United Farm Workers leader Cesar Chavez stands outside the Capitol in Washington in 1979. File photo: AP/Charles W. Harrity
The legacy of Cesar Chavez, the labor leader and widely admired Latino icon, is deeply ingrained in local life.
His name is on Berkeley’s 90-acre waterfront park, Cal’s student center and schools and streets across the Bay Area and beyond. The farmworker movement he led through strikes, pickets, and protests has inspired generations of local community leaders. Jesse Arreguín, Berkeley’s former mayor and current state senator, has said he considers Chavez his personal “hero.” California was the first state to commemorate his birthday, and in 2014, then-President Barack Obama proclaimed March 31 as national Cesar Chavez Day. It’s a paid holiday for Berkeley workers.
So allegations reported in depth by the New York Times this week that Chavez sexually abused and assaulted women and girls, including civil rights leader Dolores Huerta — his partner in founding the United Farm Workers Association — and girls as young as 12, left many in Berkeley and Oakland reeling and officials considering renaming local landmarks and changing celebrations of Chavez planned for the coming weeks.
The solar calendar installation at César Chávez Park in Berkeley is an homage to the famous activist. File photo: Cris Benton
“It’s unimaginable to consider the trauma each victim had to stomach over the past 60+ years,” Berkeley school board member Ana Vasudeo wrote in a statement.
“It’s heartbreaking,” said Oakland Councilmember Noel Gallo. “For me, it’s someone I’ve honored, respected, and followed.”
Gallo, who represents the heavily Latino district of Fruitvale, was a personal associate of Chavez, who died in 1993, and of Huerta, who is 96. They were always around the neighborhood.
Chavez’s organizing “motivated many of us to not only speak out on behalf of our communities but to do the work … advocating for the humanity of not just farmworkers but those of us in the neighborhood,” Gallo said.
Arreguín, a son and grandson of farmworkers, wrote in a statement that he stands with Huerta and other survivors.
“The labor movement is larger than any one individual – it is a collective struggle rooted in human dignity and hard work,” he wrote. “Our collective movement must always center and advance social and economic justice for our most vulnerable communities.”
Berkeley council member says city will not ‘continue to honor a perpetrator of sexual violence’
In Berkeley, where a solar calendar inside Cesar Chavez Park honors his and Huerta’s work on behalf of farm workers, officials said they are discussing changes.
“I have been in touch with city of Berkeley leadership about reevaluating the ways in which our city currently honors Cesar Chavez,” Southside Councilmember Cecilia Lunaparra said in an email. “As the daughter of Mexican immigrants and the first Latina on the Berkeley City Council, I am keenly aware that movements for justice and equity are always larger than a single figurehead, and that gendered and racial violence against Latinas, especially immigrants and farmworkers, has historical and structural roots.”
Councilmember Brent Blackaby, who represents the northeastern corner of the city, said he was “stunned and dismayed” to learn of the allegations.
“While we can’t formally take action on this until the Berkeley City Council meets, I’m confident our city will move swiftly to respond,” Blackaby said in an email. “We have zero tolerance for abuse and will not continue to honor a perpetrator of sexual violence.”
Chavez features prominently in a mural on the side of Mi Tierra, a grocery store in West Berkeley. Credit: Lance Knobel/Berkeleyside
In a statement, Mayor Adena Ishii said the city would continue to honor the larger farm worker labor movement of which Chavez was a part.
Blackaby, Ishii and Lunaparra all praised the victims for their courage.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday said he was still processing the news. The Democratic governor wouldn’t commit to making any changes to the state holiday.
The farmworker movement “was much bigger than one man,” Newsom said. “It’s about labor. It’s about social justice, economic justice, racial justice.”
UC Berkeley’s student center is named after Cesar Chavez
A bust of Cesar Chavez seen through the window of the UC Berkeley student center named after him on Wednesday. Credit: Ximena Natera for Berkeleyside
At UC Berkeley, the four-story Cesar E. Chavez Student Center, just off the campus’s main plaza, houses a cafe, student advising and other services.
“We are aware of the serious allegations that have been reported regarding Cesar Chavez,” UC Berkeley spokesperson Will Kane said in an email. “Like many in the community, we are deeply troubled by these reports.”
Kane said the university has a building-name review process spearheaded by its Space Allocations and Capital Improvements Committee. Any student, faculty or staff member, or alum can submit a proposal to rename a building, and must explain why they feel the current namesake’s legacy is at odds with university values.
The Cesar E. Chavez Student Center on the UC Berkeley campus. Credit: Ximena Natera for Berkeleyside
Kane said he wasn’t aware of any pending applications to rename the student center. But Reddit commenters had already started a thread Wednesday to suggest possible replacements, including the Dolores Huerta Student Center and, archly, the Men in Power are Dangerous Student Center.
UC Berkeley has previously used the committee review to remove from buildings the names of past honorees who held racist views or had slaves, including Bernard Moses, John and Joseph LeConte, and David Prescott Barrows. It axed the name Boalt Hall from its law school after a lecturer discovered racist writings by 19th century attorney John Henry Boalt.
Berkeley school district will hold day of service instead of traditional Cesar Chavez celebrations this year
The Berkeley Unified School District said in an email Wednesday afternoon that its campuses will shift from traditional Cesar Chavez celebrations next week to a districtwide “Day of Service and Learning.”
The district said it takes allegations of harm against women and young people seriously, adding that the accusations involving Chavez conflict with the community’s values.
“We also recognize that movements for justice are always bigger than any one individual,” the message reads. BUSD said it will continue to honor the farmworker movement by “centering the collective struggle and the many voices,” including immigrant workers and women leaders, “who have too often gone unrecognized.”
No woman or girl should ever have to stay silent about the undeniable wrongness of men abusing their positions of power.” — Beatriz Leyva-Cutler, former BUSD board member and Berkeley activist
Berkeley Unified began officially honoring Chavez and Dolores Huerta in 2012, later setting the dates for their commemorative period as March 21-April 10 in 2021 to align with the city of Berkeley’s holiday and in recognition of Huerta’s birthday.
During these 20 days, students learn about and celebrate the contributions of activists Chavez, Huerta, Larry Itliong, Philip Vera Cruz, and the wider Chicano, Filipino, and Latino communities. BUSD said it values the annual focus on cultural learning and community service, and emphasized that there are many other ways to uplift these communities and celebrate their legacies.
Vasudeo called the allegations “heartbreaking,” saying that they “should not take away from the accomplishments of the brave women who fought for the rights of farm workers in California.”
“It is painful that, for so many years, young girls and women involved in the movement for change, social justice, and equality have sacrificed their physical and mental well-being and their bodies while remaining silent for ‘La Causa,’” Beatriz Leyva-Cutler, former BUSD board member and Berkeley activist, said in a statement. “No woman or girl should ever have to stay silent about the undeniable wrongness of men abusing their positions of power. I stand in solidarity with the many brave mujeres who have led and continue to lead movements to advocate for our most vulnerable workers, children, and women.”
Sexual abuse allegations against Cesar Chavez
The stunning allegations against Chavez drew immediate calls nationwide to alter memorials honoring the man who in the 1960s helped secure better wages and working conditions for farmworkers and has been long revered by many Democratic leaders in the U.S.
In a statement released Wednesday, Huerta said she stayed silent for 60 years out of concern that her words would hurt the farmworker movement.
Huerta described two sexual encounters with Chavez, one where she was “manipulated and pressured” and another where she was “forced against my will.”
Cesar Chavez Park in Berkeley, seen from a drone on June 14, 2020. Credit: Phil Rowntree
“I carried this secret for as long as I did because building the movement and securing farmworker rights was life’s work. The formation of a union was the only vehicle to accomplish and secure those rights and I wasn’t going to let Cesar or anyone else get in the way,” she said.
Huerta joined Chavez in 1962 to co-found the National Farm Workers Association, which became the United Farm Workers of America.
For many, they were akin to Martin Luther King. Jr. and Rosa Parks because of their work advocating for racial equality and civil rights.
The New York Times first reported Wednesday that it found Chavez groomed and sexually abused young girls who worked in the movement.
FILE – United Farm Workers leader Dolores Huerta, center, leads a rally in San Francisco’s Mission District on Nov. 19, 1988, along with Howard Wallace, president of the San Francisco chapter of the UFW, left, and Maria Elena Chavez, 16, the daughter of Cesar Chavez, right, as part of a national boycott of what the UFW claims is the dangerous use of pesticides on table grapes. (AP Photo/Court Mast, File)
Huerta later said both sexual encounters with Chavez led to pregnancies, which she kept secret, and that she arranged for the children to be raised by other families. “No one knew the full truth about how they were conceived until just a few weeks ago,” she said in her statement.
Huerta said she did not know that Chavez hurt other women and condemned his actions but emphasized that the farmworker movement is bigger than one person.
“Cesar’s actions do not diminish the permanent improvements achieved for farmworkers with the help of thousands of people,” Huerta said in her statement. “We must continue to engage and support our community, which needs advocacy and activism now more than ever.”
The Associated Press contributed reporting to this story.
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