Thanks to the California state legislature, the last Cesar Chavez Day was in 2025. March 31 will mark the holiday this year, renamed Farmworkers Day. Given the revelations of the past few days, this is a necessary move. The Farmworkers’ movement and the creation of their union were always a collective effort, engaging many committed leaders. Chavez was always an imperfect stand-in for the larger movement, as any individual icon would be–and a little bit more. Below I post an edited version of my annual commemoration.

We often use individuals to stand in for broad movements and collective efforts. They’re portable symbols and far easier to depict in statues or prose. And start with the assumption that every single heroic figure has feet of clay, or problematic or difficult character traits or histories. We want to be clear about the purpose we want to use a historic figure for: Barbara Johns for leading a student strike against segregation; Thomas Jefferson for writing the Declaration of Independence; Abraham Lincoln for preserving the Union, and so on. At some point, the weight of history and evidence can outweigh any noble purposes, and statues must come down: e.g., Robert E. Lee representing Southern traditions…Thomas Jefferson owning hundreds of human beings?

The day is a chance to reflect on Chavez, the movement he led, which continues, and the issues he and that movement addressed. (It also seems to be a good opportunity to return to writing here, with the chance to repost, reconsider, and update writing from past years.) Recalling his career, organizing and mobilizing a mostly migrant Latino workforce, is particularly important now…just when the Trump administration wants to purge all the details from public notice.

There are now very credible allegations that Cesar Chavez assaulted and abused women he worked with, including raping teens, who came forward testifying to assault and damages. When Dolores Huerta, a living icon, affirmed the charges, adding that Chavez sexually assaulted her twice, public doubt disappeared. And it was all detailed in a thorough investigation published in The New York Times. Those who knew him best had seen his autocratic and self-centered behaviors as well as visionary and heroic action; they believed the women. It’s particularly disturbing that Huerta and other victims, never lacking in bravery, did not come forward because they believed–with very good reason–that opponents would use the charges and Chavez to discredit the Farmworkers movement.

In 2018, less than a week after Edna Chavez, the charismatic then-seventeen year old high schooler from South Los Angeles, electrified a national crowd with a demand to end gun violence, Californians celebrated the legacy of another Chavez.

On my campus, we commemorated Cesar Chavez Day on Friday, rather than Monday, March 31 (his birthday), by closing. The state established the holiday in 2000, and six other states have followed suit.  In California, the legislature calls upon public schools to develop appropriate curricula to teach about the farm labor movement in the United States, and particularly Chavez’s role in it. Now, across the United States, school districts, universities, and local governments are busily renaming buildings, schools, and programs. Raping children is a dealbreaker.

A campaign to establish a national holiday has stalled so far (The Cesar Chavez National holiday website seems to have last been updated in 2008), but at one point President Obama issued a proclamation announcing a day of commemoration, and calling upon all Americans “to observe this day with appropriate service, community, and education programs to honor Cesar Chavez’s enduring legacy.”

That feels like a long time ago.

It feels like an even longer time ago in 2026, and it’s hard to imagine anyone would want to use Chavez as a symbol of a large movement for justice.

Political figures have many reasons for creating holidays, including remembering the past; identifying heroic models for the future; recognizing and cultivating a political constituency; and providing an occasion to appreciate a set of values. Regardless of the original meaning, the holidays take on new meanings over time.  Columbus Day, for example, is celebrated as an occasion for pride in Italian Americans (e.g.), and commemorated and mourned as a symbol of genocide and empire (e.g.).

Cesar Chavez’s life and work is well worth remembering and considering, particularly now.  His career as a crusader was far longer than that of Martin Luther King discussed (here and here) and he was far more of an organizer than Fred Korematsu (discussed here). Chavez’s Medal of Freedom was awarded shortly after his death in 1993, by President Clinton, but many of his accomplishments were apparent well before then. And unseemly, unwise, and some abusive elements of his leadership were also apparent dating back to the 1970s. (See Nathan Heller’s report in The New Yorker, from 2014!) Still, after his death, a campaign to turn him into an icon for the movement developed, streamlining a long and complicated story.

As a young man, Chavez was an agricultural worker; by his mid-twenties, he became a civil rights organizer, working for the Community Service Organization in California.  With Dolores Huerta, in 1962 Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers.  Focusing on poor, mostly Mexican-American workers, Chavez’s vision for activism was right at the cornerstone of racial and economic justice.  Establishing an organization, however, is a long way from winning recognition and bargaining rights as a union.

Chavez was a tactician, a public figure, a charismatic, and something of a mystic. Modeling his efforts after Gandhi’s successful campaigns, Chavez was an emphatic practitioner of active nonviolence. He employed boycotts, strikes, long fasts, demonstrations, long marches, and religious rhetoric in the service of his cause.  He also registered voters, lobbied, and worked in political campaigns. He was a tireless and very effective organizer.

But holidays are best celebrated with an eye to the future, rather than the past.

On Cesar Chavez Day this year, we can think about the large and growing Latino community in the United States. The 2020 Census reports that Latinos now comprise 18.7% of the population nationally. This is the youngest and fastest-growing population in America today, and they are severely underrepresented in the top levels of politics, education, and the economy.  The civil rights map is at least as complicated as at any time in American history, but not less important or urgent. The future of American Latinos is very much the future of America.

And Chavez saw the civil rights struggle as a labor issue.  When Chavez and Huerta started

their campaign, nearly one third of Americans were represented by unions.  The percentage now is now less than 10 percent, and even less in the private sector. Donald Trump has issued an executive order, banning collective bargaining for many federal employees. This probably isn’t legal.

And public sector workers, even if represented by unions aren’t doing so well.  In 2018, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in Janus vs. AFSCME,that undermined the capacity of unions to organize and represent members by allowing workers to opt out of membership and paying dues.

Still, organizers and some observers find some encouragement in unionization campaigns at Amazon and Starbucks. Still, the larger picture is dark. In the moment, the Trump administration is vilifying teachers and firing other government workers

We need to remember that you can’t attack teachers, nurses, police officers, and firefighters without hurting the people they serve: us.

Or should I say, US?

We commemorate the past to help guide the future. Edna Chavez, working in an urban setting far from Cesar Chavez’s organizing, carried the legacy forward, and adds more.