Streets, schools, plaques and monuments across California bear the name of Cesar Chavez, the union leader who fought for farmworker rights during the 1960s and ’70s. In some cities—including his birthplace of Yuma, Ariz.—he is also considered a hero.
Or, he was considered a hero.
In the Coachella Valley, the city of Coachella honors Chavez in all of these ways, and more: It also has affordable housing complexes named after him and is home to what was Chavez’s regional working office, known as La Casa del Trabajador.
But after The New York Times published a report, following a five-year-long investigation, in which women talked about being sexually abused by Chavez—some when they were just girls—his legacy is forever tarnished. Cities, like Coachella, are reckoning with how to keep the accompanying farmworker history alive.
Changes have been swift in Fresno and Sacramento, where Cesar Chavez Boulevard and Cesar Chavez Plaza, respectively, are being renamed. In San Fernando, a Chavez statue has been removed, and in San Francisco, his face on a mural was painted over.
It won’t be the same in Coachella, said Mayor Pro Tem Frank Figueroa.
“As part of the City Council, I look at other cities … and I don’t know what the community input has been there,” he said. “But here, you can’t just make a decision for a community that asked for the naming of a street, that wanted to celebrate him,” he said.
Yet, Figueroa, who grew up in Coachella and is the son and grandson of farmworkers, has made a personal decision to take down an original poster, which used to hang in his work office, from when the city of Los Angeles coined its Cesar E. Chavez Avenue in 1994.
“I stored it in a plastic bag, because it’s sentimental; it has meaning; it’s a memento. But I just didn’t feel like keeping it up would be positive,” he said.
When he read the news, Figueroa said, he glanced at both that poster and another of Dolores Huerta, signed by her and also up in his office, in “complete shock.”
Huerta, who helped run United Farm Workers with Chavez, was part of The New York Times’ report, in which she revealed that he sexually assaulted her. In statements since, she has reiterated that she had never previously spoken about it because she feared it would hurt the farmworkers’ movement.
Some cities have opted to replace Chavez’s name on their landmarks with Huerta’s.
“My first instinct is, you believe the survivors,” Figueroa said. “When we got the formal announcement from Dolores, it really made me have to sit down and say, ‘What are we going to do?’”
Another Coachella council member, Stephanie Virgen, told Independent on Monday that the council hadn’t yet had an opportunity to discuss the subject. “I don’t know what my colleagues’ wishes are, but I’m very open to having a conversation, and I’m very open to hearing from the community,” she said.
Like Figueroa, Virgen described being “shocked” by the news and feeling supportive of the survivors who came forward, calling the situation “tragic.”
Though she’s seen chatter on social media and received emails from residents on the matter, Virgen said she wants to have a discussion on how to move forward with Chavez’s presence in the city in a formal setting.
“I believe that (residents) are also still sitting with this, with the allegations and everything that is coming out,” she said. “And I have so much trust in our community, that they will look at the information and ultimately take that into consideration. I would leave it up to them.”
Conflicted Feelings
The Independent reached out to a handful of local farmworkers, but none agreed to share their opinion; most said they were “shy” about or “embarrassed” by the subject matter.
Former farmworkers who met Chavez expressed conflicting feelings.
Clementina Olloque is the woman who, for 20 years, pushed to name a street and school in Coachella after Chavez. The latter became the first public school in California to have his name, in 1990.
Though Olloque said she only read part of the investigation, she believes Chavez is being “slandered.”
“It’s very touchy, and it hurts that someone, all of a sudden, comes up with these stories,” she said.
Olloque worked alongside Chavez, “since the age of 17,” she said, and credits him for the rights farmworkers have achieved.
“If it wasn’t because of Cesar, the farmworkers would never have what we have,” she said. “We got benefits, clean water in the fields, a bathroom. He did his job!”
Olloque said she would protest any removals of Chavez’s name in Coachella.
“You know, presidents had slaves, so are we going to erase Washington Street and Jackson Street and all of this? Are we going to erase all those schools that are named after those presidents? I feel both ways.”
Maria Victoria Castillo
For Maria Victoria Castillo, a local author who knew Chavez, the matter is not so defined.
“It’s tough, because you know that just the mention of his name is going to hurt some people,” Castillo said. “He did great with the union, and the union is what we have to appreciate. But I can’t say, ‘Don’t think about the other stuff,’ because it’s hard. That’s the part that makes me wonder: What do we do?”
Castillo pointed to other streets and buildings that bear the names of “people who have done wrong,” and played significant roles in history.
“You know, presidents had slaves, so are we going to erase Washington Street and Jackson Street and all of this?” she asked. “Are we going to erase all those schools that are named after those presidents? I feel both ways. One way: Knock everything down. The other one: Why are we going to knock everything down if we’re not going to be equal about things?”
Castillo began working in local fields at the age of 8 and met Chavez in her teens, when she and her parents decided to participate in a UFW strike.
She recalled that Chavez helped her and her family keep their home when they fell behind on payments because they had been on strike. After she and her mom showed him a letter from the bank, she said, each member in her household (six at that time) began receiving weekly $50 payments from the union to catch up on bills.
“My mom passed in that house in 2017, and so did my dad, in 2019. That was their house,” she said.
Castillo has incorporated her family’s experiences with Chavez, the UFW and working in the fields into much of her work, including her book Field Work Through the Eyes of a Child. She also wrote a children’s play, with Chavez as the protagonist, which has been put on at some Coachella Valley schools for several years, especially on or around March 31, what has been known Cesar Chavez Day.
But this year, she’s already worked with schools to remove Chavez.
“I told the teacher, ‘I don’t think we should go through with this because of everything that’s coming up. Let me change this play, and we’ll make it about working in the fields, and the union,’” she said.
Her revised play still focuses on the plight of the farmworker, led by the character of a little girl named Rosita. “It’s basically the same,” Castillo said.
At her work office, Castillo plans to keep the Chavez pictures she has up “as a reminder that actions carry consequences,” she said.
Coachella held its latest City Council meeting on Wednesday, March 25, with no changes or removals of Chavez discussed or announced. (It’s also important to note that the City Council this week has been dealing with the removal of Mayor Steven Hernandez, after he pled guilty to a felony conflict-of-interest charge.)
Figueroa told the Independent he didn’t know whether the city will instead call March 31 Farmworkers Day—an official change passed by the California Legislature and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday.
“I’m personally a believer that if the community had input in the first place, the community needs to have input in the second,” Figueroa said.