{"id":20043,"date":"2022-04-18T19:34:35","date_gmt":"2022-04-18T23:34:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/?p=20043"},"modified":"2022-04-18T19:34:35","modified_gmt":"2022-04-18T23:34:35","slug":"yesterday-silme-domingo-and-gene-viernes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/2022\/04\/18\/yesterday-silme-domingo-and-gene-viernes\/","title":{"rendered":"Yesterday: Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\u00a0 \u00a0\"\"<\/p>\n

This week, I painted Silme Domingo(left) and Gene Viernes(right), two Filipino American labor\u00a0<\/span>activists who fiercely lobbied against racial discrimination in Alaskan canneries in the 60s and 70s. <\/span><\/p>\n

They were specifically part of a union\u00a0<\/span>called Local 37, and sought to improve working conditions and prevent racial discrimination for F<\/span>ilipino and Native Alaskan workers in Alaskan fish canneries. It was shown that the employers treated the Filipino\u00a0<\/span>workers awfully, being kept segregated in decrepit bunkhouses and served fish-head soup\u00a0<\/span>for a meal during their 12-hour shifts, while white workers were getting the best jobs\u00a0<\/span>as well as company-provided food and housing. Domingo and a partner posed as students from the\u00a0<\/span>University of Washington\u2019s School of Fisheries and requested to document the canneries for a project.\u00a0<\/span>Instead, they gathered evidence of discrimination. In 1973, the Alaska Cannery Workers\u2019 Association\u00a0<\/span>(which Domingo and Viernes helped found) filed a class action lawsuit against several Alaskan\u00a0<\/span>fish companies, winning millions of dollars for migrant workers<\/span>. Unfortunately,\u00a0<\/span>Domingo and Viernes were assassinated in 1981, an order put out by the-then Philippines dictator, Ferdinand Marcos.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite their tragic deaths, I wanted to celebrate these little-known activists who fought their entire lives against injustice, and dedicated decades to helping marginalized communities across America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 This week, I painted Silme Domingo(left) and Gene Viernes(right), two Filipino American labor\u00a0activists who fiercely lobbied against racial discrimination in Alaskan canneries in the 60s and 70s. They were specifically part of a union\u00a0called Local 37, and sought to improve working conditions and prevent racial discrimination for Filipino and Native Alaskan workers in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2252,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20043"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2252"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20043"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20049,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20043\/revisions\/20049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}