Download the script (PDF)
Watch the Zoomed Reading (YouTube)
RELEVANT HISTORY
A Zoom Adapted Scene from WELGA
written by
Conrad A. Panganiban
The sound of the school bell rings, images of students pop on a Zoom screen.
MS. VILLONES
And is that everyone?
JOHNNY, a high school senior who looks like he just woke up is wearing an unhappy face as it pops up on the screen.
MS. VILLONES (CONT’D)
Ah. Welcome back to class, Johnny. I’m glad you could make it today. I’m glad I got to speak with your mom the other day.
JOHNNY
Yeah. Thanks.
VANESSA YUCHENGCO, a College Freshman, pops up on the screen.
MS. VILLONES
Vanessa!
VANESSA
Oh, Hi! Sorry for being tardy. Someone gave me the wrong Zoom link.
JANAE
I didn’t know you needed it for this class.
MS. VILLONES
It’s okay. I’m glad that you’re here.
JANAE
Well, I’m not. She graduated last year, so why is she even here?
MS. VILLONES
Janae, your sister’s here as part of her teacher’s program and to help all of you graduate. Isn’t that what all of you want?
JOHNNY
Not all of us.
MS. VILLONES
Well, your mother begs to differ.
FERNANDO
Yo, Johnny. She made your mom beg.
Everyone laughs, ooos and ahhs.
MS. VILLONES
Alright, everyone. Class has started.
So, let’s go over yesterday’s reading assignment. Hopefully you learned that if you are a part of a Union, each of you has a voice. Like the AFL-CIO. Who remembers what that stood for?
Everyone looks away.
MS. VILLONES (CONT’D)
Okay… the AFL-CIO stands for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations. And you better write that down because it might be on the test. Meaning that it will be on the test. There was also a group called the Teamsters, and they–
FERNANDO raises his hand.
MS. VILLONES (CONT’D)
Yes, Fernando.
FERNANDO
I thought Unions were bad. Like didn’t they start hella riots and stuff?
MS. VILLONES
No. If you the text from… did anyone read the assignment?
VANESSA’S Hand Reaction pops up on her screen.
JANAE
Really? How could you have read it? You’re not even in this class!
VANESSA
Ms. V emailed it to me and I skimmed through it before logging in.
JANAE
(yelling to another room off camera!)
How are we even related?! We don’t even look alike!
VANESSA
(yelling back off camera!)
So dad wasn’t kidding when he said that you were adopted!
MS. VILLONES
Ladies!
VANESSA
Sorry, Ms. V.
A hand is shown on JOHNNY’s screen.
MS. VILLONES
Yes, Johnny.
JOHNNY
Why do we even have to learn about Unions? Or History even? I mean, you adults always refer to us as the future generation, right?. So, if we are, then how can being locked in learning about the past move us forward?
MS. VILLONES
Because Johnny, if there was never a labor rights movement through the Unions, then there wouldn’t be eight-hour workdays or forty-hour work weeks. There wouldn’t be any lunch hours or overtime pay.
JOHNNY
Then I thank them for it.
Thank you Labor Union Gods!
But I don’t see how any of that is relevant to me or any of us?
MS. VILLONES
Who has heard of Cesar Chavez?
Everyone raises their hands.
MS. VILLONES (CONT’D)
And who’d like to tell me about him?
Everyone drops their hands except for VANESSA.
MS. VILLONES (CONT’D)
Okay, Vanessa.
JANAE
Hold up. She doesn’t even go here.
MS. VILLONES
Then would you like to answer the question, Miss Yuchengco?
JANAE
Sure, he’s… that guy who built that street out in the Mission, right?
MS. VILLONES
No.
VANESSA
He was the president and a co-founder of the U.F.W. – The United Farm Workers.
MS. VILLONES
Of America.
VANESSA
Of what?
MS. VILLONES
The Official name is the United Farm Workers of America. A lot of people forget that part.
VANESSA
But I didn’t. Um uh… that’s what I was going to say, the United Farm Workers of America and they were labor union that fought for the rights of the farm laborers in the Central Valley of California.
MS. VILLONES
And Cesar Chavez…
VANESSA
And Cesar Chavez started the Grape Strike in 1965 which eventually lead to the largest labor movement that this country has ever seen.
MS. VILLONES
Almost 100% correct.
VANESSA
I’m sorry?
JANAE
Oh my God. Did I just hear that right? Almost 100% correct?
A screenshot sound is heard.
MS. VILLONES
Hey! No screenshots are allowed without everybody’s consent.
JANAE
Sorry everybody. It’s just that nobody’s ever told her that she was wrong and I had grab a screenshot of Vanessa’s face.
MS. VILLONES
You know the rules Janae. Delete it now.
VANESSA
Are you sure, Ms. V? I won a scholarship for an essay about Cesar Chavez.
MS. VILLONES
Then you would have seen the name Larry Dulay Itliong.
VANESSA
A couple of times. He wasn’t even in our History book, so I figured that he was just a minor character.
JOHNNY raises his hand.
MS. VILLONES
Yes, Johnny.
JOHNNY
Again, how is this relevant to me?
MS. VILLONES
How would you feel if one of the people to change the direction of American Labor was a Filipino?
FERNANDO
Cesar Chavez was Filipino?
MS. VILLONES
No, he wasn’t. But Larry Itliong was. He was Filipino.
And that’s the homework for tomorrow: do some research about him.
JANAE
But my smarty ass sister just said that he’s not even in our History book.
MS. VILLONES
You do know that the Internet is more than Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, right?
JANAE
It is?
MS. VILLONES
Yes, Janae. It is. And we’re going to make history relevant.
I was going to save this for next class, but…
(MAXI types something on her keyboard)
Everyone please open that pdf.
The Class opens the file.
JANAE
Oooooo… is this for a movie?!
MS. VILLONES
Not exactly. It’s a play. But since the school cut our drama program-
JANAE
I was going to sign up!
MS. VILLONES
Thanks, Janae. But as I was saying, since it was cut, we’re going to take another approach to learning History as a class project… a group project.
VANESSA
Did you say Group Project? Those don’t work very well for me.
JOHNNY
Me neither.
MS. VILLONES
Would you rather I assign you to write a 20 page report on labor unions?
JOHNNY
What did you want me to read again?
MS. VILLONES
On the pdf, you’ll see your name next to the person you’ll be playing. And depending on how well you all do, that will determine whether you pass or fail this class.
JOHNNY
So then, all we have to do is read this to pass?
MS. VILLONES
Well, that and the 20 page report, then that’s it.
Everyone growns.
MS. VILLONES (CONT’D)
But we’ll see how this goes first. Janae, you’re first on top of page 1.
JANAE
Okay…
The Manongs, or Elder Men, in the Filipino language of Illocano, were inspired by their teachers or recruited by agricultural to work in the United States.
PATRICIA
On December 20th, 1906, they came to work in the sugar cane plantations in Hawaii.
ALEX
And in the 1920s and 30s, about a hundred-thousand Filipinos, mostly men, either came from Hawaii or directly from the Philippines to mostly work in the agricultural fields of California.
FERNANDO
Or in the canneries of Alaska.
VANESSA
A lot of them were under 20 years old.
ALEX
All of them promised to send money back to their families.
PATRICIA
Or send new American styled clothes.
JANAE
Some promised to get an education.
JOHNNY
A promise that a lot of them didn’t get to keep because of the constant need to find jobs despite the discrimination they met.
PATRICIA
“The Filipino race was the most worthless, unscrupulous, shiftless, diseased semibarbarian that has ever come to our shore.”
VANESSA
Was written in a California newspaper during the 1930s.
FERNANDO
Anti-miscegenation laws prevented Filipinos in America to marry white women so a lot of the Manongs were not allowed to have families.
ALEX
Since this was during the depression, these Manongs were often beat up and accused of stealing jobs from Americans.
VANESSA
So, a lot of these men started to work for sometimes less than a dollar a day.
PATRICIA
Less than a dollar a day to work in a hundred degree weather.
JOHNNY
Sometimes for ten hours at a time stooped over cutting asparagus.
JANAE
Breathing in the kind of dust that would line a Manong’s socks…
ALEX
A Manongs’s Lungs.
PATRICIA
A Manong’s Dignity.
VANESSA
Sometimes the field had no bathroom.
ALEX
So they just went.
JANAE
And when they were thirsty…
JOHNNY
There would be one tin cup–
FERNANDO
One tin cup wrapped in dusty clothes–
JANAE
Wrapped in clothes and hid underneath a shade. So, when it was time for a drink–
PATRICIA
When it was time for a drink of water. Each worker in a group of 40 or 50 men would use that cup–
ALEX
That single tin cup to get some water to refresh himself.
JANAE
And herself.
VANESSA
And then they kept working.
FERNANDO
And kept working.
JANAE
Kept working.
EVERYONE
Working…
JOHNNY
Together.
Blackout Zoom screen.
Transition to performance video of FOLLOW THE FIELDS.
PATRICIA
I’LL FOLLOW THE FIELDS
BACK TO WHERE YOU ARE
WHERE YOU GREW ALL YOUR DREAMS
FROM AFAR
WITH THE STRENGTH AND THE COURAGE
IN A LAND NOT YOUR OWN
YOU STOOD UP FOR JUSTICE
TO MAKE THIS YOUR HOME
WHEN YOU FOLLOWED THE FIELDS
VERSE 1
DREAMS, WERE ALL THAT YOU EVER KNEW
WHEN YOU, LEFT HOME WITHOUT A CLUE
ABOUT, THIS LAND PAVED WITH STREETS OF GOLD
BELIEVING IN EVERYTHING YOU WERE TOLD
ABOUT BEING FREE
ABOUT HAVING EQUALITY
WITHOUT RUNNING AWAY
YOU STOOD YOUR GROUND, FOUGHT BACK AND STAYED
SO, I’LL FOLLOW THE FIELDS
BACK TO WHERE YOU ARE
WHERE YOU GREW ALL YOUR DREAMS
FROM AFAR
WITH THE STRENGTH AND THE COURAGE
IN A LAND NOT YOUR OWN
YOU STOOD UP FOR JUSTICE
TO MAKE THIS YOUR HOME
WHEN YOU FOLLOWED THE FIELDS
VERSE 2
BROWN, YOUR HANDS CRACK INTO THE SOIL
IN HEAT, THAT FELT LIKE YOUR BLOOD WOULD BOIL
INSIDE, YOUR HEART TREMBLED ON ITS OWN
BUT IN FIGHTING TOGETHER, YOU’VE ALWAYS KNOWN
ABOUT BEING FREE
ABOUT HAVING EQUALITY
WITHOUT RUNNING AWAY
YOU STOOD YOUR GROUND, FOUGHT BACK AND STAYED
BRIDGE
NOW, THE HOUR HAS COME
TO REMEMBER ALL THAT YOU’VE DONE
YOU HAVE GIVEN US ALL THAT YOU’VE HAD
AND IT’S OUR TURN TO PAY TRIBUTE BACK
SO, I’LL FOLLOW THE FIELDS
BACK TO WHERE YOU ARE
WHERE YOU GREW ALL OUR DREAMS
FROM AFAR
WITH THE STRENGTH AND THE COURAGE
IN A LAND NOT YOUR OWN
YOU STOOD UP FOR JUSTICE
TO MAKE THIS OUR HOME
WHEN YOU FOLLOWED THE FIELDS
I’LL FOLLOW THE FIELDS
WE’LL FOLLOW THE FIELDS