Delano: The Story of the California Grape Strike

by John Gregory Dunne, Ilan Stavans (Foreword)

In September 1965, Filipino and Mexican American farm workers went on strike against grape growers in and around Delano, California. More than a labor dispute, the strike became a movement for social justice that helped redefine Latino and American politics. The strike also catapulted its leader, Cesar Chavez, into prominence as one of the most celebrated American political figures of the twentieth century. More than forty years after its original publication, The Story of the California Grape Strike, based on compelling first-hand reportage and interviews, retains both its freshness and its urgency in illuminating a moment of unusually significant social ferment.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Labor

225 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

John Gregory Dunne was an American novelist, screenwriter and literary critic.

He was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and was a younger brother of author Dominick Dunne. He suffered from a severe stutter and took up writing to express himself. Eventually he learned to speak normally by observing others. He graduated from Princeton University in 1954 and worked as a journalist for Time magazine. He married novelist Joan Didion on 30 January 1964, and they became collaborators on a series of screenplays, including Panic in Needle Park (1971), A Star Is Born (1976) and True Confessions (1981), an adaptation of his own novel. He is the author of two non-fiction books about Hollywood, The Studio and Monster.

As a literary critic and essayist, he was a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books. His essays were collected in two books, Quintana & Friends and Crooning.

He wrote several novels, among them True Confessions, based loosely on the Black Dahlia murder, and Dutch Shea, Jr.

He was the writer and narrator of the 1990 PBS documentary L.A. is It with John Gregory Dunne, in which he guided viewers through the cultural landscape of Los Angeles.

He died in Manhattan of a heart attack, in December 2003. His final novel, Nothing Lost, which was in galleys at the time of his death, was published in 2004.

He was father to Quintana Roo Dunne, who died in 2005 after a series of illnesses, and uncle to actors Griffin Dunne (who co-starred in An American Werewolf in London) and Dominique Dunne (who co-starred in Poltergeist).

His wife, Joan Didion, published The Year of Magical Thinking in October 2005 to great critical acclaim, a memoir of the year following his death, during which their daughter, Quintana Roo Dunne, was seriously ill. It won the National Book Award.

Reviews

[Elaine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well written (not surprisingly, Donne was a prize-winning journalist and screenwriter) but he just couldn't get over himself: a well-educated, worldly white guy out to get the "real" story of the California grape strike. Of course, that meant spending time with and befriending people (men, mostly) on both sides of the conflict -- but, sorry, they are just not equivalents. One side reaps a great profit, has cops and vicious thugs at their beck and call -- and the other side are workers struggling to create a union, decent working conditions, and a better world for their children. Thank goodness for the UFW documentation project (created by LeRoy Chatfield) -- writings by farmworkers and UFW volunteers about the the Delano grape strike and beyond -- from people who were directly involved, and did not just breeze in (and out).https://libraries.ucsd.edu/farmworker...

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-written contemporary journalistic account (1971) of the California Grape Strike and the rise of Cesar Chavez as a national figure. Dunne does a good job of explaining the history of California agriculture and farm labor. His editorializing is brief and mostly ironic. Dunne lets the participants speak for themselves. I was surprised at the things the "Anglos" in Delano freely said to him about Mexicans.

[Jennifer Delgadillo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was really fun to read. I liked being able to travel trough Delano and hearing different perspectives, as well as great descriptions of the emotional and political climate of the time. I also liked the conclusions Dunne makes when connecting the story of the California Grape Strike to the East LA school walkouts and the unification of the Chicano movement.

What sucks about this book is that although the book does give an illusion of being impartial, I felt that Dunne sympathized a little too much with the struggles of the growers. Maybe he felt it was necessary to show a deeper side of the grower's struggle, as the public jury was already in favor of Chavez and the farmworkers. But the racism is palpable and goes on unmentioned too many times. There is some casual sexism too. Women are described as young and attractive or hefty and toothless.

[Brenton Walters · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting look at an event that I knew nothing about. Dunne's reporting is immediate, personal, and compelling.

[Autumn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this one. Written during the strike by a journalist rather than labor insider, its got good pacing, keeps it interesting, and the fact that its of the time rather than a look back is unexpected. The writer's conclusions (someday all farmwork will be done by machines, all farm laborers will be unionized) are funny now, but you can see why he thought those things.

The book also sheds some insight on why a few of the major unions, whose leadership came out of this campaign, have some of the bizarro ideas they do.

[reid · Rating 3 out of 5]

wish his wife had tackled this subject instead of him.