How three men took different paths to end up at Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard

When the Fresno City Council reversed its decision 30 years ago to name a stretch of three streets in honor of farmworker leader César E. Chávez, the key figure behind the renaming campaign, Venancio Gaona, vowed that the fight was not over.

At the time, Sal Quintero had yet to start the first of 14 years on the council and the first of two terms on the Fresno County Board of Supervisors representing southeast Fresno in both entities. However, he served on then-Councilmember Bob Lung’s staff and supported the name change.

A teen-aged Luis Chávez rode his bicycle to the council meeting that was held at the Fresno Convention Center to accommodate a large crowd that saw Councilmember Robert Smith change his vote of support for the street renaming in what became a 4-3 decision.

The paths for Gaona, Chávez (no relation to the farm labor leader) and Quintero crossed recently when the council voted 6-1 in March to resurrect the conversion of 10.3 miles of Kings Canyon Boulevard, Ventura Avenue and California Street in honor of the farmworker leader who died in 1993..

Two months later, the supervisors unanimously nixed the Chávez name on the streets that are in the county.

Last Saturday, United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta and César E. Chávez’s son, Paul, led a raucous celebration at the Fresno fairgrounds for Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard (no accent marks will be used).

U.S. Poet Laureate Emeritus Juan Felipe Herrera debuted ‘El Largo Camino’ (The Long Road), a Spanish-language poem in honor of the new name.

Mariachi Juvenil Tenochtitlán and Teocalli Youth Group provided cultural entertainment. Attendees munched on Mexican food and pan dulce.

Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the UFW, showed a fighting spirit by mimicking a fighter’s punches shortly after arriving at the celebration. She had one word for the board of supervisors: “Boo!”

The new street signs should go up in about a month, but a group has threatened a lawsuit over what they say erases the history of Blacks and Armenians. They also said there was inadequate public outreach.

In October 1993, the council approved the name change and about 5,000 supporters marched on César Chávez Boulevard. Two months later, the council reversed course.

Quintero: “I got to know César very well.”

The 75-year-old Quintero, who grew up in southeast Fresno on Chestnut between Jensen and Church, spoke of his relationship with the UFW founder and the movement minutes before the board voted on May 11 to keep the current street names.

“I met César Chávez when he first started organizing the union through my older brother, Jess, who was very involved with the union,” said Quintero. “I attended some of the (UFW) meetings with him, and that’s how I got to know about the union and what it stood for.”

Quintero said he became more familiar with Chávez in the 1980s through a friend who was spearheading the union’s first housing project on Manning Avenue between Reedley and Parlier.

“I got to know César very well,” said Quintero. “His dream was to make (the housing project) for farmworkers so that when they retired they’d have enough land in their back lot to raise fruits and vegetables.”

Quintero then explained why he would cast a no vote on the street name change.

“I go to know (César) that well, that I believe if he were alive today, he would decline the name change and the million dollars to help businesses and residents with the name change,” said Quintero, who said the labor leader, who died in 1993, would have preferred the funds be used to help the homeless.

Quintero said Chávez gave him a signed copy of a book about the UFW and a belt buckle with the union logo after Quintero helped organize a union convention in the early 1980s in Fresno.

“I’m not here today to argue or criticize the council’s decision, nor the supporters of the name change,” said Quintero in May. “But I still believe (César) would say there are greater needs in the community.”

In an interview Thursday morning, Quintero said he has heard almost nothing following the board’s vote. A couple of voice mails were left for him expressing support for his vote, he said.

“I think it is a city issue more than a county issue,” said Quintero, who is facing a re-election challenge from Councilmembers Luis Chávez and Miguel Arias. When Quintero was on the council, Chávez served as his chief of staff.

The street name was an election topic when he first ran for the council, said Quintero, who walked the neighborhoods that straddle Kings Canyon. Residents, he said, were more interested in issues like streets, trees and sidewalks.

The issue never came up before the council, even though then-Mayor Alan Autry suggested in 2001 that Tuolumne Street be renamed for Chávez.

Quintero said his vote was not affected by recent announcements by Luis Chávez and Miguel Arias that make them re-election opponents.

Gaona: “This is a relief. Now I can die.”

The retired Spanish-language instructor at Fresno City College has been at the forefront of many efforts through El Concilio de Fresno, the Latino Educational Issues Roundtable and other groups to convince officials for more attention to Spanish-speaking students and their families, fairer redistricting or just holding elected officials accountable to the Latino community.

He also told El Concilio members that the campaign to honor Chávez with a street bearing his name was not over 30 years ago.

Gaona, 85, told a cheering crowd at Saturday’s celebration that he could die in peace now that the Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard signs would go up in about a month.

The Autry proposal was dead upon arrival, he said, because committee members unanimously rejected it.

“The people from the very beginning didn’t want other alternatives,” said Gaona, who has lived in southeast Fresno since 1959.

Autry spoke with César’s son Paul Chávez and offered Tuolumne Avenue, which runs by the César E. Chávez Adult Education Center that opened in 2000.

Gaona said Paul Chávez deferred the matter to the committee. “Whatever the committee votes for, I will accept,” said Paul, according to Gaona.

Blackstone, McKinley and Shields avenues were suggested for the Chávez name, he said, along with proposals for a building or school.

Kings Canyon, he said, has a long history with the UFW because the current Ventura Market was a Safeway Store where UFW supporters picketed in support of table grape boycott. The union held its first meeting at the Edison Social Hall on California Avenue, said Gaona.

“This was the area where the farmworkers live, where there had been marches, demonstrations, boycotts,” said Gaona, who said the name change was always on his mind through the years but didn’t resurface until early this year when councilmembers Luis Chávez and Miguel Arias approached him.

Saturday when he was awarded a proclamation from the city for his efforts to get Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard, Gaona thanked dozens of other community leaders for their efforts and said, “This is a relief. Now I can die.”

Luis Chávez: “We have a lot of work to do.”

“This conversation to change the street name didn’t start last year when the (city) council introduced this initiative,” said Chávez in Spanish. His district covers southeast Fresno.

Chávez, who spoke in Spanish at Saturday’s event, said the conversation has continued for 30 years.

“It was 30 long years in the community’s fight to try to obtain a little bit of respect,” said Chávez, who was Quintero’s assistant in his last two terms on the council.

Chávez, who grew up near Sequoia Middle School, recalled going to the convention center when the council reconsidered the name change. He was a student at Roosevelt High School at the time.

“I remember hearing phrases that were racist and xenophobic directed at our community,” he said. That was during the Proposition 187 era when, he said, “there was much hate against our community.”

In a March interview, Chávez said he has a better grasp of the street name issue and that Fresno is different now 30 years later. “I think the city of Fresno has done a great job of recognizing and honoring all communities in our city,” he said.

Chávez reminded supporters that the name change is not just for the UFW founder but for the essential workers in southeast Fresno who toiled during the pandemic because they couldn’t work from home on a computer to pick crops, deliver goods or stock shelves.

“This is a reminder for our community that the fight continues, and that people must unite to send that message,” he said. “We have a lot of work to do.”