A UFW banner emblazoned with the group\u2019s famous black Aztec eagle logo hangs in the center of the picture, making Ch\u00e1vez and Huerta look like equals. <\/p>\n
But they\u2019re not. <\/p>\n
He\u2019s speaking from a podium, looking down and appearing cast in darkness due to Ch\u00e1vez blue vest melding into his black hair and brown skin. She\u2019s by his side clasping her hands, wearing a colorful blouse that pales in radiance to Huerta\u2019s hopeful face as she looks at the crowd before them.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the only picture of historical figures that I display at home, and it\u2019s in a place where I\u2019m guaranteed to look at it. It has long served as my secular version of a prayer card, a daily reminder to fight for the good in the world and a reminder that giants before me faced challenges far more daunting than mine. It was also a testament to teamwork \u2014 when I acquired the photo a few years ago, it called to me in a way a solo Ch\u00e1vez never would have because I always knew el movimento was more than just one man.<\/p>\n
Their portrait can never mean just those things ever again after the New York Times reported last week<\/a> Ch\u00e1vez sexually assaulted two teenage girls in the 1970s and Huerta in the 1960s.<\/p>\n Places left and right \u2014 colleges, cities, classrooms, even states that mark Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s birthday as a holiday \u2014 are now deleting his name and image<\/a> from the public sphere. It\u2019s not going to be a quick, easy task even if the cancellation is starting to take place with startling speed: Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s presence is as ubiquitous in Mexican American life as the Virgin of Guadalupe. <\/p>\n Just this weekend, a friend acknowledged that he and his wife had just started reading a book about him to their 5-year-old daughter, a book they now plan to trash.<\/p>\n I thought of doing the same to my photo of Ch\u00e1vez and Huerta. But I\u2019ve decided not to.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t fault folks for wanting to scrub any hint of Ch\u00e1vez from their daily lives and neither does the Cesar Chavez Foundation, the nonprofit headed by his descendants that recently announced in a statement, \u201cWe support and respect whatever decision[s]\u201d may come in the weeks and months to come. Communities are entitled to decide whom they should and shouldn\u2019t publicly honor.<\/p>\n But to eradicate Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s civic presence so fast \u2014 to tear down his statues, relabel streets and parks<\/a> named in his honor, paint over his image on old and new murals, to throw away artwork that has adorned homes and offices for decades \u2014 doesn\u2019t remove the fact that millions largely saw him as a champion of the downtrodden until last week. It can\u2019t rescind the positive influence Ch\u00e1vez had on generations of Latinos and non-Latinos who saw in him the hopes of a people and now must reconcile their memories with his horrible deeds.<\/p>\n Historians, educators, activists and politicians for far too long elevated Ch\u00e1vez above Huerta in the name of a simplistic narrative that should\u2019ve never been constructed. The public at large bought into those efforts with little skepticism in the understandable desire to have Latinos star in the American story. It\u2019s a culpability we should all interrogate, not immediately purge.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why not only am I keeping up my photo of Ch\u00e1vez and Huerta, I\u2019m going to put it in a more prominent place from where I can\u2019t look away.<\/p>\n Workers for the city of San Fernando cover the statue at Cesar E. Chavez Memorial Park on Thursday. <\/p>\n (Kayla Bartkowski \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774088108_52_.jpeg\")
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