The name and likeness of Cesar Chavez were swiftly removed from buildings, roads, parks and schools after allegations surfaced accusing the farmworker rights icon of sexually assaulting minors and fellow labour leader Dolores Huerta. Within just two days of a New York Times investigation bringing the claims to light, officials and activists across California moved rapidly to erase Chavez’s presence from public spaces. Many 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 Chavez’s legacy in the fight for agricultural workers’ rights is deeply embedded, Los Angeles Times reported.Officials noted that reassessing place names as the darker side of history becomes more apparent was not new, pointing to recent moves to change names of other controversial figures, including those tied to the Confederacy and Father Junípero Serra, though those efforts were slower and more deliberative. In the hours and days after the allegations against Chavez, many officials said communities should respond immediately and redirect focus from Chavez to the larger movement, adding that the actions sent a message that such behaviour was unacceptable.On Thursday, LA Mayor Karen Bass and members of the City Council announced they would abandon the holiday honouring Chavez’s birthday and instead rename it “Farm Workers Day” to honour labourers who work in the fields.“I appreciate that my community has the integrity and the strength to reckon with these new revelations in a very expedient way, and as we do in Los Angeles,” said Los Angeles City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who added that the effort to rename the holiday was immediate.Araceli Molar de Barrios, who laboured in the fields for nearly 30 years after arriving in the US in 1995, two years after Chavez’s death, said the news that Chavez had sexually abused young teens and Huerta sent a shock wave through the community she worked with daily as they struggled for improved working conditions and protections. She said she had been sexually harassed by supervisors and had seen other women experience harassment.Although she did not work in the fields at the time, she said she agreed that cities and elected officials should recognise the hard work of farmworkers who laboured in the heat to supply food across the country.“People don’t know the sacrifice, what it’s like to eat in the hot sun, when they used to not provide shade, when there weren’t bathrooms nearby,” she said. “They’re the ones who deserve everything.”There was talk in some communities of removing the Chavez name and replacing it with a more generic honour for farmworkers and activists, placing the movement above any individual. In an interview with Latino USA, Huerta said streets named for Chavez should be renamed after the movement.“Everything should be named for the martyrs of the Farm Workers Movement. Every street should be named after them,” Huerta said.Molar de Barrios said she would like to see Huerta honoured through the renaming of streets and parks for her sacrifices in fighting for farmworker rights and for bearing her secret, “for everything that fell on her”. The allegations, she said, were a reminder that they had power in speaking out.“We have to use our voices,” she said. “We are no one’s sexual object.”Irene De Barraicua, director of policy and communications for Líderes Campesinas, a farmworker and women-led organisation, told The Times that farmworkers “do not wish to be politicized or romanticized, but simply humanized” and afforded the dignity to work in safe and fair conditions.Chavez’s name had been steadily honoured since his death in 1993, including the renaming of old Brooklyn Avenue on LA’s Eastside for Chavez. That move faced controversy from residents who argued the city was erasing their history and burdening them with the cost of changing stationery, but over time naming things after Chavez became shorthand for honouring Latino civil rights and activism. As controversial legacies of historical figures became mainstream, so did removing their presence from public view.In 2020, the murder of George Floyd ignited a nationwide reckoning on race, prompting communities and institutions, including in California, to remove public monuments of former slaveholders or prominent Confederate figures. Consideration was then given to toppling statues of Father Junípero Serra, described as the architect of California’s Roman Catholic missions, whose work during Spanish colonisation marked the beginning of exploitation and decimation for Native Californians since his arrival in 1769. The debate intensified as many still held a high regard for the Franciscan priest canonised in 2015, but statues, including one in downtown Los Angeles south of Olvera Street, were taken down. Removing Father Junípero Serra took months and also sparked debate within the Latino community about Serra’s place in history.Catherine Gudis, professor of history and director of the Public History Program at UC Riverside, said removing Chavez from public view was the easy part.“It’s a terrible idea to move swiftly and not have the really complicated and challenging process that is required to actually work towards more than a superficial pretense of revisionist history,” Gudis said.She argued that the real issue was who got to declare a hero. Historians and educators, including Gudis, said that instead of focusing on one person to represent a historical movement or event, there should be greater effort to uplift lesser-known figures in the community who contributed to a broader cause and whom the community could resonate and connect with.The Cesar Chavez Foundation and family said on Friday that it was aware of the city of Los Angeles’ intent to rename the holiday that once celebrated Chavez to instead honour farmworkers, and said it supported the move.“The decision about how to commemorate the movement and its participants rests with the local communities who organize those recognitions, events and commemorations. That has always been the case,” the foundation’s statement said. “We support and respect whatever decision they ultimately make.”
