Claro Candelario (born 1905) was a

Filipino Filipino may refer to: * Something from or related to the Philippines ** Filipino language, standardized variety of 'Tagalog', the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines. ** Filipinos, people who are citizens of th ...

labor leader A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...

of the early 1940s to the mid-1960s.

Biography

Claro Candelario was born in 1905 in

San Fernando, La Union San Fernando City, officially the City of San Fernando ( ilo, Siudad ti San Fernando; fil, Lungsod ng San Fernando), is a 3rd class Cities of the Philippines#Legal classification, component city and capital of the Provinces of the Philippines, p ...

, to a poor family. A good student, he excelled in school and, after two years of high school, worked for the superintendent of schools. He later to

Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populate ...

for work, where he attended the

Philippine Normal School The Philippine Normal University (PNU; fil, Pamantasang Normal ng Pilipinas) is a public coeducational teacher education and research university in the Philippines. It was established in 1901 through Act No. 74 of the Philippine Commission '' ...

. Candelario moved back to his home province and became the assistant principal of its public school. Candelario married his childhood sweetheart, teacher Ines Nufable. They had a daughter, Angelina, and a son born May 30, 1930. That same day in 1930, Candelario boarded the ''

Empress of Russia The emperor or empress of all the Russias or All Russia, ''Imperator Vserossiyskiy'', ''Imperatritsa Vserossiyskaya'' (often titled Tsar or Tsarina/Tsaritsa) was the monarch of the Russian Empire. The title originated in connection with Russia' ...

'' and traveled to

Victoria, Canada Victoria is the capital city of the Canadian province of British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse ...

wishing to improve his education and pay; his wife and children remained in San Fernando. In 1939, Candelario moved to

Stockton, California Stockton is a city in and the county seat of San Joaquin County, California, San Joaquin County in the Central Valley (California), Central Valley of the U.S. state of California. Stockton was founded by Carlos Maria Weber in 1849 after he acquir ...

with activist

Carlos Bulosan Carlos Sampayan Bulosan (November 24, 1913 – September 11, 1956) was an English-language Filipino novelist and poet who immigrated to America on July 1, 1930. He never returned to the Philippines and he spent most of his life in the United St ...

. They founded the

Committee for the Protection of Filipino Rights A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...

, which advocated for naturalization rights for Filipino immigrants. With Bulosan and other activists including Rudy Delvo, Chris Mensalvas and Larry Itliong, he helped organize cannery workers' and

asparagus Asparagus, or garden asparagus, folk name sparrow grass, scientific name ''Asparagus officinalis'', is a perennial flowering plant species in the genus ''Asparagus''. Its young shoots are used as a spring vegetable. It was once classified in ...

pickers' strikes in Stockton. Two of these asparagus strikes, in 1948–49 with Local 7, led to small pay increases for workers. In 1949, Candelario was elected president of the Filipino Community of Stockton, Inc. Candelario also ran a restaurant called the Luzon Café. He wrote several poems about his time in America, although he claimed to have burned them. Candelario was the inspiration for a character, also named Claro, in Bulosan's book ''

America Is in the Heart ''America Is in the Heart'', sometimes subtitled ''A Personal History'', is a 1946 semi-autobiographical novel written by Filipino American immigrant poet, fiction writer, short story teller, and activist, Carlos Bulosan.

''. In the book, Claro is a

restaurant A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearan ...

owner that educates the main character in the ways of

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

References

Filipino trade union leaders 1905 births Year of death missing {{Trade-unionist-bio-stub