![]() ![]() Today, the singer/songwriter continues to chronicle the experiences and little known histories of Chicano, indigenous and immigrant communities integral to California’s cultural fabric. Nor do I come to cry about my bad fortune. I did not come to sing because I have such a good voice. That the road is long and the end is nowhere in sight? Lira, a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellow, mobilized farmworkers into action: Spearheaded by Mexican American and Filipino field laborers whose leaders had joined to form what would soon become the United Farm Workers (UFW), the effort forced major grape growers to sign landmark contracts with the UFW. “From Delano I go to Sacramento/ To Sacramento to fight for my rights,” Lira wrote, breathing lyrical voice into his life as a community activist and former farmworker. In the lyrics of his song, “La Peregrinación ,” or The Pilgrimage, the acclaimed Chicano musician and composer Agustín Lira captures a pivotal moment in this country’s labor history-the 1965 Delano Grape strike and the subsequent 1966 farm workers’ march in California. ![]()
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