September ends today, but before Filipino American History Month begins in October, National Hispanic Heritage month, which began Sept. 15, hangs on and creeps into the new month like Imperial Spain.

I’m told National Hispanic Heritage month goes from Sept. 15to Oct. 15 to honor the days that countries conquered by Spain in Latin America and Mexico celebrate their independence.

But the confluence creates a problem when you consider the lingering colonial vestiges of Spain on Filipinos since the late 1500s. The Catholicism. The culture. Even the mother country’s name is in honor of Spain’s King Philip II.

If only they renamed the country Lapu-Lapu-Land for the native ruler who killed Magellan in 1521. Then I could have been a Lapu-Lapu American.

Or since Lapu Lapu is more known as fish than ruler, then why not rename the country for guerilla revolutionary Emil Aguinaldo, the man who declared the Philippines independent after the Spanish American War in January 1899?

I could have been Emil the Aguinaldo American.

Since we just can’t shake Philip’s colonial hold, I’ve written that Filipino Americans should have our own ethnic distinction. We’re Asians molded by Spain, which makes us Aspanics!

I put it down on my Census form every year. It hasn’t caught on. There still is no Aspanic Heritage Month. October still is Filipino American History Month. And half of it still is shared with National Hispanic Heritage Month.

Larry Itliong

If there’s one Stocktonian who should be honored by both Filipino Americans and Latinos in both September AND October, it’s Stockton native Larry Itliong.

Shame on you if you didn’t take time at the beginning of September to honor Itliong.

As members of the Filipino American National Historical Society will say, the Delano Grape strike of 1965 — the grape boycott that neatly tied together civil rights and labor rights in America — should be known as the revolution of Larry Itliong.

The strike not only changed the world’s view on farm labor, it created a movement that made Cesar Chavez, not Itliong, an international labor hero.

It was 53 years ago that the Filipinos who were part of the Itliong-led Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AFL-CIO), voted to strike.

John Armington was 10 years old and recalled being in the union hall and watching his father vote to strike.

“Larry Itliong yelled out to the packed hall, ‘I want those in favor to stand up with your hand raised,’ ” Armington told me. “Everyone in that hall stood up with their hands in the air. It was a unanimous decision to call a strike against the grape growers in Delano and vicinity.”

The walkout began on Sept. 8, 1965, when the growers refused to honor the union’s demand for wages of $1.40 an hour.

Chavez found out about the strike only when he saw the Filipinos on the streets, according to Gilbert Padilla, a co-founder with Chavez of the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA).

Padilla told me the NFWA wasn’t a real union and that all it could offer Itliong then was use of a mimeograph and some picketing help.

But Itliong knew for the strike to succeed he needed the NFWA. The Mexican migration of workers was exploding. The Filipino work force — now in their 60s and 70s — was aging, most of them having arrived to the U.S. in the 1920s and 1930s.

For the strike to succeed, the Mexicans and the Filipinos needed to join forces.

“(Itliong) was the one who made the decision for the negotiations between the NFWA and AWOC,” Padilla said, describing Larry’s strength as a strategist and negotiator. “Larry was the one who made sure we merged together.”

By Sept. 16, the NFWA voted to join the Filipinos on strike. The eventual result was the United Farm Workers Union, which brought together Filipinos and Mexicans, but also combined the labor movement with the broader civil rights movement. It was a story that would attract newsmakers like Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy to the fields. It drew international attention with Chavez’ hunger strike and belief in non-violence.

As Itliong predicted, the Mexican workforce grew. The number of aging Filipinos in the field dwindled. And so did Itliong’s influence.

Those who take their Hispanic sense of pride from Chavez owe a debt to Itliong, who now is only being remembered for his role.

“The tragedy is compounded by invisibility of Filipinos in general, from the foreign policy in the Philippines to general labor history in K-12 and college, and it’s an absence in all these places,” the late historian Dawn Mabalon told me in Delano three years ago. “In 1965, people weren’t thinking about farm workers’ wages, pesticides, organic food or how workers were treated. The farmworkers movement was a social justice movement. The humblest people showed they can make change and have tremendous power.”

Itliong will get his due later in October, but as National Hispanic Heritage Month dovetails into the start of Filipino American History Month, it’s appropriate that both months honor the memory of Stockton’s Larry Itlliong.

Emil Guillermo is a former Record staff writer and columnist. Follow him on Twitter @emilamok.