LA marks first Farmworkers Day following Cesar Chavez holiday change

LOS ANGELES (CNS) -- Farmworkers Day will be observed Tuesday after Los Angeles city, county and school officials renamed the holiday previously honoring Cesar Chavez amid sexual abuse allegations.

The Los Angeles Unified School District and the county Board of+ Supervisors approved the change last week, aligning with similar actions by state lawmakers and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who issued an executive order renaming the city's observance.

County supervisors said the change was intended to shift the focus to the broader farm worker movement and its contributions, rather than a single individual.

"The abuses of one man should not diminish the extraordinary sacrifices and accomplishments of the farm worker movement, and renaming this holiday acknowledges that,'' county Supervisor Janice Hahn said last week.

"This past week has been heartbreaking for so many people on so many levels -- for communities, for people who have admired one man and admired the movement.''

The county also directed staff to begin developing a process to remove Chavez's name and likeness from county facilities.

The moves follow allegations detailed in a New York Times report published this month, in which multiple women accused Chavez of sexual abuse during the height of the farm labor movement.

The Times story quoted a woman who said Chavez took her into his office when he was 45 and she was 13, kissed her and pulled her pants down. She said dozens of sexual encounters followed over the next four years, though she says none involved intercourse.

Another woman said she was 12 when Chavez groped her breast, and 15 when he arranged to have her stay at a motel during a march through California and had sexual intercourse with her.

Both women were the daughters of organizers who had marched in rallies alongside Chavez, according to The Times. The story claims that Chavez used other women in the farm labor movement for "sexual gratification.''

United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta, who will turn 96 on April 10, told the newspaper that Chavez drove her to a secluded grape field in Delano, California, in 1966 and raped her in the vehicle.

She said she never reported the attack out of concerns for police hostility toward Chavez and the labor movement, and because she feared she wouldn't be believed.

Huerta confirmed the account in a statement earlier this month, saying she had two sexual encounters with Chavez -- the first of which involved her being "manipulated and pressured into having sex with him'' -- and the other in which she "was forced against my will.''

As a state holiday, some government services will be closed Tuesday while others remain open:

• All California state offices, including the Department of Motor Vehicles and Los Angeles Superior Court will be closed

• Los Angeles County and city administrative offices will be open, having observed the holiday Monday

• Federal offices, including the U.S. Postal Service and federal courts, will remain open, and mail delivery will proceed as usual

• Banks will be open

• Public transit systems, including Los Angeles Metro and Metrolink, will operate on normal weekday schedules

• Public libraries in both the city and county of Los Angeles will be open

• Los Angeles Unified School District campuses will remain closed for spring break

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