The City of San Antonio wants public input on a potential name change for César E. Chávez Boulevard in the wake of troubling allegations about the labor icon.
An online survey is open now until 5 p.m. Thursday, April 2, to offer suggestions on what to rename the major thoroughfare, which bisects downtown between Southwest 36th St. and South Hackberry St.
The city shared news of the survey Monday afternoon on its official Instagram account. The questionnaire takes less than a minute to complete.
Within the survey, the city said it’s considering the name change “in light of abuse allegations against César Chávez .”
The New York Times last week dropped a bombshell report uncovering allegations of sexual abuse involving Chávez and multiple women, at least one of whom was underage. The next day, United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta said that she, too, had been raped by Chávez, leading to two unwanted pregnancies.
Following the revelations, the city seems to be wasting no time to scrub Chávez’s name from its street — or at least consider it. “Your responses are confidential and will be used to help rename the street,” the intro to the survey states.
The first question asks “What should Cesar E. Chavez Blvd. be renamed to?” The only two available answers are its previous name, “Durango Street,” and “Other.”
Other names floated online over the past week have included Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the UFW with Chávez but earned only a fraction of the credit while he was elevated to mythic levels. Indeed, more than 200 U.S. cities have streets named after the late labor leader.
For labor inspiration closer to home, some online commenters proposed naming the street after Emma Tenayuca, who led the 1938 Pecan Shellers Strike in San Antonio. During that labor action, 12,000 workers walked off the job to protest terrible working conditions and a reduction in pay from 5 cents per day to 3 cents.
Still, other online commenters have proposed renaming the thoroughfare Ann Richards Boulevard, after the fiery female governor and last Democrat elected to statewide office in the Lone Star State.
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