Overview: Lupe Murguia, a key figure in the United Farm Workers (UFW) labor union fight for equity, has passed away at 93 years old. Murguia, who came to the U.S. as a bracero, a Mexican laborer allowed into the U.S. as a seasonal contract agricultural worker, joined the UFW in 1962 and became an activist for farm workers’ rights. His work with the union spanned historical milestones, including the 1965 Delano grape strike, and his legacy continues to benefit thousands of farmworkers across California. Services and a celebration of life are being planned for early November.
Alyssah Hall
Jose Guadalupe Murguia, also known as Lupe Murguia, worked with Cesar Chavez and is widely recognized for the important role he played in the United Farm Workers (UFW) labor union fight for equity. At 93 years old, Murguia peacefully passed away on Sept. 27, at his home in Rancho Cucamonga, California.
He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Kathy; children Dolores, Joaquin, Ana, Ricardo, Maria, Mundo, Benito and Salvador; 16 grandchildren; and numerous great-grandchildren.
Murguia came to the U.S. at 19, as a bracero, a Mexican laborer allowed into the U.S. as a seasonal contract agricultural worker, from his village in Zapotitlan, Jalisco, in 1952.
Murguia’s fight for equity started when he noticed his wages were disappearing in Arizona, where he lived at a bracero camp. He later began laboring in California, working on lemon and orange groves, and lettuce and tomato fields where his pay averaged $1 a day. In 1962, Murguia heard about Cesar Chavez and joined his union, which later became the UFW.
In 1964, after Murguia lost his fingers on his left hand from a work accident, Chavez came to see him in a Fresno hospital, telling him about the labor movement in Delano, a city in Kern County.
“It was uplifting to hear his plans for the farmworkers. I really wanted to do what I could to help when I returned to Firebaugh. Soon afterwards, a minister from the California Migrant Ministry came to the Firebaugh area,” Murguia said in a personal essay, co-written by his wife 20 years ago.
Murguia met his wife Kathy in 1967. She was a University of California, Berkeley student, a veteran of the 1964 Free Speech Movement, a farm worker advocacy group, and became a UFW activist when the 1965 Delano grape strike started.
“His name was Dick Sample and I began to work with him. We set up house meetings and signed up members. We also began to work with David Burciaga, who was working with the American Friends Service Committee. By the time the strike started in Delano in September of 1965 we had a solid membership base in the east Fresno County area.”
The inequities Murguia experienced and witnessed while working in California’s agriculture industry propelled him to devote his life to pursuing equality, respect and justice. These are the qualities the union embodied and what Murguia dedicated his life to while working with labor unions.
“Lupe Murguia’s humble lifetime of selfless service with the farm worker movement spanned the historical milestones of tough times, especially in the 1960s and ‘70s,” said Marc Grossman, Cesar Chavez’s longtime personal aide and speechwriter.
Grossman had known Lupe since about 1972, when they met at La Paz, the UFW headquarters at the Tehachapi Mountain town of Keene, California. Grossman is still the spokesperson for the UFW today.
“Lupe confronted the humiliation and injustice imposed upon him by the agricultural industry by constantly struggling to be recognized as an important human being deserving of respect and value. In affirming his own humanity, he inspired so many others,” Grossman stated.
Across California, thousands of farmworkers, from Solano to the Coachella Valley have benefited from the work of the UFW and their ongoing demand for equity and justice is part of Murguia’s legacy.
Services and a celebration of life are being planned for early November at St. Malachy Catholic Church in Tehachapi.