{"id":251998,"date":"2026-04-04T19:57:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T19:57:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/251998\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T19:57:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T19:57:15","slug":"this-pomona-park-has-five-cesar-chavez-murals-will-they-all-have-to-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/251998\/","title":{"rendered":"This Pomona park has five Cesar Chavez murals. Will they all have to go?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pomona has 5 Cesar Chavez murals. So now what?<\/p>\n

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez talks to Pomona city leaders and others about the future of the murals.<\/p>\n

At Cesar Chavez Park in Pomona, a mural depicts the now-disgraced farm worker leader from the waist-up, in a serene, almost Buddha-like pose. To his left, a lady justice figure holds the scales of justice and on the right, there are images of farm workers toiling in a field. Chavez looks like a saint.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

One of five murals at Cesar Chavez Park in Pomona, painted by Paul Botello.<\/p>\n

(<\/p>\n

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez\/LAist<\/p>\n

)<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that’s what people thought he was,\u201d said Pomona Mayor Tim Sandoval as he stood in front of the mural.<\/p>\n

But after several women stepped forward accusing the late labor icon of sexual assault, that view has radically changed. Now there are calls to remove his image from public spaces, widely impacting Southern California, which has a large concentration of murals, plaques, street names, and statues dedicated to him.<\/p>\n

Keep up with LAist.<\/p>\n

If you’re enjoying this article, you’ll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less. <\/p>\n

But do the entire murals have to be removed, or can there be a more nuanced approach to the re-evaluation of Chavez\u2019s legacy \u2014 a re-evaluation that doesn\u2019t throw the baby out with the bathwater?<\/p>\n

This week, the artist Paul Botello, Pomona Mayor Sandoval, and Pitzer College Emeritus Professor Jos\u00e9 Calder\u00f3n, a former activist who was involved in getting the murals painted, met up at the park, in the shadow of the busy 57 freeway, to discuss how to go forward.<\/p>\n

The story behind the murals<\/p>\n

In the early 2000s violence between Black and Latino gang members gripped Pomona.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a young Latino was killed, we actually did a march all the way from City Hall to what is now this park,\u201d said Calder\u00f3n.<\/p>\n

Calderon helped organize that march. He said activists were inspired by something Chavez liked to say, that when you get angry, don\u2019t take it out on others \u2014 organize.<\/p>\n

So they lobbied for the park, which was filled with trash and syringes, to be cleaned up and made family friendly. And because they used his quote, it was named Cesar Chavez Park.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Cesar Chavez Park in Pomona was dedicated after activists lobbied the City of Pomona to help curb gang violence. <\/p>\n

(<\/p>\n

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez\/LAist<\/p>\n

)<\/p>\n

Muralist Paul Botello was chosen to create five murals at the park that depicted Chavez from youth, through his service in the U.S. Navy during World War Two, to key moments during his farm worker activism.<\/p>\n

Today, while he feels betrayed by Chavez, he\u2019s also keen to preserve parts of the murals which tell the bigger story of the exploitation of farm workers and the fight to improve their conditions.<\/p>\n

While California state law says an artist must be consulted if there are any proposed changes to a mural, the ultimate decision will be made by Pomona City Council.<\/p>\n

Sandoval said he has not received calls or emails at City Hall. But people in his various social and civic circles have told him, he says, that Chavez\u2019s images should be removed.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Paul Botello holds mock-ups of changes he’d like to make to his murals of Cesar Chavez at a park in Pomona.<\/p>\n

(<\/p>\n

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez\/LAist<\/p>\n

)<\/p>\n

Botello had brought mock-ups of the alterations he\u2019d like to make to each mural. For the mural which depicts Chavez in a Buddha-like pose, for example, he wants to replace his face with the face of a farmworker wearing a hat.<\/p>\n

He also wants to keep much of another mural, which depicts Chavez as a teenager in a suit surrounded by boys and girls sitting on rows of tilled soil. His one change is to turn the image of Chavez into a Zoot Suiter, a rebellious Mexican American youth from the mid 20th century.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A mural by Paul Botello depicts Cesar Chavez and children on a farm.<\/p>\n

(<\/p>\n

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez\/LAist<\/p>\n

)<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200a95 percent is going to be there because it just represents all the youth who also toil in the field to help their parents,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Calderon agrees with these more targeted changes. He fears painting over the murals entirely would erase the neighborhood activism that led to the creation of this park.<\/p>\n

The right and the white supremacists are already using it to say, \u2018see this is what we told you about Cesar being anti-immigrant, but now they’re going a little bit further and they want to wipe out ethnic studies.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Jos\u00e9 Calder\u00f3n, emeritus professor, Pitzer College<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also concerned their removal would give fuel to people who oppose Latino activism and the growing movement in public education to require the teaching of Latino history.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe right and the white supremacists are already using it to say, \u2018see this is what we told you about Cesar being anti-immigrant\u2019\u201d, he said. \u201cBut now they’re going a little bit further and they want to wipe out ethnic studies\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A mural at Cesar Chavez Park in Pomona.<\/p>\n

(<\/p>\n

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez\/LAist<\/p>\n

)<\/p>\n

While Botello wants to keep the mural of Chavez serving in the U.S. Navy, because he believes it’s important to show that Latinos have contributed to this country’s military, he\u2019s keen to make a change in the fifth mural.<\/p>\n

It depicts a young man and woman above the phrase \u201cS\u00ed se puede,\u201d the famous farmworker slogan, \u201cyes, we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

The young man is clearly Chavez. Botello says he wants to replace it with the face of Dolores Huerta, the woman who led the United Farm Workers with Chavez and has accused Chavez of rape.<\/p>\n

Mayor Sandoval says he plans to bring up Botello\u2019s proposals at the next city council meeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pomona has 5 Cesar Chavez murals. So now what? Adolfo Guzman-Lopez talks to Pomona city leaders and others…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[16847,48,52,51,47,50,49,788,111935,17436],"class_list":{"0":"post-251998","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-cesar-chavez","9":"tag-la","10":"tag-la-headlines","11":"tag-la-news","12":"tag-los-angeles","13":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","14":"tag-los-angeles-news","15":"tag-mural","16":"tag-paul-botello","17":"tag-pomona"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}