San Francisco is proposing to rename Cesar Chavez Street as Las Campesinas to distance the city from the disgraced union leader while honoring women who were at the core of the farmworker labor movement.
Supervisor Jackie Fielder on Tuesday proposed renaming the 3.5-mile thoroughfare with the Spanish word for “female farmworkers,” kicking off a review process that will take months and must get the mayor’s approval before taking effect.
A push to remove Chavez’s name from public places began when The New York Times reported allegations that the late cofounder of the National Farm Workers Association had sexually abused women and girls decades ago.
A group, cochaired City Assessor-Recorder Joaquin Torres, worked to rebrand the street that cuts downhill from Diamond Heights through Noe Valley and the Mission to the waterfront. Torres said the members sought names that would reflect the labor history and pay homage to women’s contributions, while also considering practical concerns like the length and complexity.
“Latino history and heritage is San Francisco heritage,” Torres said. “Women’s voices are San Francisco heritage.”
The group whittled its list of contenders to Sí Se Puede, Las Campesinas, Esperanza, and Dahlia, before pushing forward Las Campesinas and Sí Se Puede, which is Spanish for “Yes we can.”
The Rev. Miguel Bustos of Grace Cathedral, who grew up in the Mission District and lives about three blocks from the street, sees the process as part of a larger reckoning.
“I think it’s part of the whole healing and reconciliation process,” said Bustos, who added that the allegations had been painful for people who once admired Chavez. “It’s always hard when one of your heroes turns out to not be as grand as you think they were.
“I think it’s kind of cool to name it after a group of women workers who hardly get any attention,” Bustos added.
San Francisco has a rule that after a renaming, the street’s old name must be included on signs for five years. | Source: Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images
Before it was renamed for Cesar Chavez in 1995, the east-west corridor was Army Street. Restoring it to that name was considered but didn’t meet the criteria, Torres said.
The name change will force business owners and residents to update their addresses. Sharky Laguana, who has run the van rental operation Bandago for more than 20 years on Cesar Chavez Street, shrugged at the inconvenience.
“You change the name on your address, and then you move on,” he said. Picking a street name that didn’t focus on an individual seemed like a shrewd move, he noted.
“You never really know what you’re in for” when naming something after an individual. Las Campesinas will “restore some of the karmic order” and “feels very California.”
Celia Sack, who owns Omnivore Books on Cesar Chavez Street at Church Street, welcomes the prospect of removing that name from the address even though new signage will be costly for her shop.
“It’s worth it to get rid of the name of a rapist on our address,” she said.
Vanessa Lambright, who lives in Noe Valley, thinks the proposed name might be difficult to spell and pronounce.
“It’d be nice if it was something short and easy to say,” she said.
Simon Harrison, who works at Army Street Mini Storage on Cesar Chavez Street, takes a more diffident approach to the proposed change. “The street is a geometric waypoint to get from one place to another, and everybody already knows what street this is,” Harrison said, leery about using infrastructure for representational purposes. “It just feels like, why are we doing this? I understand we’ve learned Chavez did some bad things, but if you want to support female farmworkers, maybe start a festival day or put up a mural.”
The next step in the renaming process is for the Department of Public Works to notify residents, businesses, and city departments before issuing a report. Then, the board would have to vote again on renaming legislation. According to Fielder’s office, the bill will likely include an exemption from a rule requiring that a street’s former name be included on signs for five years. Fielder’s team said they are committed to keeping Chavez’s name off signs.
“No matter what you do, it’s always going to be somebody that feels like it could be better,” Laguana said. “Everybody will adapt. It’ll be fine.”