Hours after she learned that César Chavez, the iconic Latino farm labor activist, had been accused of sexually assaulting girls in the movement he led, Austin city council member Vanessa Fuentes began hearing from constituents demanding the city rename César Chavez Street.
“So many native Austinites have photos with César Chavez and memories of interacting with him,” said Fuentes, the only Latina on the city council. “I’ve already received five emails from residents demanding that we rename it as soon as possible.”
The New York Times reported Wednesday that Chavez, who died in 1993, groomed and sexually abused young girls whose parents worked in the movement during the 1970s. The activist Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association with Chavez, also told the Times that Chavez sexually assaulted her when she was an adult.
In a statement, Huerta, who is 95, said she is speaking out because of the new report. She condemned his actions but emphasized that the farmworker movement, which spawned the still-powerful United Farm Workers of America, is bigger than one person.
“We must continue to engage and support our community, which needs advocacy and activism now more than ever,” she said.
The revelations about Chavez drew immediate calls to rename buildings, schools, streets and other memorials dedicated to him nationwide.
Born in Yuma, Arizona, Chavez grew up in a Mexican American family that traveled around California picking lettuce, grapes, cotton and other seasonal crops. Many of the buildings named after him are in those states — including more than three dozen schools in California — and across the Southwest.
But Chavez was honored with memorials across the country: statues, libraries, parks, stamps and even a U.S. Navy ship, in states including Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri and Ohio. Officials in many of these places are rushing to reckon with his legacy.
Cities have already canceled planned marches to honor Chavez’s birthday, March 31. At the U.S. Department of Labor, where Chavez’s portrait had been placed beside the entrance to an auditorium named after him in 2012, officials removed the picture and placed a U.S. flag over his name at the entrance. Fresno State University officials covered a statue of Chavez on campus while officials “determine appropriate next steps for its removal,” according to a letter released by the university’s president, Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval.
California became the first state to commemorate Chavez’s birthday and in 2014, President Barack Obama proclaimed it César Chavez Day. California lawmakers now plan to rename the holiday, and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and city council members signed a proclamation Wednesday renaming the last Monday in March “Farm Workers Day.”
Bakersfield has dropped plans to rename a street for Chavez. Other California cities already have prominent thoroughfares named for him, including Los Angeles, where César Chavez Avenue is a major thoroughfare on the historically Latino east side.
A half dozen libraries and dozens of public schools across the state are named after Chavez, as is the student center at the University of California in Berkeley and the Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies at UCLA.
The Phoenix City Council is set to vote next week on whether to rename the March 31 holiday as well as buildings and city streets that bear Chavez’s name. (The mayor and two city council members want the holiday to be renamed Farmworkers Day.)
Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller ordered a review of how Chavez is recognized across the city.
“His name should be removed from landmarks, institutions and honors,” Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-New Mexico) said.
In Denver, where a park is named after Chavez, Mayor Mike Johnston is scheduled to make an announcement about Chavez this morning with members of the city council.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said the state will not observe the Chavez holiday and that he will urge the state legislature to remove it when it convenes next year. Jacqueline Arias-Bryant, executive director of the Texas House’s Mexican American Legislative Caucus, said it would support abolishing the state holiday and a “full reckoning.” A bronze statue of Chavez stands on the University of Texas at Austin campus.
Texas residents and officials have already proposed renaming some of the several streets and highways named after Chavez statewide, notably in Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, where César Chavez Street runs through the historically Latino east side.
“It does merit consideration, given everything we know now,” said Alicia Perez-Hodge, co-founder of the Hispanic Advocates Business Leaders of Austin and a district director for the League of United Latin American Citizens.
Perez-Hodge said she felt for the victims and grieved for a fallen icon.
“I’m in mourning. It’s like losing a dear friend that you thought was almost like a saint,” she said. “It’s such a betrayal.”
Chavez joined striking South Texas laborers in 1966, when they marched north to Austin from melon farms in the Rio Grande Valley to demand better pay and working conditions. Austin’s First Street was renamed after him in 1993. A proposal being crafted by city council members would revert it to its original name.
But at a time when many Latino residents are being priced out of the neighborhood by rising housing costs, Perez-Hodge wants the street to remain a Latino landmark, “something that still symbolizes fairness and justice and the quest for workers’ dignity and safety.”
Fuentes, the city council member, said she has considered renaming the street after a different Latino figure.
“My gut instinct was Dolores Huerta. She is a strong woman leader and we know history has not accurately portrayed her role, like so many times in history the role of women is diminished,” Fuentes said.
But the revelations about Chavez gave her pause.
“When you name things after people living or past, you never know what their story will entail,” Fuentes said, so “there’s a little bit of a hesitancy there to go straight into naming it after a person. The movement is so much more than just one individual.”
“It’s the movement that needs recognition,” she added. “So what’s important to me is that we still find ways to recognize the movement and what Latinos fought for, what that movement has meant for so many of us.”
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