{"id":263129,"date":"2026-04-11T22:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T22:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/263129\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T22:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T22:27:09","slug":"santa-ana-votes-to-scrub-cesar-chavezs-name-image-from-local-parks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/263129\/","title":{"rendered":"Santa Ana votes to scrub C\u00e9sar Ch\u00e1vez’s name, image from local parks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the wake of sex abuse allegations<\/a> against late farmworker leader C\u00e9sar Ch\u00e1vez, the Santa Ana City Council took steps to erase his name and image from public parks.<\/p>\n

Most notably, Cesar Chavez Campesino Park in the city\u2019s Santa Anita neighborhood will revert to its original Campesino Park name for the first time in 25 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe forget sometimes that the farmworkers movement was not about C\u00e9sar Ch\u00e1vez, it was about the farmworkers,\u201d said Santa Ana Mayor Valeria Amezcua. \u201cI would hope that I would have the support to make these changes in our city because we must acknowledge the victims \u2014 the children, the women.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the council also directed City Manager Alvaro Nu\u00f1ez to scrub Ch\u00e1vez from a mural at Jerome Park and greenlit his erasure at La Artista Artesia Pilar Park.<\/p>\n

Nu\u00f1ez will also meet with city employee unions to rename the observance of C\u00e9sar Ch\u00e1vez Day as Farmworkers Day or replace it with a floating holiday in amended labor contracts.<\/p>\n

According to a staff report, Santa Ana is setting aside its formal process for renaming the city park, which would have otherwise included a review by the Planning Commission.<\/p>\n

The city does not expect any significant risk from expediting the process and argued \u201cthere may be greater potential harm\u201d in leaving the name up, even temporarily.<\/p>\n

An investigation published last month in the New York Times detailed allegations<\/a> that Ch\u00e1vez, who co-founded the United Farm Workers union, sexually assaulted girls as young as 12 and raped fellow farmworker leader Dolores Huerta. <\/p>\n

A new allegation<\/a> has since surfaced in La Opinion and L.A. Taco that an elder Ch\u00e1vez fondled and forcibly kissed a teenage activist in 1990.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A Cesar Chavez Campesino park sign is covered in black after recent sex abuse allegations.<\/p>\n

(James Carbone\/James Carbone)<\/p>\n

After the New York Times report was published, Councilmember Jessie Lopez also called for a process to strip the labor leader\u2019s name and image from city-owned property, but wanted it to be community-led.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a preference she reiterated at Tuesday\u2019s council meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the community wants it to be Campesino Park, let it be that,\u201d she said. \u201cIf there are other things that they want to bring forward, I\u2019m also open to that. I think it\u2019s important that we include as many people in our community as we can as part of this process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Santa Ana Unified School District has already forged ahead with renaming C\u00e9sar E. Ch\u00e1vez High School and will solicit input from parents, students and community members on finding a new name. <\/p>\n

For Cesar Chavez Campesino Park, city officials have an old name to revert to. <\/p>\n

Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s name was added to Campesino Park in 2001<\/a>, the first year California officially observed C\u00e9sar Ch\u00e1vez Day on March 31, his birthday. Since the allegations, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law that changed the state holiday to \u201cFarmworkers Day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councilmember Thai Viet Phan understood Lopez\u2019s desire to solicit community input, but favored a more expedited path to revert the park back to its original name.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever we have that needs to be cleaned up, let\u2019s get it cleaned up,\u201d she said. \u201cCampesino Park was always Campesino Park. Let\u2019s return it to that. I don\u2019t think we have to make this a big, complicated process that\u2019s going to take six months. We are capable of moving forward quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councilmember David Pe\u00f1aloza agreed.<\/p>\n

But he also asserted the city should take a proactive role in alerting private property owners of the Ch\u00e1vez purge to encourage them to do the same with the disgraced labor leader\u2019s name and likeness.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, we can\u2019t demand anyone do anything with their private property,\u201d Pe\u00f1aloza said, \u201cbut we can make them aware of the changes we\u2019re making on city property.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pe\u00f1aloza also suggested the council send a letter to state legislators in support of moving Farmworkers Day away from Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s birthday.<\/p>\n

The overall push to erase Ch\u00e1vez from public spaces in Santa Ana, which the council unanimously backed, is expected to cost the city about $15,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the wake of sex abuse allegations against late farmworker leader C\u00e9sar Ch\u00e1vez, the Santa Ana City Council…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,30705,16847,104052,38513,1409,179,2323,103407,1040,8568,115507,1554,68894,5968,338],"class_list":["post-263129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-birthday","tag-cesar-chavez","tag-cesar-chavez-campesino-park","tag-chavez","tag-city","tag-community","tag-council","tag-farmworkers-day","tag-holiday","tag-image","tag-local-park","tag-name","tag-new-allegation","tag-process","tag-santa-ana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263129","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=263129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}