A push to rename holiday as 'Farmworkers Day'

California is moving quickly to rename Cesar Chavez Day in the wake of sex abuse allegations against the famed labor leader.

- BY KAREN GARCIA, MELISSA GOMEZ, HOWARD BLUME, BRITTNY MEJIA AND JAWEED KALEEM

KAYLA BARTKOWSKI Los Angeles Times A WORKER covers a mural at Cesar E. Chavez Memorial Park in San Fernando, part of a wide and swift response to sexual violence allegations.

The push to redesignate the March 31 holiday as "Farmworkers Day" was announced Thursday by Democratic leaders in the state Legislature.

"California's farmworker rights movement never has been about one individual. To the survivors who have found the courage to come forward, uplifting the movement’s values of dignity and justice, and demanding accountability, our hearts are with you always," Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) and Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón (D-Goleta) said in a joint statement.

Some Republicans, too, have expressed a desire to continue honoring the wider farmworker labor movement, even while minimizing Chavez as an individual figure. State Sen. Suzette Martinez Valladares (R-Acton) and Assemblywoman Alexandra M. Macedo (R-Tulare) said Wednesday they were already working on legislation to rename the holiday to Farmworkers Day.

Gov. Gavin Newsom indicated support for the effort on social media and during remarks at an unrelated event.

"What Cesar represented was a movement — the farmworkers’ movement, the labor movement — and it’s right to celebrate that movement," he said. "And so I’m certainly supportive of the direction that many are promoting, including members of the Legislature, and we look forward to moving that along in an expeditious way."

Calls to purge Chavez from the litany of schools, streets and parks named in his honor followed publication Wednesday of a New York Times investigation detailing disturbing allegations that Chavez sexually assaulted two underage girls in the 1970s, as well as fellow iconic farmworker leader Dolores Huerta in the 1960s.

Huerta, as well as one of the girls, said Chavez raped her.