California Reacts to Shocking Cesar Chavez Sexual Misconduct Revelations

Sexual misconduct allegations against labor icon Cesar Chavez this week are sending shockwaves through California, where the farmworker movement founder has been revered for decades.

The allegations, which came to light in an investigation by The New York Times published Wednesday, accuse Chavez of a pattern of sexual misconduct against young women who worked alongside him in the Latino civil rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s.

Two women, who are both now 66, told The Times that they had been assaulted repeatedly by Chavez for years in the 1970s, when they were 12 and 13, and he was in his 40s. The investigation also detailed allegations made against Chavez by several other women, including the labor leader’s close ally and United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta, who said Chavez raped her and pressured her into intercourse on two separate occasions in the 1960s.

The news has already garnered wide response from labor and elected leaders across the Bay Area, where Chavez’s name is plastered on schools, streets and parks. California, where Chavez began his career as a community organizer in San José and spent years building UFW in La Paz, north of Los Angeles, was the first to recognize Cesar Chavez Day on March 31, 2000.

“I’m angry. I’m shaken. And I’m thinking about what this moment demands of us,” Rudy Gonzalez, a member of the San Francisco Labor Council’s executive committee, said in a statement on Tuesday, as whispers of the allegations began to swirl.

The day before The Times’ investigation was published, the UFW Foundation announced that it would cancel all activities planned in celebration of Cesar Chavez Day, on March 31, in light of “allegations about abusive behavior.” The Cesar Chavez Foundation also said it had become aware of “disturbing allegations.”

“As a Mexican American labor leader, I was raised on the story of the farm worker movement — on sacrifice, on faith, on the belief that working people deserve dignity,” Gonzalez said in his statement. “But let me be clear: our movement has never been about one man,” he continued. “It has always been about workers — Filipino, Mexican, Black, immigrants standing together and demanding respect.”

Already, organizations have announced that they will cancel or reevaluate events planned in honor of Chavez in San José, including a legacy dinner and programming by San José State University’s Cesar E. Chavez Community Action Center.

Mayor Matt Mahan said the city was cancelling all planned events associated with the state holiday and would “identify ways to honor the legacy of the farmworker movement without celebrating individuals who caused such profound harm to the community.”

“We recognize that Chavez’s ties to San José come with a responsibility to ensure we are not further traumatizing survivors,” he said in a statement.

Contra Costa County also said it was “reviewing the details” of its annual celebration planned for next month.

“Following the lead of the United Farm Workers, Contra Costa County remains focused on supporting farmworkers and advancing equity, safety, and opportunity in agriculture,” spokesperson Kristi Jourdan said via email. “Our goal is to ensure this event honors farmworkers, highlights urgent issues like fair wages and safe working conditions, and reflects our shared values of dignity and inclusion.”

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus said it would honor farmworkers and their “arduous, essential work” on March 31, nationally recognized as Cesar Chavez Day, this year.

“We cannot celebrate a man, regardless of his accomplishments, if he harmed women and children in such vile ways,” the caucus said in a statement. “While it’s heartbreaking when leaders are exposed as flawed beyond absolution, a just society has a duty to hold abusers accountable without exception.

“A movement stands on its values, not the misconduct of an individual,” it continued.

Organizers of San Francisco’s annual Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta Day Parade and Festival said the event would be renamed solely in honor of Huerta, whose birthday is April 10.

“Viva La Causa! Support the [farmworker] Movement,” Eva Royale said in an email.

The investigation published Wednesday morning includes accusations from at least a dozen women who say they were either pursued, harassed or assaulted by Chavez while he was at the height of his career, including Ana Murguia, who told The Times that she was first summoned to Chavez’s office when she was 13 years old, living with her family at La Paz. She said over the next four years, she had dozens of sexual encounters with him.

Debra Rojas told The Times she was 12 when Chavez first touched her inappropriately, and that when she was 15, he raped her at a motel during the United Farm Workers’ 1,000 Mile March in California.

Huerta, Chavez’s UFW co-founder and close ally in leading the Farmworkers’ Movement, said in a statement on Wednesday that she had two nonconsensual sexual encounters with Chavez in the 1960s, both resulting in pregnancies that she hid from public view.

Huerta said that she had not spoken out about her experiences for the last 60 years, because she “believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for.”

“I am telling my story because The New York Times has indicated that I was not the only one — there were others,” she wrote in a statement on Wednesday. “The knowledge that he hurt young girls sickens me. My heart aches for everyone who suffered alone and in silence for years. There are no words strong enough to condemn those deplorable actions that he did. Cesar’s actions do not reflect the values of our community and our movement.”

Joshua Arce, the president of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, expressed support for Huerta on Wednesday.

“For 60 years, she carried a painful burden in silence, known only to her, so that the movement she helped build and loves deeply could continue — never knowing until now that others, too, had suffered harm,” he wrote in a post on Facebook. “By breaking that silence, Dolores is speaking not only for herself, but for every woman and girl who was hurt and made to suffer alone.”

In a statement, California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas said his first priority was to listen to survivors, adding that “the farmworker movement has never been about one man.

“It is bigger than any one person, and its values of dignity and justice are more important now than ever,” he wrote. “To those who have found the courage to come forward, my heart is with you.”

Sen. Alex Padilla, who last year proposed legislation to create a national park honoring Chavez across California and Arizona, called the revelations “heartbreaking, horrific accounts of abuse.”

“There must be zero tolerance for abuse, exploitation, and the silencing of victims, no matter who is involved,” he said in a statement on Wednesday. “Confronting painful truths and ensuring accountability is essential to honoring the very values the greater farm worker movement stands for — values rooted in dignity and justice for all.”

Padilla’s office said he plans to rename and rework the legislation for the national park to honor farm workers.

Chavez’s children also expressed support for survivors.

“Our family is shocked and saddened to learn of news that our father, Cesar Chavez, engaged in sexual impropriety with women and minors nearly 50 years ago,” they wrote in a statement. “As a family steeped in the values of equity and justice, we honor the voices of those who feel unheard and who report sexual abuse.

“This is deeply painful to our family. We hope these matters are approached thoughtfully and fairly,” the statement reads.