Tuesday is last day to submit feedback on renaming César Chavez Street in St. Paul
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Tuesday is the last opportunity for the public to offer feedback on renaming César Chavez Street in St. Paul.
The final community listening session is Tuesday evening at The Wellstone Center. The online survey also closes at the end of the day.
Governments nationwide began renaming places and holidays dedicated to César Chavez after a New York Times investigation published in March revealed allegations he had sexually assaulted women and girls for years.
Chavez died in 1993 at age 66.
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In Minnesota, state lawmakers voted to end César Chavez Day. Gov. Tim Walz instead proclaimed that date, March 31, as Farmworkers Day — a nod to the movement Chavez helped start.
The City of Minneapolis stripped his name from a one-block street by the Minneapolis Farmer’s Market, as did a St. Paul charter school focused on Latino culture.
In St. Paul, the district planning council for the city’s West Side neighborhood wanted to get community input on a new name.
The West Side is the hub for the Latino community in St. Paul, with Mexican American history going back over 100 years. There, César Chavez Street is a major thoroughfare running through a corridor of Latino-owned businesses called District Del Sol and is home to the city’s annual Cinco de Mayo celebration.
At a listening session on Saturday, longtime West Siders discussed what defines the area and what a new name should reflect. They agreed on two themes: diversity and legacy.
The West Side had long also been home to other immigrant communities. It once had the moniker of St. Paul's "Ellis Island" for housing Jewish, Mexican, Lebanese and Syrian immigrants, as well white and Black Americans.
Robert Boeck, who has lived on the West Side for 72 years, said it would be best to simply restore the street's original name. The City of St. Paul rechristened part of Concord Street to César Chavez Street in 2004 without public input, according to a facilitator.
“It has been Concord Street for over 150 years. There was no reason to change it to the new name,” Boeck said.
Estrellita Neubauer grew up on the West Side and has Mexican heritage. They said Chavez didn't best represent all Mexican Americans anyway; he was known to use slurs against undocumented immigrants.
“I would like to personally honor the Dakota and Ojibwe people because it was their land first,” Neubauer said, adding that there were once burial mounds on the West Side, behind the former Roosevelt School.
Others suggested street names in Spanish like Calle del Sol, street of the sun, or Concordia, the translation of Concord.
Miguel Brito is an organizer with the West Side Community Organization, the district planning council leading the renaming process.
Brito said the street will not be named after another individual and that renaming is an opportunity to represent the real legacy of Chavez's activism: the power of collective struggle.
“These leaders like César Chavez, they didn't build what they built alone. It wasn't because of them that these things, that the workers' movement was successful. It's because of the collective, the people that were around him and the people that we don't know about,” he said.
Anyone can contribute feedback on the renaming of César Chavez at the last listening session Tuesday and through the online survey closing the same day.
West Side residents and business owners will vote on the final name in August.
The City of St. Paul will cover costs to replace street signs, as well as formal changes of address and identification for residents and business owners on the street.
The West Side Community Organization hopes to announce a new street name on Sept. 16, which is Mexican Independence Day.
