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My Turn by Elisa Dozono

From The Asian Reporter, V18, #15 (April 8, 2008), page 6 & 7.

When is a street not just a street?

When it is used to mark divisions rather than link communities together.

When we blindly fight change and lose sight of our common values of honoring diversity.

When we refuse to honor a person who stood and shouted for the nameless and voiceless, choosing instead to cling to a meaningless moniker.

Forty years ago, César Chávez began a 25-day public fast when standoffs between grape workers and producers grew increasingly heated and antagonistic. He refused to take food until farmworkers promised to stay on the path of non-violence.

Chávez rose above his eighth-grade education, earned while travelling from farm to farm and attending more than 30 elementary and middle schools in order to support his family on migrant-worker wages. He spent more than 40 years fighting for fair wages, medical coverage, pension benefits, humane living conditions, and an end to the use of pesticides that wreaked havoc on the health of farm workers and exposed unassuming consumers to disease as well. He forged a diverse, national coalition comprised of people of all ages from all walks of life. César Chávez’s birthday — Monday, March 31 — was celebrated in four states which declared the day a holiday. Here in Portland, despite the fact that the Hispanic population is the fastest growing in the state, we cannot even agree on naming a street after him.

When the proposal to rename Interstate Avenue in honor of César Chávez went down in flames fuelled by racial undertones, Portland City Council escaped singed, but for the most part unscathed.

After carefully selecting a street based on criteria in the city code (must not have historical significance, must start and end within City of Portland boundaries), the César E. Chávez Boulevard Committee members spent months gathering letters of support and talking to neighboring residents and businesses. So, when knee-jerk reactions to protect the meaningless moniker of "Interstate" occurred, committee members were surprised and disappointed that city commissioners who had supported the effort suddenly became blind to the genuine emotions of the renaming proponents and failed to offer any reason beyond NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard).

Making the excuse that approval depended on neighborhood acquiescence, commissioners couldn’t explain the magic formula they sought, since one of three neighborhoods along Interstate and the largest employers and most prominent businesses along the street all supported the renaming. In fact, New Seasons Market’s CEO Brian Rohter wrote that the store would be "honored" to tell customers that they were located at the corner of Rosa Parks Way and César E. Chávez Boulevard.

Instead, commissioners slapped the other cheek turned by the Chávez committee. Via a blind-side vote to rename S.W. Fourth Avenue after Chávez, the commissioners showed their lack of regard and understanding of minority communities, and further undermined their argument that the problem was lack of process as opposed to lack of respect.

But the failure of city council was not just the failure of naming a thoroughfare in Chávez’s honor.

It was a failure to stand up for civil rights. It was a failure to understand how a street should be more than a name signifying change on a business’ stationery, and could instead be a symbol of a cultural shift — a recognition of our society’s ability to learn from past wrongs.

Opposition voices argued for finding a "better" or "more appropriate" place to name after Chávez: a park, a street in Hillsboro where more Hispanics were. To a more culturally aware council, this should have raised red flags.

Shoving recognition off to somewhere discrete, or to where it would be token homage to a population already invested in Chávez’s legacy, should have been denounced. A solitary place would make it easier to not face Chávez’s legacy every day. Renaming a main thoroughfare like Interstate Avenue, on the other hand, creates a connection not only for people travelling from different neighborhoods, but for cultures as well.

In their rush to end the controversy, Portland City Council brushed the renaming effort under the rug. Commissioners offered no solutions, no proposal for how next time would be different. The Chávez renaming committee had done everything by the book, and yet lost because city council saw not civil rights but stationery as the issue.

Disheartened by this failure of conscience, the organizing committee has postponed further action until after this year’s city council elections. But in order to have a different result in the future, minority communities should forge a path reviving Chavez’s legacy and the principles for which he stood.

In a 1984 address to the AFL-CIO, Chávez spoke of how his drive grew from his own experience with racism, with the desire to be treated fairly. "I began to realize what other minority people had discovered: That the only answer — the only hope — was in organizing," said Chávez. "More of us had to become citizens, we had to register to vote. And people like me had to develop the skills it would take to organize, to educate, to help empower the Chicano people."

Those who can see past the politics of NIMBY and share the urgency of honoring diversity can follow Chávez’s lead by organizing friends and families to register to vote by the April 29, 2008 deadline.

It is a chance to cross dividing lines, whether they be drawn by street names or politicians. It is our chance to become empowered and fan the embers of our individual voices into a powerful blaze that will not be extinguished. It is our chance to have a say in our political process and make changes of which César Chávez would be proud.