Cities across U.S. honor César Chávez, but Bakersfield, where labor leader lived for decades, is not one of them

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) – This Sunday isn’t just Easter, it’s also Cesar Chavez Day, a state holiday commemorating the life and legacy of the late civil rights leader, who would be 97.

Chavez is honored March 29 in many ways, but in his adopted hometown of Bakersfield, he’s honored with only a Bakersfield City School District elementary school.

Why is that?

Metro Bakersfield has about 10,000 streets, from Avenue A to Zerker Road, and among those stretches of asphalt are streets named after Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Edward Fitzgerald Beale and Kevin Harvick – all worthy individuals of local renown, to be sure. Bakersfield also has streets named for civil rights icons with national profiles: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks.

But one name that would qualify for both those lists is nowhere to be found on Bakersfield maps: That of César E. Chávez.

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Before Chávez and the union he co-founded came along, farmworkers had no collective bargaining rights, and no toilets, shade from the sun or clean drinking water in the fields, and there was little public awareness about pesticides and other dangers that workers must endure to put fruits and vegetables on our table – the workers we’re implicitly referring to when we brag about Kern County’s status as the breadbasket of the world.

There are César Chávez streets, César Chávez boulevards, César Chávez avenues, and César Chávez lanes all over the U.S., including a César Chávez Lane in Delano.

There’s no readily available record of a César Chávez Street being debated in Bakersfield, one of his adopted cities.

Is this a case of a prophet in his own land?

The name César Chávez still gets a chilly reception in many corners of the Central Valley. Fresno is just now getting ready to honor Chávez after years of debate including, about 30 years ago, approving and then rescinding a decision to rename a street for him. Now, finally, Fresno will rename a 10-mile stretch of highway that includes a portion of Kings Canyon Road.

“I believe that we still have (some who) … refuse to recognize the work that Cesar, myself and many of us did for farmworkers,” said Dolores Huerta, speaking last month about the long-running Fresno controversy. “They still have that resentment and I think there’s still an amount of racism against people of color.”

One could argue, and many have, that a Cesar Chavez Boulevard would be even more appropriate in Bakersfield than in Fresno, given the amount of time Chavez spent in Kern County. His impact was immense on both cities.

And yet, says Camila Chavez, executive director of the Dolores Huerta Foundation and niece of the labor leader: “It’s such a disservice that an international icon is not recognized in the place he called home for 50 years.

“So many Kern County / Central Valley students don’t learn about Cesar, Dolores or the farmworkers movement until they go away for college,” said Camila. “We should do a better job recognizing our local heroes and heroes of color.”

In Camila Chavez’s mind there is no debate. And the fact is, there literally is no debate. Never has been, at least in Bakersfield. Something to ponder as this Sunday we honor two who sacrificed so much.

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