Dozens of streets, schools and parks bear his name. Public libraries and state offices close to honor his birthday in the three large states where it's a holiday. American presidents honored him with the Medal of Freedom and a National Monument in Keene, California.
For decades,Cesar Chavez, the revered late leader of the United Farm Workers union, was heralded as a labor and civil rights icon, even more so after his death over three decades ago. He came to personify Mexican American and Latino identity.
Yet this week, Chavez is in the spotlight for an array of horrifying allegations. His legacy faces a reckoning after several women, including union cofounder Dolores Huerta, said he sexually assaulted them, including some who were children at the time. Most kept the dark secrets hidden. Others were purged from UFW ranks when they spoke out, aNew York Times investigation published March 18 found.
Some labor advocates and scholars said the revelations could provide a much-needed opportunity to reconsider the importance of female workers and activists, rather than attributing the movement's collective successes to one man.
"The farmworker movement has always been bigger and far more important than any one individual," Huerta, now 95, said in a statement that detailed her sexual assault by Chavez, which resulted in two children she said she gave up for adoption. "Cesar's actions do not diminish the permanent improvements achieved for farmworkers with the help of thousands of people. We must continue to engage and support our community, which needs advocacy and activism now more than ever."
Chavez became the face of a national farm labor movement in the 1960s, pushing for better wages and working conditions for agricultural workers and leading consumer boycotts of grapes and lettuce to give workers leverage. The union is now a shadow of what it was at its peak decades ago, when it landed historic victories against abusive practices.
But that heyday was also, Times reporting found, when several sexual assaults by Chavez allegedly took place.
Calls to rename holiday, streets
As groups who championed Chavez reckon with years of his alleged abuse in their ranks, the country is now reconsidering markers that honor Chavez. The union he founded has tried this week to distance itself from him, canceling its participation in events marking his March 31 birthday, which would have been his 99th.
That day is a state holiday in California, where much of the UFW's historic victories took place, along with Minnesota and Washington. It's a commemorative holiday for the federal government and an optional holiday for state government departments in Texas.
While the union-aligned Democratic Party has led the embrace of Chavez, Democratic elected officials − who tend to support women's rights and more strongly oppose sexual violence − have also been among the first to drop the celebrations of his legacy.
In Arizona, Gov. Katie Hobbs' office announced thestate won't honor Chavez this year. Milwaukee Alderperson JoCasta Zamarripa announced the cancelationthe city's annual celebration.
In Los Angeles, a major avenue through the historic heart of the city's Mexican American community, in Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles, bears his name. Elementary, middle and high schools are named after him. At the University of California, Los Angeles, the Cesar E. Chavez Department of Chicana/o and Central American studies bears his name.
"I think it's time to change the name of our March public holiday to 'Farmworker Day' in Los Angeles County," County Supervisor Janice Hahn said in a statement.
Democratic presidents have also honored Chavez. Bill Clinton in 1994 awarded Chavez the Presidential Medal of Freedom a year after his death. In 2012, Barack Obama established the Cesar Chavez National Monument at the UFW headquarters, where alleged abuse took place, near Bakersfield, California; the same year,Obama awarded Huertathe Presidential Medal of Freedom. Joe Biden placed a bust of Chavez in the Oval Office upon taking office in 2021.
U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-California, the first Latino elected to represent California in the Senate, supported removing Chavez's name from landmarks and institutions, according to spokesman Edgar Rodríguez. In 2025,Padilla introduced legislationto create the César E. Chávez and the Farmworker Movement National Park across Arizona and California. Rodríguez said Padilla would instead work to rename the legislation to honor farmworkers.
Advertisement
"Confronting painful truths and ensuring accountability is essential to honoring the very values the greater farm worker movement stands for – values rooted in dignity and justice for all," Padilla said in a statement.
What happens to this legacy and how history is reshaped by these allegations remains to be seen, although experts and labor leaders noted that Chavez's centralized power came at the expense of women, immigrants and others who made significant achievements for farmworkers nationwide.
"It's unfortunate that Cesar's legacy hangs over all of the really important work they did," said Matt Garcia, a Dartmouth College professor who wrote the 2012 history "From the Jaws of Victory: The Triumph and Tragedy of Cesar Chavez and the Farm Worker Movement," which chronicled some of Chavez's abuses as a leader. "But it is the case he almost singlehandedly submerged what was an amazing movement in its time."
Garcia said the union facilitated Chavez's unchecked power, failing to build democratic processes that could have protected those who were at odds with him.
In light of the allegations, the UFW and the Cesar Chavez Foundation said they are establishing a "safe and confidential process for those who wish to share their experiences of historic harm." Garcia questioned how organizations with people by Chavez's side when the abuse occurred could collect and investigate the incidents.Huerta's statementdirected people who may have experienced sexual assault to a list of state and nonprofit resources that didn't include the union.
Even before allegations of sexual abuse, some Latino and farmworker advocacy groupscriticized Chavez's anti-immigrant stances. He once supported hard-line immigration enforcement against undocumented immigrants, believing they were used as strikebreakers who undermined American workers. Some conservatives whoadvocate for immigration restrictionhave argued that the left should learn from his immigration positions.
Today, over two-thirds of crop farmworkers are immigrants, including an estimated 40% who are undocumented, according toU.S. Department of Agriculture data.
UFW membership peaked at around 60,000 in the 1970s. Today, it hasfewer than 5,000 members.University of California, Davis data showsless than 1% of farmworkers are unionized, compared with about 1 in 10 American workers overall.
But some of the movement's victories remain intact. The Times noted California vineyard workers who once earned $1.20 an hour − less than $11 today − now make between $17 and $25 an hour in peak season, with health benefits and overtime pay.
In farm country, movement goes beyond Chavez
In California's farm country, where theUFW launched strikes for better working and living conditions, California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, a Democrat representing the Salinas Valley, traced his political rise in part to his Mexican American family's connections to the UFW, including with Chavez and Huerta, according to hisofficial biography.
In a March 18 statement, Rivas said his first priority is to listen to survivors and their families "with humility and compassion."
"The farmworker movement has never been about one man; it is bigger than any one person, and its values of dignity and justice are more important now than ever," Rivas said in a statement. "To those who have found the courage to come forward, my heart is with you."
Beyond Chavez, Garcia said the movement's success, such as the creation and execution of boycotts and strikes, and subsequent contract negotiations, were done in a group effort, not just one person. That understanding may help further farmworker advocacy that continues today.
Contributing: Paris Barraza, USA TODAY Network; Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:What happens to Cesar Chavez holidays, naming amid assault allegations
Dozens of streets, schools and parks bear his name. Public libraries and state offices close to honor his birthday in the...
