City workers cover a mural of the labor leader and civil rights activist at Cesar E Chavez Memorial Park in San Fernando, California. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Gavin Newsom set to sign bill to rename 31 March holiday following sexual abuse allegations against labor leader
California lawmakers have voted to rename Cesar Chavez Day as Farmworkers Day in the wake of shocking allegations that the labor leader sexually abused women and young girls.
Gavin Newsom, the California governor, is expected to sign the bill on Thursday authorizing the renaming ahead of the state holiday on 31 March. The state has observed the holiday honoring Chavez, who in the 1960s built a major farm-worker labor rights movement Californias agricultural heartland, for more than two decades.
State lawmakers quickly moved ahead with the legislation after the New York Times published a report last week in which several women, including Dolores Huerta , who co-led the movement with Chavez, said they were sexually abused by the president of the United Farm Workers (UFW). Two women who were daughters of fellow organizers said they were children when he began to groom and abuse them. The Times reported that Chavez used women who worked and volunteered in the organizing movement for his own sexual gratification.
The allegations have sparked a wave of efforts to rename or alter memorials to Chavez, who had long been admired for helping secure better wages and working conditions for farm workers. The swift and sweeping effort to erase Chavezs name from public life was previously unthinkable, as his status had only grown since his death in 1993.
California was the first state to designate Chavezs birthday, 31 March, as a holiday nearly 30 years ago. The legislature in 2000 passed a bill to make it an official paid day off for state employees and require that students learn about his legacy and his role in the labor movement in California. Barack Obama moved to honor Cesar Chavez on that date in 2014.
The California bill passed in the assembly with bipartisan support on Monday.
We cannot ignore wrongdoing and we should not continue to celebrate a single person when the movement itself is so much bigger, assembly member Cecilia Aguiar-Curry said before the vote on Monday.
Republican assembly member Alexandra Macedo said the change was to honor workers and their families.
This isnt just about a date on a calendar or a name on a building, Macedo said. It is about the hands that feed this nation. It is about the men and women who are in the orchards, in the fields, before the sun even touches the horizon, and who are still there long after it sets.
Since the allegations came to light, California State University, Fresno, has covered up Chavezs statue on campus, while San Francisco, Los Angeles and Sacramento have taken steps to erase his name from public landmarks. Some advocated for Huertas name to replace Chavezs, and several states had said they would not observe the day.
Elsewhere, the city council in Phoenix, Arizona, voted to remove his name from city facilities and rename the day honoring him, while in Texas the state department of education said it would remove him from its curriculum.
The California state senates pro tempore president, Monique Limn, said honoring farm workers is especially important in the face of a series of federal raids across the state last year. A worker in her district died while being chased by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent last summer, Limn said.
His death is a reminder of how much farm workers risk every day to put food on our table, she said before the vote. Our farm workers remind us that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.
The Associated Press contributed reporting加州州长加文·纽瑟姆拟签署法案，因劳工领袖性侵指控将3月31日节日更名
在劳工领袖塞萨尔·查韦斯被指控性侵女性及未成年少女的惊人事件曝光后，加州立法者投票决定将「塞萨尔·查韦斯日」更名为「农场工人日」。
加利福尼亚州州长加文·纽森预计将于周四签署法案，批准在3月31日州法定假日前完成更名。该州纪念查韦斯的节日已持续二十余年，这位劳工领袖曾于20世纪60年代在加州农业核心地带发起了一场影响深远的农场工人劳工权益运动。
上周《纽约时报》发布报道后，州立法者迅速推进了相关立法。报道中，包括与查韦斯共同领导运动的**多洛雷斯·韦尔塔**（Dolores Huerta）在内的数名女性指控联合农场工人工会（UFW）主席对她们实施性侵。两名同为组织者女儿的女性表示，她们在童年时期就遭到其诱骗和侵害。《纽约时报》披露，查韦斯将参与组织运动的女性工作者及志愿者当作满足自身性欲的工具。
这些指控引发了一波更名或修改查韦斯纪念设施的风潮。查韦斯长期因帮助农场工人争取更高薪资和改善工作条件而备受尊敬。如此迅速且彻底地试图将查韦斯的名字从公共生活中抹去，在以前是不可想象的——自他1993年去世后，其声望与日俱增。
约30年前，加利福尼亚州成为首个将3月31日塞萨尔·查韦斯诞辰定为法定假日的州。2000年，该州立法机构通过法案，将其确立为州政府雇员的带薪假期，并规定学生需了解查韦斯的生平事迹及其在加州劳工运动中的贡献。2014年，巴拉克·奥巴马总统也选择在这一天向塞萨尔·查韦斯致敬。
加利福尼亚州的一项法案于周一在议会获得两党支持后通过。
加州众议员塞西莉亚·阿吉亚尔-库里在周一投票前表示：“我们不能忽视错误行为，也不应继续颂扬个人，因为这场运动本身的意义远大于个人。”
共和党议员亚历山德拉·马塞多表示，这一变更是为了向劳动者及其家庭致敬。
“这不仅关乎日历上的某个日期或建筑上的某个名字，”马塞多说道，“而是关乎那些哺育这个国家的人们。是那些在果园里、田野间，太阳还未升起就已开始劳作，直到日落后仍坚守岗位的男男女女。”
自指控曝光以来，弗雷斯诺的加州州立大学已遮盖了校园内的查韦斯雕像，而旧金山、洛杉矶和萨克拉门托则采取措施将其姓名从公共地标上移除。部分人士主张以乌尔塔之名替代查韦斯，另有数州表示将不再纪念该纪念日。
在亚利桑那州凤凰城，市议会投票决定将他的名字从市政设施中移除，并更改以他命名的纪念日名称；与此同时，得克萨斯州教育部门宣布将把他从课程内容中删除。
加利福尼亚州参议院临时议长莫妮克·利蒙表示，在去年全州范围内发生一系列联邦突袭行动的背景下，向农场工人致敬尤为重要。利蒙称，去年夏天她所在选区的一名工人在被美国移民和海关执法局（ICE）探员追捕时不幸身亡。
她在投票前表示："他的离世提醒着我们，农场工人为了让我们餐桌上有食物，每天都在冒着巨大的风险。" "农场工人让我们明白，每个人都应受到有尊严和尊重的对待。"
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