By Rich McKay
March 19 (Reuters) – Lawmakers in California, the first state to create a holiday honoring Cesar Chavez, were working on Thursday to change the name to Farmworkers Day before the March 31 celebration, in the wake of allegations that he sexually assaulted women and girls.
A vote could come as soon as Monday, said California Assembly member Alexandra Macedo, a Republican who was among the first to submit legislation on Thursday. Democrats, who control the assembly, were submitting similar legislation.
“Due to the outrage, this is coming up fast,” Macedo told Reuters in an interview. “But this holiday has never been about one man. It’s about all the farmworkers who feed and clothe the world, not just California or our nation, but the world.”
Chavez rose to national prominence in the mid-1960s as a galvanizing force for better pay and working conditions for agricultural laborers across Central and Southern California.
Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the United Farm Workers union with Chavez and fought alongside him to advance U.S. labor rights, on Wednesday accused him of sexually assaulting her in the 1960s. The same day, the New York Times published the results of a multi-year investigation, detailing a larger pattern of sexual misconduct allegations against Chavez, who died in 1993 at the age of 66, including testimonies by women who said he molested and raped them when they were minors.
Huerta said she had kept her own encounters secret, including having two children by Chavez, for fear it would hurt the labor movement.
March 31, Chavez’s birthday, was named a federal commemorative holiday by President Barack Obama in 2014, and it is a state holiday in several states, with California the first to make it a state holiday in 2000. The day has historically included marches, service projects and educational programs.
In the wake of the allegations, the UFW has canceled planned celebrations of Chavez. Cities also plan to strip his name from schools and streets and cancel or rename activities held in his honor.
Many of those moves are likely to take time. But in Los Angeles on Thursday, Mayor Karen Bass signed a proclamation renaming March 31 Farmworkers Day in the city, effective immediately.
(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; editing by Donna Bryson and Rosalba O’Brien)
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