“Las Campesinas,” meaning “female farmworkers,” was selected last week as the new name for Cesar Chavez Street in San Francisco. The choice was announced Tuesday by a working group of activists, artists and residents convened by Mayor Daniel Lurie’s office.
City officials unveiled two proposed names in front of Mission residents at a community meeting last month: “Las Campesinas” or “Si Se Puede.” Residents submitted 668 comments online, and the mayor’s office said “Las Campesinas” led by a significant margin.
“San Francisco’s Latino community and the farmworker movement have shaped this city, and this vital artery should continue to honor that legacy,” Mayor Daniel Lurie said in a statement.
Mission Local reported in March that Cesar Chavez Street’s days were numbered, following the New York Times’ revelations that Cesar Chavez, the United Farm Workers leader, sexually abused girls and women, including farmworker leader Dolores Huerta, for decades.
Chavez died in 1993. In 1995, despite angry pushback from white voters and a ballot measure opposing it, the Board of Supervisors renamed Army Street after Chávez.
Former supervisor Susan Leal, who originally led Latino efforts to name a street after the United Farm Workers leader, co-chaired the working group tasked with replacing it.
“This name is intended to honor the women, treated as faceless and nameless by many, who continue to work our fields, raise families, organize their communities, march on picket lines, endure harrowing conditions, and suffer in silence through sexual abuse and harassment. They are a backbone of the very movement this street was named to honor,” read the group’s statement.
The physical change will not happen quickly. District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder, joined by supervisors Rafael Mandelman, Shamann Walton and Myrna Melgar, today introduced an ordinance to formally rename the 3.2-mile street.
If the legislation passes the full Board of Supervisors, it will move to the Department of Public Works, which will review it and seek comment from property owners on the street, as well as city agencies like the planning, building inspection, fire and police departments.
Public Works will then create a resolution to be sent back to the full board, and a new ordinance will be drafted and voted on.
Olga Talamante, an activist and former executive director of the Chicana Latina Foundation who served on the renaming working group, said she was happy with the result.
Talamante worked in the fields alongside her parents and siblings in Gilroy and the Santa Clara Valley, and recalled her mom waking up early to make breakfast and prepare lunch for the family to take to work.
“It was double work, very palpable and very clear. That’s what my mom and most of the women around us did,” said Talamante.
Assessor-Recorder Joaquin Torres, who co-chaired the group with Leal, said the group wanted to avoid honoring a single person when selecting the name, and chose to honor all women who work in the fields.
“We wanted to ensure that the labor movement and the farm worker movement were reflected in the ultimate name,” said Torres. He connected the renaming to the allegations against Chavez, saying, “What brought us here is the allegations of sexual abuse and violence against young women and girls who have been essential also to that movement.”