California, Arizona work on removing Cesar Chavez’s name

By Dave Mason
The Center Square

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include a Phoenix City Council vote.

California and Arizona are moving quickly with bipartisan, widespread and emotional support to take once revered labor leader Cesar Chavez’s name and likeness off holidays, schools, streets and facilities after allegations of rape.

Officials are hurrying to rename Cesar Chavez Day ahead of its date, March 31. It’s a holiday in California, Arizona and seven other states.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Los Angeles County, the city of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Unified School District have renamed Cesar Chavez Day as Farmworkers Day following allegations that Chavez raped Dolores Huerta, resulting in her giving birth to two children. Chavez, a Yuma, Ariz. native who died in 1993 and is also accused of sexually assaulting two girls, and Huerta, 95, cofounded the United Farm Workers union.

Legislation to rename Cesar Chavez Day as Farmworkers Day is being discussed at the Capitol in Sacramento ahead of the March 31 date. A bill is being put together by Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Salinas, and Senate Pro Tem President Monique Limón, D-Santa Barbara.

“California’s farmworker rights movement never has been about one individual,” Rivas and Limón said in a joint statement. “To the survivors who have found the courage to come forward, uplifting the movement’s values of dignity and justice, and demanding accountability, our hearts are with you always.”

In Phoenix, the Arizona Senate Regulatory Affairs and Government Efficiency Committee voted unanimously Wednesday to back a bill repealing Cesar Chavez Day on what Senate President Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, told The Center Square is a faster-than-usual track for legislation. Lawmakers there are speeding up the process by replacing all the content in House Bill 2072, a previous unrelated bill already going through the legislative system.

Meanwhile, in a government chamber just a mile away from the Capitol on Wednesday afternoon, the Phoenix City Council voted to rename the holiday as Farmworkers Day. Council members also decide to rename streets and facilities that currently have Chavez’s name.

In Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass recently issued an executive order renaming the Chavez holiday as officials expressed shock over the allegations against the labor leader.

“These accounts coming after decades are deeply troubling and underscore a fundamental truth. Sexual abuse has long harmed women and girls, and accountability must never be secondary to any movement, legacy or individual,” said Hilda Solis, chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, at Tuesday’s meeting.

Shortly after her comments and several public speakers unanimously supporting the change, the board voted 5-0 to immediately rename the holiday. The same motion also included an instruction to all county departments to immediately remove Chavez’s name from all holiday events, communications and materials and refocus events on farmworker justice and labor rights.

“This movement will not be erased,” said Solis, who described herself as Huerta’s friend.

The board then voted 5-0 on another motion directing all county departments to start the process to get public input on renaming all county facilities and streets with Chavez’s name. The staff was instructed to report back to the board in 21 days.

That motion includes the removal of art depicting Chavez.

Los Angeles County has three art works representing Chavez at a library, park and probation center, Arts and Culture Director Kristin Sakoda told the board.

“The intention of all of our civic art is to create a welcoming space, to reflect our cultural diversity, artistry and creativity,” Sakoda said, but added it’s important that art doesn’t hurt people.

Solis and Supervisors Janice Hahn and Lindsey Horvath worked together on the resolutions concerning Chavez.

“This past week has been heartbreaking for so many people on so many levels, for communities, for people who admired one man and admired the movement,” Hahn said.

Horvath noted labor movements consist of people, not those who lead them. “If anything, this moment demands we wipe the lens, not erase history.”

Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell called on the county to develop a better process before it commits taxpayers’ dollars to honoring someone, to make sure the person’s full history is known. And Supervisor Kathryn Barger noted schools now face the challenge of how to rewrite the curriculum about Chavez and the labor movement.

The Chavez name is seen throughout California, from streets in the heavily Latino cities of Los Angeles, Oxnard, Santa Barbara and San Diego, to schools bearing Chavez’s name throughout Southern California and beyond.

Petersen told The Center Square that efforts to rename streets, schools, events and facilities in Arizona had spread “like a brush fire.”

On Tuesday, there was emotion in the voice of Los Angeles Unified School District board member Kelly Gonez as she talked about the resolution she co-authored to rename Cesar Chavez Day and remove Chavez’s name and likeness wherever it appears in the nation’s second-largest school district. That means the removal of murals and the renaming of Cesar Chavez Learning Academies in San Fernando and Cesar Chavez Elementary School in Los Angeles.

“These heart-wrenching stories represent a betrayal for so many of us and yet they resonate with many survivors and many women who have experienced this as girls and in our adulthood including myself,” said Gonez, who was tearful.

She noted the board stands with survivors and condemns all forms of sexual violence.

The board voted 7-0 for the resolution.

At the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting, Solis, the chair, said the new holiday name, Farmworkers Day, “addresses the ongoing challenges and reaffirms our commitment to their dignity and rights.”