CA won’t celebrate César Chavez for the first time. Why Filipinos want part in the conversation

Tuesday is the first time in over 25 years that California and many cities in Southern California will not be celebrating disgraced union leader César Chavez.

Scores of local governments in Southern California have rewritten the holiday and renamed it to “Farmworkers Day,” including Los Angeles County, which heard from Asian American communities across the region. Many who spoke during last week’s Board of Supervisors meeting said they wanted to see farmworkers and other union leaders centered in those conversations.

The move to rename the last days of March came after a New York Times investigation uncovered allegations that Chavez sexually assaulted at least two girls and a woman, including fellow union leader Dolores Huerta.

Chavez was head of the United Farm Workers union and is widely recognized by Latinos and other communities as one of the most influential labor leaders in American history.

One man’s actions do not define this movement, Nina Cabardo of the Pilipino Workers Center wrote in a letter of support for the changes. As local leaders tackle the renaming and redefining of Farmworkers Day, she added, it’s also time for another “long-time injustice” to be rectified.

“This is also the time for Filipino farmworkers and Filipino farmworker leaders' real roles in the farmworker movement to be truthfully uplifted,” Cabardo said. “Leaders like Larry Itliong, Philip Vera Cruz, Pete Velasco, Lorraine Agtang and Luciano Crespo.”

A complicated history

Chavez’s legacy had been complicated for years before the explosive investigation, according to Alexandro José Gradilla, associate professor of Chicana and Chicano studies at Cal State Fullerton.

“People have, in the last 20, 30 years, already been de-centering César Chavez from the 60s and social movements of the farmworkers. It’s because of the history of sabotaging the Filipino workers, the history of being openly and virulently anti-immigrant,” Gradilla told LAist. “So, I don't have to go back and delete or scrub or erase in my PowerPoints any hero worship or adulation of Chavez. That I think has already been done.”

This is a reminder, Gradilla added, that power corrupts.

“Anybody who is put in this position of being viewed as a hero, who is given untapped power, whether they are a person of color, queer, a woman, we are all in danger of falling into that trap,” Gradilla said. “That's the more important lesson that we cannot submit to this cult of personality that can happen. And apparently, in the case of the farm worker movement, that did happen.”

The work to de-center Chavez

Many community members who spoke during public comment at last week’s L.A. County Board of Supervisors meeting were in support of the holiday name change. But many also think the work to de-center Chavez shouldn’t end there.

Community members have also called on leaders to remember the names of the Filipino workers who drove the farmworkers union toward success.

Aquilina Soriano Versoza, executive director of the Pilipino Workers Center of Southern California, said inspiration from the farmworker movement catalyzed the organization.

“ We are a strong organization of strong Filipino domestic workers, immigrant workers,” Versoza said. “We support the inclusion of the community-driven process that centers survivors, and we need to make sure that we rectify that Filipinos are also uplifted in this process, so we honor everyone who should be honored as the Farm Workers movement.”

 Celeste Friedman of the Asian Civil Rights League said history has omitted key components and figures of the farmworker movement.

“While César Chavez is widely recognized, the movement itself was ignited in 1965 by Filipino farm workers led by Larry Itliong and the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee,” Friedman said. “They initiated the Delano grape strike. Organized, mobilized, and took the first risk. Yet their contributions have been largely underrepresented in our textbooks, public commemorations, and collective memory.”

When the truth of the full history fails to be acknowledged, Friedman added, future generations are denied the richness of solidarity between the Filipino and Latino communities.

Mayra Castañeda, a member of the SEIU United Healthcare Workers, said the name change better reflects the legacy of farmworkers.

“Establishing Farmworkers Day is an opportunity to uplift the collective contributions of farm workers across generations, many of whom remain invisible despite the essential work they do every day,” Castañeda said. “It also helps educate future generations about the ongoing struggles for labor rights, equity and the respect in the field.”

What’s next?

L.A. County officials will report back to the board in the coming weeks with more on renaming streets, buildings, monuments and programs that bear Chavez’s name.