It was Magic Monday, the weekly convocation of roller skaters on Venice Beach in Los Angeles, and a nearly sacred observance for Johnny Itliong. The music was bumping, and the sun had come out. On most Magic Mondays, that and a little weed would have been all Itliong needed. But on this afternoon, as he felt his way through the steps of a line dance and passed a vape to a buddy, he had more on his mind. Days before, the news that Cesar Chavez had been accused of sexually abusing girls had landed like a bomb, forcing a reckoning over one of the nation’s few Latino civil rights icons. Those girls were the daughters of farmworker organizers whose movement Chavez had famously led. Itliong, 61, felt sorrow for the victims, who included the sister of a close friend. But the revelation also brought something like vindication — and opportunity. Itliong’s father was Larry Itliong, the Filipino American farmworker leader who was perennially overshadowed by the younger and more telegenic Chavez. While Chavez’s name was reverently bestowed on schools, streets and libraries, the Itliong name remained largely unknown even in Delano, the agricultural town in California’s Central Valley where Johnny was born and Larry died.
|
