Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service invites community members to submit opinion pieces of 500-800 words on topics of interest to central city Milwaukee. To send a submission for consideration, please email info@milwaukeenns.org. The views expressed are solely those of the authors.
I would be lying if I said that I haven’t felt this one in the core of my soul. My best friend, Marshall Vega, spent the year before his death collecting signatures to change the name of South 16th Street to South Cesar E. Chavez Drive.
Many people who don’t know him well would say this was his legacy. Roberto Miranda and I know better. But I also know he was so proud (as he should be) to have been responsible for the name change.
We endured the kind of hate people seek to avoid their whole lives while trying to change that name.
It was a labor of love and respect and MOST of all it was a way to allow for the contributions of Latinos to live forever in our community; a community built on the backs of Polish, German and Mexican immigrants. Although there was nothing to publicly acknowledge that effort, it was most definitely a living tribute.
Now these terrible allegations come out and I want to say I know Dolores Huerta. I love her. I BELIEVE HER and all the other victims. I have NO reason to question their trauma or their need to come forward now. They are all older women now and they wished to not take this secret to their grave. I fully understand and support that.
My heart goes out to them for holding on to this for so long, while watching the person who victimized them be exalted as a hero. I also understand that 33 years later, Cesar Chavez is not here to defend these allegations. Frankly there is no defense.
Erasing without replacing
My heart is broken for the WHOLE situation. But here is what I would like for my fellow Latino/a former Chavez supporters to understand. By allowing them to erase Chavez and NOT replacing him with our history or someone from our history, we are allowing them to erase OUR history.
Chavez, whether you like it or not, is the face of the Chicano Movement the same way that Martin Luther King Jr. is the face of the Civil Rights Movement.
Marshall Vega wore out a pair of his shoes to make sure that Latino culture and contributions were represented in our community. Don’t let that be erased. If you want to take down Chavez’s statue, then put up a new statue depicting migrant workers or Latino foundry or railroad workers.
Or yes, Dolores Huerta. Roberto Hernandez. Angelo Verdin. Ernesto Chacon. Salvador Sanchez. Aurora Weier. Leticia Gomez. There are so many great men and women to choose from.
Our movement
The Chicano Movement was our Civil Rights Movement and we cannot stand by and watch it be erased by the actions of one man, no matter how much he contributed to it. We can’t let ourselves forget that Chavez was a leader in a movement that involved thousands of people, not just one. A movement that continues to this day.
That being said, I would be remiss in my duties as a good American to not point out that America has consistently and completely turned a blind eye to abuse (physical, sexual, emotional, financial, etc.) by our founding fathers. Men who owned, raped and pillaged slave and indigenous communities for centuries, yet we still have national holidays for them. Statues, national monuments, national parks, streets and more. We have a national holiday for Christopher Columbus, a man who was evil.
We elected a president known for committing these offenses. Yet within one week of a brown leader being exposed, we have statues coming down, streets and public buildings renamed.
Cesar did horrible things and I personally don’t know how to separate that from all of the good things he led and accomplished, things I am fiercely proud of. But I will say this, our country has separated these things since the first pilgrim landed on Plymouth Rock.
Don’t be so quick to light your torch. Let’s figure out how we do this while keeping our culture and history intact. We have earned the opportunity to be recognized. Don’t let them erase us.
Peggy West is a community advocate and former Milwaukee County supervisor. West was the first Latina ever elected to the Milwaukee County Board.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
