By Jesse Jones, City Desk ABQ in The Paper. — City officials took swift action Wednesday to initiate the renaming of local sites honoring civil rights organizer and Chicano icon César Chávez following disclosures by fellow activist Dolores Huerta that he pressured her for sex resulting in pregnancies.
City Councilor Joaquín Baca told City Desk midday that he plans to introduce legislation at the next City Council meeting to rename Avenida César Chávez. He said he would likely want to name it after Dolores Huerta and said a few councilors he spoke with support the change.
Later this afternoon, Mayor Tim Keller announced that he would direct city staff “to take a fresh look at how Chávez is recognized across our programs, events and spaces.”
House Speaker Javier Martinez also called for similar actions in other sites. ” Chávez’s name should be removed from any and all public entities, swiftly,” he stated in remarks supporting Huerta. Other officials issued similar calls all day.
Her statement follows a New York Times investigation detailing decades of sexual abuse by Chávez, who used women working and volunteering in his Latino civil rights movement for his own sexual gratification. Huerta, who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association with Chávez, said both encounters led to pregnancies.
“I am nearly 96 years old, and for the last 60 years have kept a secret because I believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for…
“As a young mother in the 1960s, I experienced two separate sexual encounters with Cesar. The first time I was manipulated and pressured into having sex with him, and I didn’t feel I could say no because he was someone that I admired, my boss and the leader of the movement I had already devoted years of my life to. The second time I was forced, against my will, and in an environment where I felt trapped. I had experienced abuse and sexual violence before, and I convinced myself these were incidents that I had to endure alone and in secret. Both sexual encounters with Cesar led to pregnancies. I chose to keep my pregnancies secret and, after the children were born, I arranged for them to be raised by other families that could give them stable lives.”
Huerta said she will keep advocating for workers and women’s rights, ensuring their voices are heard and that communities receive the dignity and fairness they have long been denied.
“I have kept this secret long enough,” Huerta wrote. “My silence ends here.”
In Albuquerque, several public sites honor the civil rights leader, including Avenida César Chávez and the Cesar Chavez Community Center. In 1997, City Councilor Steve Gallegos sponsored a resolution to rename Stadium Blvd. to Avenida César Chávez from Yale Blvd. to Fourth Street.
“It’s shocking, there’s a lot to process there, because he does have a strong legacy,” Baca said. “It’s now been tarnished, but it is important to hold that legacy to account.”
Share this story and start a conversation
