Eliseo Medina

Eliseo Medina (born 1946) is a labor activist who, in 2007, is involved in proposals for U.S. national immigration reform. Medina, born in Huanusco, Zacatecas, Mexico, the son of a Bracero, had been a farm worker in Delano since completing the 8th grade. He was 19 when the Delano grape strike began in 1965, and became an organizer and board member of the United Farm Workers (UFW). A master of UFW boycott operations in the midwest and of many successful union representational elections and contract negotiations under the 1975 Agricultural Labor Relations Act, he was considered by many to be a logical successor to Cesar Chavez. In 1996, he became the first Mexican American elected to a top post at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).