Will this farmworker hero have a street named in his honor in Fresno?

For the third time in 30 years, the Fresno City Council met to determine the fate of a major street renamed after the founder of the United Farm Workers.

Despite criticisms that such a renaming of California Avenue, Ventura Avenue and Kings Canyon Road to Avenida César E. Chávez would erase the contributions of Black residents in southwest Fresno, the council voted 6-1 on Thursday to proceed with the name change.

Another council vote in about two weeks is needed to finalize the name change.

“I am proud to be a resident in this community,” said southwest Fresno resident Debbie Darton, one of several who asked the council not to include California Avenue in the name change. “West Fresno is African American roots. It is our existence.”

Others said a name change would erase the history of the early settlers who chose Fresno’s location based on its panoramic view of the mountains to the east that are now part of Kings Canyon National Park.

There was opposition based on the cost to change letterhead and business cards, and criticism the council did not follow its February 2022 decision to engage the public on the name change.

However, all council members but Garry Bredefeld approved Councilmember Luis Chávez’s resolution in support of Avenida César E. Chávez.

“I just want to make sure that folks understand that this conversation, as I mentioned, was started with the council last year,” said the District 5 representative. “This is actually a conversation that started 30 years ago.”

Chávez, the councilmember, was a student at Roosevelt HIgh School who rode this bike to the Fresno Convention Center where the council voted in 1993 to rename the streets César E. Chávez Boulevard.

“There was a lot of conversation. There was a lot of controversy up to that point,” he said.

The council voted to rename a 9-mile stretch of streets, but months later reversed its decision after complaints that there was little community engagement in the process. The street name came down.

A few years later, then-Mayor Alan Autry established a task force to find a street that could be named after the founder of the United Farm Workers, but nothing happened.

“This city is different. That was 30 years ago that this conversation happened,” said Chávez, whose resolution is almost identical to the one introduced in 1993.

“I think the City of Fresno has done a great job of recognizing and honoring all communities in our city,” he said. “Our city has changed in the last 30 years. I believe we’re a different city and I believe a better city.

Chávez, who is in his second term on the council, said the name change will honor the working-class residents in his district who toiled through the pandemic in the fields, packing houses or distribution centers.

Those are the people, said Chávez, that the farmworker leader who died in 1993 advocated for.

The street name change, he said, “is designed to be a unifying practice that recognizes the progress and embraces the beautiful mosaic of diversity that we have now in the City of Fresno.”

Those who spoke during the morning session said the name change is not unifying.

“Once again, we are facing another of a thousand cuts, killing the history and the heritage of the African-American community in our city,” said Booker T. Lewis, pastor at Rising Star Missionary Baptist Church in southwest Fresno.”’

“It absolutely challenges my ability to breathe. It’s an erosion of our presence in our city’s history.”

One speaker, referring to the 1993 controversy, recalled then-Mayor Jim Patterson stating the name change “is not a giving, it is a taking.”

Councilmember Miguel Arias, whose district include California Avenue, said following that thinking “we’re all part of taking something away from the Indigenous people.”

“I don’t want this to become a conversation that we’re somehow taking something away just because we are recognizing those who have always lived here.”

Avenida César E. Chávez, said Arias, is a proper tribute to the farmworkers who do the work no one else wants to do and have helped transform the San Joaquín Valley into the nation’s food basket.

“This actually adds to the richness and diversity of our city. And that’s why we’re taking upon this effort to complete a promise that was made in 1993,” said Arias.

The only other councilmembers who spoke on the resolution were Annalisa Perea and Garry Bredefeld.

Perea asked about the process and how California Avenue got included in the name change.

Bredefeld said he supports honoring the farmworker leader, but not if it will result in businesses having to absorb $1 million to change their letterhead and business cards.

“Sometimes this is the problem with government. We do things and there are many unintended consequences to those decision we make,” said Bredefeld. “This is one of them.”

Bredefeld criticized the lack of community outreach by the council, as outlined in the February 2022 resolution he supported.

If the council goes ahead and finalizes the name change, it will not alter those portions of the street that are in the county until the Fresno County Board of Supervisors approves a name change.

Esta historia fue publicada originalmente el 9 de marzo de 2023, 5:28 p. m..