He organized West Coast agricultural workers starting in the 1930s, and rose to national prominence in 1965, when he, Philip Vera Cruz, Benjamin Gines and Pete Velasco, walked off the farms of area table-grape growers, demanding wages equal to the federal minimum wage, that became known as the Delano grape strike.

[10] Itliong was an excellent card player, and avid cigar smoker, who spoke multiple Filipino languages, Spanish, Cantonese, Japanese, and taught himself about law.

[3] Itliong married six times,[3] had seven children,[11] and raised his family in the Delano area [2] and in the Little Manila community of Stockton, California.

[16] Itliong served as the first shop steward of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 37,[2] in Seattle,[17] and was elected its vice-president in 1953.

[28][29] Alex Fabros, a doctoral candidate at University of California, Santa Barbara, called the merger "devastating for the Filipinos who participated in the UFW.

"[22] After leaving the United Farm Workers, Itliong assisted retired Filipino farmworkers in Delano and was a delegate at the 1972 Democratic National Convention.

[1] Together with Vera Cruz, Itliong worked towards building a retirement facility for UFW workers, known as Agbayani Village.

[28][30] Although no longer in the United Farm Workers, Itliong continued to support others in the organized labor movement, such as helping others plan a strike against Safeway supermarkets in 1974.

[36] In 2015 Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill to establish Larry Itliong Day in the State of California.

[43] In 2014, an overpass over the Filipino American Highway in south San Diego was designated as the "Itliong-Vera Cruz Memorial Bridge".

[48] The Larry Itliong Papers are housed at the Walter Reuther Library at Wayne State University in Detroit.