The California reckoning after Cesar Chavez’s fall

LOS ANGELES — Cesar Chavez’s name and likeness are swiftly being stripped from public landmarks.

“Skip to Main Content The California reckoning after Cesar Chavez’s fall The allegations against Chavez left California's Democratic power structure grappling with how to proceed”

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But the labor rights leader’s now-disgraced legacy cannot so easily be excised from the California identity.

There are few figures as quintessentially Californian, who have done more to shape the political and social forces that define the state today.

And there are few people so mythologized that they are transformed from a flawed human to a symbol for an entire community.

“Skip to Main Content The California reckoning after Cesar Chavez’s fall The allegations against Chavez left California's Democratic power structure grappling with how to proceed”

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"Our community has very few national icons," said Yvette Martinez, the former executive director of the California Democratic Party.

“Skip to Main Content The California reckoning after Cesar Chavez’s fall The allegations against Chavez left California's Democratic power structure grappling with how to proceed”

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"Cesar Chavez is one of them."

"Dolores Huerta is one of them."

"There are streets and parks and schools and holidays for these two."

And so I think that’s why it’s so devastating for the Latino community."

The reckoning will come in stages, beginning with processing the perspective of the victims, predicted John A. Pérez, the former Assembly speaker who came up through the labor movement.

“Then over time, there’s going to be the question of ‘how do you balance that and have a nuanced view of who he was, and not have all his wrongs crowd out the real success of the farm workers union?’” Pérez said.

“Skip to Main Content The California reckoning after Cesar Chavez’s fall The allegations against Chavez left California's Democratic power structure grappling with how to proceed”

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Part of the reason Chavez’s fall from grace is so dizzying is because he was so firmly fixed in the state’s historical memory.

“Skip to Main Content The California reckoning after Cesar Chavez’s fall The allegations against Chavez left California's Democratic power structure grappling with how to proceed”

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The logo of the United Farm Workers, with its signature black eagle against a red background, is one of California’s enduring political images.

The grape boycott that he co-led became a national consumer movement centered around an iconic California crop.

He is forever linked to Robert F. Kennedy, who allied with the farm workers movement and relied on Chavez to mobilize Mexican American voters to win the state’s Democratic primary in 1968, just before Kennedy’s assassination.