Riversiders came to the table this week armed with ideas for renaming the Cesar E. Chavez Community Center on the city’s Eastside.
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“I think there were some noteworthy contributions, suggestions and names for the city to consider,” said Art Alcaraz, a Riverside Latino Network board member tasked with leading the group through the discussion. “I think the city’s got a lot of content that they can assess and weigh and figure out how they’re going to handle it.”
The Riverside Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department held its first of two community forums July 30 at the Johnny Martin Sotelo Youth Opportunity Center to collect community input regarding the future of the University Avenue facility.
The meeting was scheduled months after a New York Times investigation, published in March, detailed several accusations against Chavez, alleging he sexually abused at least two teenagers in the 1970s. United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta also alleged she was sexually assaulted twice by him in the 1960s.
In the weeks following the report, another person told Spanish news outlet La Opinión Chavez had allegedly groomed and sexually assaulted them.
Days after the bombshell investigation was released, communities nationwide began scrubbing Chavez’s name and likeness from public facilities, monuments and murals. Riverside officials, however, opted for a slower approach.
The day after the allegations came to light, Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson said the city would no longer move forward with proclaiming March 31 as Cesar Chavez Day. She also called for a “thoughtful review” of the next appropriate steps regarding the center.
“Tonight is an opportunity for us to listen, gather community input and document the perspectives shared,” Jóvan Fontenot, the city’s recreation supervisor, said during Thursday’s meeting. “It’s important to note that no decision will be made tonight.”
Instead, she said the department planned to present recommendations to the Park and Recreation Commission by late-September. The commission would then share its thoughts with the Riverside City Council for final approval.
She also said city policy did not allow a city-owned building or facility to be renamed after a different person if it had already been named in honor of another individual.
Yet, that did not stop the crowd of a little more than two-dozen residents to suggest names like Riverside native Bobby Bonds, longtime activist Woodie Rucker-Hughes and Huerta. Others opted for a broader approach, recommending names like University Heights or Eastside. One person threw out the name Snyder, referring to an elephant that had rampaged downtown Riverside in 1908, trampling and killing a local church deaconess.
A few residents, including Mercedes Alba, voted to keep the name as is. Like the others, she felt that removing Chavez’s name based off of accusations was unjust and would completely remove Chicano history.
“I feel really disappointed with the authorities that decided to just banish anything with his name without thinking about all the good that he had done with the families,” she said. “All of a sudden they decided to take a Latino representative that was doing good because maybe [they] don’t want the new generations to find out the hard work that it took for him to be there.”
Alcaraz, who helped install the Chavez memorial statue in downtown Riverside, also said the Riverside Latino Network decided to take a slower approach with the statue’s future to avoid diminishing the entire farmworker movement.
He added the network was still soliciting public input and that, from his understanding, many people were pushing for a modification that highlights the farm workers. He couldn’t provide an estimate of when a decision would be made, but said the city would have to be patient with the organization even after the decision was made.
“We’re thinking this could cost us $50,000 to $75,000,” Alcaraz said. “We have to raise the money, so we’re going to have to be creative in some fundraising efforts.”
The next forum is scheduled for August 1 at 10 a.m. at the Johnny Martin Sotelo Youth Opportunity Center.
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