What’s next for Fresno’s Cesar Chavez Boulevard? Backers propose cultural arts district

When the Fresno City Council renamed a 10-mile stretch of Fresno streets to honor a farmworker icon, it also marked the start of a campaign to designate a cultural arts district for the city’s southeast sector.

The future of Cesar Chavez Boulevard was unveiled last Friday when Councilmembers Luis Chávez and Miguel Arias were joined by Andrés Chávez, grandson of United Farm Workers founder César E. Chávez, to celebrate the end of a three-decade effort to rename city portions of Kings Canyon Road, Ventura Avenue and California Avenue.

The council allocated more than $1 million dollars to repave the César E. Chávez Boulevard corridor and to make it a cultural art district.

“To make sure it remains a good, solid, modern street,” Arias said.

Establishing a cultural arts district “will allow for future events and cultural festivals that retain and honor the Latino culture, the campesino history and the legacy of César Chávez,” Arias said.

The Cultural Arts District will be focused on southeast Fresno – from First Street eastward to Peach Avenue, according to Arias.

Luis Chávez said he envisions Cesar Chavez Boulevard as an educational opportunity to explain to future generations of children what the struggle was and how they got there.

“Because it wasn’t easy, and it’s been through the hard work of a lot of people in this room in our community. A lot of them have passed away and they didn’t get to a chance to see (the street signs),” Luis Chávez said.

Street name change remains controversial

In March 2023 the council voted 6-1 to rename the streets 32 years after a similar effort was approved and then rejected by the council and mayor following public outcry.

There has been a lot of public debate regarding the name change.

“It’s been 11,244 days (work began in October 1993) since the community achieved the renaming of Cesar Chavez Boulevard, before it was yanked away from them,” said Arias.

“Ever since we reestablished that more than a year ago, they’ve met by legal challenges by the agriculture farm company interest each step of the way. We have won every court decision. I anticipate nothing different in the August hearing,” Arias said.

A Fresno County Superior Court judge ruled in March in favor of the city in a lawsuit by 1 Community Compact, an informal coalition of business owners and residents who opposed the change. They challenged the council process, saying residents and business owners were not consulted in time about the name change.

A hearing on a motion for a preliminary injunction is scheduled for Aug. 1. A trial on the lawsuit is scheduled for March 2025.

Arias said “the City of Fresno clearly has all legal authority to name its public streets. We follow the process that we follow for every other street naming.”

“Cesar Chávez and the UFW farmworker movement have origins on these corridors that are clearly established in our history books and in our history as a city,” Arias said.

California’s fifth-largest city, became the first and only community in the San Joaquín Valley – the heart of the United Farmworkers movement – to name a street after César E. Chávez, who died in 1993 and organized farmworkers in California, Arizona, Texas, Oregon, Washington, Ohio and New York.

“It’s an honor, and it’s wonderful that we recognize one of our own, an American hero, a person that did a lot of work to improve working conditions for farm workers,” said José León Barraza, CEO of the Southeast Fresno Community Economic Development Association (SEFCEDA).

“As we implement name changes along the corridor, we have to have better communication with all business owners, because there has been, and I say with a lot of respect, some criticism that there hasn’t been enough interaction with everybody.”

“That’s what the business owners, some business owners, are telling me,” said Barraza, whose organization works with business owners in southeast Fresno. “I think that’s a little bit of an oversight, but I believe that whatever omissions occurred, we have to work hard at fixing that and moving forward with a proposal or a concept of beautifying the area and making us feel proud.”

A statue of the UFW founder is a possibility

Barraza said his organization is working with Luis Chávez in designating the area as a cultural arts district and exploring the possibility of creating a cultural arts center as well as a roundabout on Cedar Avenue and Cesar Chavez Boulevard and possibly a statue of Chávez.

“But there are a lot of proposals, projects that that we’re hoping to accomplish now,” Barraza said.

Luis Chávez said when constituents have asked him why it was so important to him his response is “it’s not about just a sign, it’s about honoring an individual that fought and advocated for the most vulnerable in our community.”

“It’s about what he stood for. It’s about making sure that farmworkers have access to restroom breaks,” said the councilmember.

Humberto Gámez, who worked 25 years with César Chávez, said seeing the name of César Chávez on a main street of Fresno “means a lot, but it’s just the beginning.”

Gámez, a retired union worker, said it was in Fresno County where “we established the first strikes and negotiated the first contacts.”

“We honor the legacy of César Chávez by not only praising the efforts and the work that he did will pass, but what we’re going to do in the future,” said Emilio Huerta, who was representing his mother Dolores Huerta at the unveiling.

“When we look at that sign, I hope that it reminds each and every one of you that we have another 30-year battle in front of us.”