Our View: Honor delayed is an honor denied for Cesar Chavez

Old wounds have a way of never healing. They just keep on festering. And for the past six decades, the wounds of the battles between valley growers and farmworkers have festered.

For the most part, the open warfare that once raged in the fields has been replaced by continuing resentment and distrust. But the war is not over, nor forgotten. Growers and their families, as well as generations of farmworkers, remember the bloody battles fought to gain workers better pay and working conditions in California fields.

Scratch the old wounds just a little bit and the continuing animosity oozes out.

That is why Californian columnist Robert Price wrote this month that he was surprised by the Bakersfield City Council’s muted response to two members’ proposal to name a street in honor of civil rights and labor icon Cesar Chavez. No doubt, it is just the lull in the approaching storm.

Naming a public street or building after a famous or inspirational person is a political act that suggests elected officials today agree with the person being memorialized. That is why the process often triggers decades of debate and delays.

There is no doubt that Cesar Chavez deserves to be honored. He dedicated his life to fighting for the rights of abused, vulnerable workers.

Since his death in 1993, streets and schools throughout the nation have been named in Chavez’s honor. National and state holidays have been established to honor the labor leader.

In 2011, the U.S. Department of Interior placed La Paz, the United Farm Workers headquarters in Keene, east of Bakersfield, on the National Register of Historic Places. A year later, it was designated a national monument in the National Park System. It has become a conference center and museum. Chavez is buried there.

However, closer in the valley in which he spent decades fighting for farmworkers’ rights, the honors to Chavez have been stingy. In Bakersfield, there’s an elementary school bearing his name. In Delano, where Chavez and the union operated out of the compound known as Forty Acres, his name appears on a street and other places.

In Fresno — just a mere two-hour drive north of Bakersfield — naming honors have been the focus of three decades of resistance.

Price noted in his column that it was 30 years ago when the Fresno City Council voted to create a Cesar Chavez Boulevard. But threatened with a lawsuit, council members rescinded their vote.

Last year, the Fresno City Council again voted to rename portions of a city street for Chavez. You would have thought by now tempers had cooled and people would regard Chavez with the respect he deserves. Nope, opponents sued, further denying Chavez the honor.

Chavez’s dedication and struggles for worker rights extend beyond the boundaries of a single city. He fought for workers up and down the state — in fertile fields and communities stretching from California’s northern border to the U.S.-Mexico line; in the Central Valley and along the coast.

Naming a prominent route in California in honor of Chavez should not be left to local politicians, who easily yield to the ongoing animosities between growers and workers.

Bakersfield City Council members Eric Arias and Manpreet Kaur asked city staff to begin the street-renaming process. But many time-consuming steps must be taken before the honor is realized — if ever. Fees must be paid, petitions must be signed, emergency service providers must agree, public hearings must be conducted and likely court battles must be fought.

As city staff explores the street-naming process, it should consult with state legislators and highway officials. Would it be better to rename a prominent stretch of a state highway that crosses the very ground where Chavez toiled on behalf of farmworkers? Should state Highway 58 and the exit to the national monument at La Paz be a more fitting naming honor?

There are many options. An honor delayed is an honor denied. An expeditious and prominent honor that crosses the valley should be explored.