California quickly moved to rename Cesar Chavez Day as Farmworkers Day in the wake of allegations the labor leader abused women and girls.
Less than two weeks before the annual holiday celebrating Chavez, the California state assembly and state senate said they were introducing a bill to redesignate the day.
Following shocking allegations that Chavez sexually abused girls and the co-founder of the United Farm Workers of America union, Dolores Huerta, there have been calls to rename the many institutions, events and memorials across California and the US honoring Chavez.
Celebrations for the civil rights leader in California, Texas and Arizona, where Chavez was born, have been canceled.
And leaders across California, where Chavez helped galvanize a movement for farmworker rights, are also taking steps to rename the many public places that bear his name. San Diego officials said they are considering renaming Cesar Chavez Parkway, a major thoroughfare in the city, as well as nearly dozen parks and public buildings named after Chavez.
San Francisco supervisor Jackie Fielder said her “office will support community efforts to remove Cesar Chavez’s name” from institutions in the city’s predominantly Latino Mission District.
In California’s Central Valley, where the farmworker movement led by Chavez was born, the city of Bakersfield announced it will discontinue plans to rename H Street in honor of Chavez.
The California Museum said it would remove Chavez from the state’s hall of fame – something it has never done before.
Dozens of schools, parks, buildings and streets are named for Chavez – and it remains unclear how or when they might be renamed. An analysis by the California Newsroom found more than 65 locations named after Chavez across the state.
The process of changing street names can take time, depending on a variety of local laws and ordinances. In San Diego, for example, street names can be changed with a petition with unanimous support from affected property owners and businesses, plus approval from the city.
Local leaders are also considering how to rename locations, with some locals and activists suggesting that at least some places be renamed after Huerta, a labor rights leader who revealed this week she had been abused by Chavez.
In an interview with Latino USA, Huerta said: “Everything should be named for the martyrs of the Farm Workers Movement. Every street should be named after them.”
Huerta said she was raped by Chavez twice in the in the 1960s, leading to two pregnancies that she had kept secret. “I am nearly 96 years old, and for the last 60 years have kept a secret because I believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for,” she said in a Wednesday statement.
The New York Times first reported on Wednesday that Chavez groomed and sexually abused young girls who worked in the movement. Huerta, too, revealed to the newspaper that she was a victim of the abuse in her 30s.
Born in Yuma, Arizona, Chavez grew up in a Mexican American family that traveled around California picking lettuce, grapes, cotton and other seasonal crops. Chavez is known nationally for his early organizing in the fields, a hunger strike, a grape boycott, and eventual victory in pushing growers to negotiate with farm workers for better wages and working conditions.
Chavez’s family said in a statement that they are devastated by the allegations.
“We wish peace and healing to the survivors and commend their courage to come forward. As a family steeped in the values of equity and justice, we honor the voices of those who feel unheard and who report sexual abuse,” the family said.
California was the first state, nearly 30 years ago, to designate Chavez’s birthday, 31 March, as a day to honor him. In 2000, the state legislature passed a bill to make it an official paid day off for state employees, and require the state to start teaching students about his legacy and his involvement in the labor movement in California.
