B efore the meeting had even been gavelled to an end, before the Phoenix City Council chambers packed with attendees had emptied and they’d spilled into the evening, the sign had changed. What was once Cesar Chavez Plaza no longer bore that name. The late labor leader — now disgraced, after a recent New York Times report chronicled a distressing pattern of sexual abuse, including of minors — would not be honored in Phoenix anymore. Seemingly minutes after the city council voted unani- mously on March 25 to begin the process of erasing Chavez’s name from its many places of honor around town, city workers had begun executing it. Outside City Hall, they hammered maroon slats over Chavez’s name, obscuring it and leaving only the city’s logo and the plaza’s rules and hours. When attendees finally filed out of the formal meeting, they walked through a plaza that was now nameless. It was the start of a long process to dismantle, literally and figuratively, Chavez’s legacy. The plaza sign was the first to go, and the ceremonial Cesar Chavez Boulevard signs along Baseline Road started coming down later that night. Other memorials — like Cesar Chavez Park and Cesar Chavez Library, and the statue of Chavez that sits near both — will take longer to come down due to a series of bureaucratic hoops. The Chavez vote was hardly contentious. Politicians of all political stripes have reacted in horror to the allegations that he may have repeatedly sexually abused teenage girls who aided in the farmworkers movement — and may have raped and fathered illegitimate children with Dolores Huerta, one of his closest collaborators — in the 1960s and 1970s. Only two members of the public commented on the decision. Councilmember Betty Guardado said the council took action out of respect for the victims and for the workers who drove the movement. In addition to removing Chavez’s name and likeness, the city renamed the upcoming Cesar Chavez Day — March 31, his birthday — to “Farmworkers Day” for 2026. The holi- day’s future after that would be decided at a later date. “For all of the victims, we honor you all today,” Guardado said during the meeting. “We honor our workforce, we honor everyone that has been part of this move- ment and that has honored this movement.” Councilmember Laura Pastor stressed the need to “recognize…the unsung heroes who do and did the work, who make the movement happen.” Fellow Councilmember Anna Hernandez encouraged the city to find ways to educate residents more about domestic and sexual violence and available resources in the wake of the allegations against Chavez. “Sexual assault is rampant across this city, and in that time the ‘Me Too’ move- ment came and went, and our culture did nothing to end the sexual violence every- where around us,” Hernandez said. For a city that usually moves quite deliberately when making big decisions, the move to un-Chavez Phoenix was notably rapid. Vice Mayor Kesha Hodge Washington acknowledged that during the meeting, assuring the public that while their decision may seem hasty, she was reassured by the actions of the Chavez family and of his union, the United Farm Workers, and his epony- mous foundation. Both UFW and the foundation cancelled planned Cesar Chavez Day events, while the family issued a statement that offered “peace and healing to the survivors” and stood with people who are victims of sexual assault. The city is following their lead, Hodge Washington said, adding that “as a lawyer, due process is important to me.” THE ICE VOTE The move was quick, especially compared to what followed later in the meeting: a vote to bar Immigration and Customs Enforcement from operating on city property. Activists have been agitating for such a move ever since President Donald Trump reassumed office in January 2025 and kicked off his mass deportation agenda. ICE abuses have indeed been documented in Phoenix — though not to the level of Chicago and Minneapolis, which the Trump administration has targeted — and the city has been slow to react. In February, a council work session ended early because protesters interrupted it, demanding to be part of the process. Many of those same activists filled a packed council chambers on March 25, but they left the meeting far less agitated than they’d been 45 days earlier. With one dissenting vote — Jim Waring, the lone conservative on the council — the city passed its Community Transparency Initiative, which in part restricts ICE from performing some operations on city- owned property. Only two speakers came out against the proposal. The rest were supportive. A school employee spoke about driving past ICE detaining a student’s parent just blocks from campus. A group of Afghan refugees who worked with the U.S. military spoke about being scared to go to their jobs. One woman recounted how the fears that dominated the reign of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio had roared back. “Right now you have the opportunity to give families like mine peace of mind,” she told the council. A man relayed how he’d come to the U.S. from the Democratic Republic of Congo when he was three years old after Phoenix tries to distance itself from ICE — and from Cesar Chavez. NO LONGER WELCOME BY CLARISSA SOSIN Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego alongside members of the city council during a meeting on March 25. (Alan Staats) City of Phoenix workers hammered slats over the name of Cesar Chavez Plaza almost immediately after the Phoenix City Council voted to take down the city’s many memorials to Chavez on March 25. (Clarissa Sosin)
