LA County supervisors vote to rename César Chávez holiday 'Farmworkers Day'

Los Angeles County leaders voted Tuesday to rename the upcoming César Chávez holiday to “Farmworkers Day” and develop a process to remove the name of the now-disgraced civil rights icon from county facilities, parks, streets and monuments.

In a unanimous vote, the Board of Supervisors directed the county CEO and county counsel to create a “community-driven” process and report back to the board within 21 days.

It would include a plan to conduct “multilingual and culturally competent outreach across impacted communities, including residents and nonprofit organizations,” according to the motion.

The move came in the wake of allegations uncovered by a New York Times investigation that Chávez sexually assaulted at least two girls and a woman in the 1960s and 1970s.

Chávez, who died in 1993, was head of the United Farm Workers union and is widely recognized as one of the most influential labor leaders in U.S. history, known for founding the union and for leading national boycotts of grapes to improve working conditions for farmworkers.

Union co-founder Dolores Huerta, now 95, told the Times she was raped by Chávez and that those incidents resulted in pregnancies. Huerta said she gave the children up for adoption after they were born.

She said she kept the rape and sexual assault secret for decades to protect the farm worker movement.

Comments from the supervisors

The motion was introduced to the board Tuesday by Supervisor Hilda Solis, and co-authored by Supervisors Janice Hahn and Lindsey Horvath.

L.A. County's Farmworkers Day will continue to be observed on the last Monday of March.

“The County of Los Angeles has a firm responsibility to ensure any public recognitions reflect our shared values of justice, dignity, and respect, and today’s actions uphold those values,” Solis said in a statement.

“By centering the experiences of survivors, highlighting the contributions of farmworkers past and present, and acknowledging the courage of women and community leaders who built this movement, we can honor the true legacy of the farmworker movement while confronting difficult truths,” she continued.

Hahn acknowledged that the revelations about Chávez and the details the women who spoke out shared publicly had been “heartbreaking.” She said that in the days that followed, she’d heard many people suggest changing the name of the holiday.

“The abuses of one man should not diminish the extraordinary sacrifices and accomplishments of the Farm Worker Movement,” she said during the board meeting. “And renaming this holiday acknowledges that.”

She also noted that the issue also serves as a reminder that men were only half the story.

“We know that women were at the core of all of our great civil rights movements.”

Horvath noted that leaders aren’t movements, people are.

“No matter the struggle, the outcome, the worthy gains fought for, the reality is that those came at a cost to women and girls,” she said, before reciting some of the names of the women shared in the New York Times article, including Huerta.

“Centering survivors isn’t just the right thing to do in this situation,” Horvath continued. “It is the only thing to do.”

Supervisor Holly Mitchell said she supported the motions considered Tuesday, but that they were a first step. She said she hoped county government and the broader community would consider a new way of naming public property to honor private people.

Mitchell said she wanted, at some point, to consider establishing a “thoughtful protocol to really justify to the public … our rationale for the naming of a public asset for a private resident.”

What’s next?

Acting County CEO Joseph Nicchitta said the office is still working to complete an inventory of all county assets that bear Chávez’s name or likeness.

“We do not have a central inventory of every property with every name attached to it,” Nicchitta said. “But the process is well underway. We think we have a relatively good handle on things like buildings, signage, civic art and even programs.”

He said county staff need a few more days to make sure the inventory is complete. One complicating factor, he added, is that there are city and school district buildings that bear Chávez’s name that the county occupies.

That requires the separate government entities to work together and avoid duplicating efforts.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass signed a proclamation last week renaming the city’s Chávez holiday “Farmworkers Day.” The city recognizes the holiday on the last Monday of March.

The state holiday is recognized on March 31, Chávez's birthday. The state Assembly on Monday approved a bill to rename the holiday for farm workers. If it passes a vote by the state Senate, it's expected to head to the governor's desk later this week.

Earlier Tuesday, the Los Angeles Unified School District Board voted unanimously to rename two campuses named after Chávez by fall 2026 and to fund the removal of murals and any other commemorations in his name at other schools.