Rent Increases on Substandard Farmworker Housing

(L to R) Dolores Huerta, Cesar Chavez, Gilbert Padilla, and Ted Kennedy. (UC San Diego Library)
In May 1965, Padilla and Rev. Jim Drake were informed that several hundred Central Valley farmworker families were living in Depression-era labor camps in Woodville and Linnell. The tin shacks were single rooms without glassed windows, plumbing, or sewage. Four hundred units were built as free government housing for farmworkers.
When the Tulare County Housing Authority took ownership and proposed a rent increase, Padilla, Drake, and others organized a rent strike. The strikers succeeded in getting the rent increase rescinded through court action.
In August 1965, Padilla and Drake learned that female farmworkers at J. D. Martin Farms were forced to find restroom privacy in the fields, away from male workers. The foreman habitually peeked at the women. When Padilla learned of the foreman’s repugnant behavior, he chastised the male farmworkers for allowing this defilement of their wives and pulled the workers out. The strike resulted in the availability of toilets and improved wages.

Chavez Sent Padilla to Organize in Texas

With such successes, Chavez dispatched Padilla to lead a fledgling melon strike in Starr County, Texas, in 1967. Upon arriving, Padilla realized the strike meant more than efforts to gain better wages and working conditions. Significantly, the striking Mexican-descent agricultural workers demanded an end to the collusion between state and local law enforcement authorities, the judicial system, and melon growers. The first day Padilla reached the melon strike, he and Drake were arrested on the steps of a Texas courthouse for reciting the Lord’s Prayer.


To Padilla, the farmworker movement meant more than increased wages and improved working conditions. It aimed to advance civil liberties through an activist platform that taught farmworkers forms of empowerment.


It remains unknown what became of Tom Joad.  He was last seen hiding in bushes as an outlaw for killing a man.  It’s conceivable that Joad might have lived out the chronological experiences similar to Padilla. Tom’s promise to his mother is instructive:
“Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. …”
Padilla’s mother supported his altruistic struggle for social justice. He painfully recalls how she was sprayed with DDT pesticide when entering the United States from Mexico. Padilla redesigned the calculus on organizing farmworkers and changed the narrative to redress inequities on a wider scope. His social construct defined farmworkers as more than an occupational status, but as a disenfranchised population.

Movement About More than Wages and Work Conditions

To Padilla, the farmworker movement meant more than increased wages and improved working conditions. It aimed to advance civil liberties through an activist platform that taught farmworkers forms of empowerment. Like Padilla, Joad would certainly have advanced social justice beyond the scope of dispossessed migrant farmworkers.

UFW leaders (left to right) Marc Grossman, Gilbert Padilla, Cesar Chavez and Richard Ybarra in Washington, D.C. in 1979. (AP via Wayne State University Library)
Joad’s promise might have flourished during the civil rights movement. He would have been about 50 years old. Padilla was 52 when he unceremoniously resigned as second in command of the United Farmworkers Union. He returned to picking grapes, joined the California Rural Legal Assistance and won major concessions on pesticide use and healthcare reform.
Last Dec. 21, Padilla turned 92. Meanwhile, it has been 80 years since the book publication that introduced Tom Joad and shocked the American public about the deplorable treatment of migrant farmworkers. Since then, John Steinbeck’s prophetic character has captured the prospect of social activism.
In that sense, Tom Joad never died. And Gilbert Padilla is the embodiment of Joad’s legacy today.
About the Author
Paul A. Garcia is a retired educator. He has written commentary pieces on education and issues that affect the Latino community. He has a doctorate degree in Educational Leadership from Fresno State/UC Davis.

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

Trump to Sign Tax-Cut and Spending Bill in July 4 Ceremony

DON'T MISS

Madre Fire Spurs Evacuations Across 3 Counties, Grows to More Than 70,000 Acres

DON'T MISS

Clovis, Sanger, Madera, and Bass Lake Will Light the Sky With Fireworks Shows Tonight

DON'T MISS

Oil Dips Ahead of Expected OPEC+ Output Increase

DON'T MISS

613 Killed at Gaza Aid Distribution Sites, Near Humanitarian Covoys, Says UN

DON'T MISS

Fresno County Authorities Investigating Suspicious Death of Transient Man

DON'T MISS

West Bank Town Becomes ‘Big Prison’ as Israel Fences It In

DON'T MISS

Israeli Military Kills 20 in Gaza as Trump Awaits Hamas Reply to Truce Proposal

DON'T MISS

Valley Crime Stoppers’ Most Wanted Person of the Day: Rachelle Maria Blanco

DON'T MISS

Russia Pounds Kyiv With Largest Drone Attack, Hours After Trump-Putin Call

UP NEXT

Presidential Election Reveals Big Shift in California Voting Patterns. Will It Last?

UP NEXT

From Victims to Perpetrators: Israeli Soldiers’ Nazi Comparisons and the Unfolding War Crimes in Gaza

UP NEXT

Dear Mayor and City Council, Fresno’s Housing Bottlenecks Are a Modern Form of Redlining

UP NEXT

A Path Forward on Immigration Reform That Strengthens America

UP NEXT

Israel Faces Genocide Accusations Amid Gaza Food Aid Killings

UP NEXT

I Detest Netanyahu, but on Some Things He’s Actually Right

UP NEXT

Much of LA’s Community of Immigrants Is Hiding, Leaving a Hole in the Fabric of the City

UP NEXT

Things Netanyahu Might Say if Injected With Truth Serum

UP NEXT

California Politicians Ignore Ag’s Troubles, but Boost Movie Business

UP NEXT

Trump’s Courageous and Correct Decision to Bomb Iran

Madre Fire Spurs Evacuations Across 3 Counties, Grows to More Than 70,000 Acres

1 day ago

Clovis, Sanger, Madera, and Bass Lake Will Light the Sky With Fireworks Shows Tonight

1 day ago

Oil Dips Ahead of Expected OPEC+ Output Increase

1 day ago

613 Killed at Gaza Aid Distribution Sites, Near Humanitarian Covoys, Says UN

1 day ago

Fresno County Authorities Investigating Suspicious Death of Transient Man

1 day ago

West Bank Town Becomes ‘Big Prison’ as Israel Fences It In

1 day ago

Israeli Military Kills 20 in Gaza as Trump Awaits Hamas Reply to Truce Proposal

1 day ago

Valley Crime Stoppers’ Most Wanted Person of the Day: Rachelle Maria Blanco

1 day ago

Russia Pounds Kyiv With Largest Drone Attack, Hours After Trump-Putin Call

1 day ago

Boxer Chavez Jr Expected to Be Deported to Mexico to Serve Sentence, Mexican President Says

1 day ago

How Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Will Make China Great Again

Can you hear it — that loud roar coming from the East? It’s the sound of 1.4 billion Chinese laughing at us. Thomas L. Friedman The New Yo...

8 hours ago

Solar Farm in Riesel, Texas
8 hours ago

How Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Will Make China Great Again

Caitlin Clark Signs T-Shirt
8 hours ago

What’s Caitlin Clark Worth to the WNBA? A Lot More Than Her $78,066 Salary.

President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 12, 2025. (Reuters File)
1 day ago

Trump to Sign Tax-Cut and Spending Bill in July 4 Ceremony

The Madre Fire burning near New Cuyama has scorched 70,801 acres as of Friday, July 4, 2025, afternoon, making it California’s largest wildfire of the year, with only 10% containment and multiple evacuation zones in place. (CalFire)
1 day ago

Madre Fire Spurs Evacuations Across 3 Counties, Grows to More Than 70,000 Acres

1 day ago

Clovis, Sanger, Madera, and Bass Lake Will Light the Sky With Fireworks Shows Tonight

A pumpjack operates at the Vermilion Energy site in Trigueres, France, June 14, 2024. (Reuters File)
1 day ago

Oil Dips Ahead of Expected OPEC+ Output Increase

Palestinians gather to collect what remains of relief supplies from the distribution center of the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 5, 2025. (Reuters File)
1 day ago

613 Killed at Gaza Aid Distribution Sites, Near Humanitarian Covoys, Says UN

Billy Wayne Sinisgalli, a 54-year-old transient known locally as Wayne, was found dead along a rural Fresno road Wednesday in what authorities are investigating as a suspicious death. (Fresno County SO)
1 day ago

Fresno County Authorities Investigating Suspicious Death of Transient Man

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend