Turning the Table: Awareness for Farm Worker Equity

Turning the Table features contemporary and historic protest posters that reflect decades of collective action in support of rights for farm workers and food workers. In 1965, the United Farm Workers of America, co-founded in San Francisco, by labor leaders and Civil Rights activists Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, began its five-year Delano table grape strike against area grape growers, fighting for equal wages for Filipino and Mexican-American laborers in California vineyards.

The movement to boycott table grapes – grapes grown for eating --mobilized students and educated consumers across America.  A 1975 Harris poll estimated that the poster art campaign assisted in rallying seventeen million Americans to boycott grapes. The efforts of Ms. Huerta and Mr. Chavez, combined with the support of artists and printers, helped shift the mindset of communities across the country.

Inspired by their activism and in conjunction with National Farmworker Awareness Week from March 25-31, the Art Center will host poster-making workshops for youth in our screen-printing facility, as well as pop-up live screen-printing demonstrations and poster give aways at Farmers Markets around town. For more information on HSAC activities, please email info@haightstreetart.org.