Cesar Chávez’s name and likeness were swiftly removed from buildings, streets, parks and schools after allegations emerged that the farmworker rights icon had been accused of sexually assaulting minors and fellow labor leader Dolores Huerta. Within just two days of the New York Times investigation revealing the claims, officials and activists across California moved quickly to erase Chávez’s presence from public spaces. Many people said they were shocked by the allegations and felt immediate action was necessary. The speed of the response was described as unprecedented, especially in a state where Chávez’s legacy is deeply embedded in the fight for farmworkers’ rights, the Los Angeles Times reported.Officials noted that reevaluating place names as the dark side of history becomes more apparent is nothing new, pointing to recent steps to change the names of other controversial figures, including those associated with the Confederacy and Father Junipero Serra, though those efforts were slower and more deliberate. In the hours and days following the allegations against Chávez, many officials said that communities should respond quickly and focus on a movement larger than Chávez, adding that these actions sent a message that such behavior was unacceptable.On Thursday, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and City Council members announced they would drop the holiday honoring Chávez’s birthday and instead rename it “Farm Workers Day” in honor of farmworkers.“I appreciate that my community has the honesty and strength to accept these new revelations in a very expedient manner, and as we do in Los Angeles,” said Los Angeles City Council member Monica Rodriguez, adding that the effort to rename the holiday was immediate.Two years after Chávez’s death, Araceli Moller de Barrios, who worked in the fields for nearly 30 years after arriving in the United States in 1995, said the news that Chávez had sexually abused young teenagers and Huerta had sent shock waves through the community she worked with daily as they struggled for better working conditions and safety. She said that she was sexually harassed by supervisors and that she had seen other women experience harassment.Although he didn’t work in the fields at the time, he said he agreed that cities and elected officials should recognize the hard work of farm workers who toil in the summer to supply food across the country.“People don’t know the sacrifice, what it’s like to eat in the hot sun, when they didn’t provide shade, when there weren’t bathrooms nearby,” he said. “They’re the ones who deserve everything.”There was talk in some communities of removing the Chávez name and replacing it with more general respect for farm workers and activists, placing the movement above any individual. In an interview with Latino USA, Huerta said that streets named after Chávez should be named after the movement.“Everything should be named after the martyrs of the farm worker movement. Every street should be named after them,” Huerta said.Moller de Barrios said she would like to see Huerta honored through the renaming of streets and parks for his sacrifice in fighting for farm workers’ rights and for bearing his secret, “for all the things that fell upon him”. The allegations are a reminder that they have the power to speak, he said.“We have to use our voices,” she said. “We are no one’s sexual object.”Irene de Barricua, policy and communications director of Lidares Campesinas, a farmworker and women-led organization, told The Times that farmworkers “do not want to be politicized or romanticized, but simply humanized” and provided the dignity of working in safe and fair conditions.Chávez’s name has been continuously honored since his death in 1993, including renaming an old Brooklyn Avenue on L.A.’s Eastside for Chávez. That move faced controversy from residents who argued that the city was erasing their history and burdening them with the cost of replacing the stationery, but over time naming things after Chávez became shorthand to honor Latino civil rights and activism. As the controversial legacies of historical figures became mainstream, their presence faded from the public eye.In 2020, the murder of George Floyd sparked controversy over race across the country, prompting communities and institutions, including in California, to remove public monuments of former slaveholders or prominent Confederate figures. It then considered taking down statues of Father Junipero Serra, described as the architect of California’s Roman Catholic missions, whose work during Spanish colonization marked the beginning of exploitation and destruction for native Californians since their arrival in 1769. The debate raged because many people still held high regard for the Franciscan priest who was canonized in 2015 but had statues removed, including one in downtown Los Angeles south of Olvera Street. The removal of Father Junipero Serra took months and sparked debate within the Latino community about Serra’s place in history.Katherine Goodis, a history professor and director of the public history program at UC Riverside, said removing Chávez from public view was the easy part.“Moving too fast and not having the complex and challenging process needed to actually work toward more than a superficial appearance of revisionist history is a terrible idea,” Goodis said.He argued that the real issue is who gets to declare the hero. Historians and teachers, including Goodis, said that rather than focusing on one individual to represent a historical movement or event, more effort should be made to elevate lesser-known figures in the community who contributed to the broader cause and with whom the community can identify and connect.The Cesar Chávez Foundation and family said Friday it was aware of the city of Los Angeles’ intention to rename the holiday that once celebrated Chávez to honor farm workers, and said it supports the move.“The decision about how to celebrate the movement and its participants rests with the local communities who organize those recognitions, events and commemorations. This has always been the case,” the foundation’s statement said. “Whatever decision they ultimately make we support and respect.”
