I love this city.
“Hey, citizens, tell us what we should rename Industrial Boulevard, because we want the street’s name to evoke lakes, rivers, and parks. Natural beauty.”
“Cesar Chavez!”
“Hmmm. That just sounds so, so Mexican. Tell you what. Let’s just table this whole thing till August. I’m sure we can find a street somewhere in East Dallas to rename Cesar Chavez. Thanks for your participation, though. This has been a real learning experience.”
20 comments
There is a Cesar Chavez Plaza at the Farmers Market.
Avenida de La Llorona
This is the perfect name because it’s Texas folklore, it’s Hispanic, it has something to do with a river AND it has a built in warning.
Perfect.
à la Arlington: Road to Fuel City
Didn’t the Cesar Chavez legend unfold in California, not Texas? (No time to Wiki, I actually work for a living BION.)
Yeah, he did his work in California, not Texas. He is only a hero to a small portion of our population. It makes zero sense to rename this street after him.
I don’t think he ever stepped foot in Dallas.
Maybe Zac can investigate to see if there were enough signatures for Cesar Chavez to even be on the ballot.
maybe those that voted for Chavez thought they were voting for former lightweight and welterweight champ Julio Cesar Chavez, he of the extra-thick cranium, which i’m not making up. dude’s forehead is about one-inch thicker than normal.
anyway, i’d rather see it named for the boxer than the communist
although it’s all a bunch of nothing and if it must be changed, Post Industrial is still my favorite option
César Estrada Chávez (March 31, 1927 – April 23, 1993), born in Yuma, Arizona, was an American farm worker of Mexican descent
since we’re naming streets in dallas with no local connection to historic figures, let’s go ahead and rename it Harriet Tubman Boulevard.
Cesar Chavez was a huge opponent of illegal immigration. His entire fight was to unionize legal workers to keep the illegals from driving wages way down. We might as well name it Tim O’Hare Parkway.
If we are going to name after seemingly Mythical Figures, how bout J.R. Ewing Drive. Speaking of famous names, didn’t Clyde Barrow live off industrial down bt the river for a time? Hmm…
I applaud the City Council not naming it Cesar Chavez. They did a poor job of advertising the online vote- and if I am correct there was only one day in which to vote (8am-5pm) which is during the work day for most people who would be interested in voting. I went to dallascityhall.com and had a tough time finding the link….but I did vote- and naming it after a man who did nothing historical in the city of Dallas or State of Texas makes no sense whatsoever. At least Stemmons Frwy, Woodall Rogers, Love Field –even LBJ Frwy were named after people who contributed to the State of Texas and/or the City of Dallas.
Cesar Chavez was a union organizer but Texas is a Right to Work state.
Another Hmmmm.
So what came in 2nd? EBJ? God, please don’t let the morons name it after a person. PLEASE!
Name it after Matt Foley – motivational speaker. He lived in a van, down by the river…
Cesar Chavez was instrumental in organizing workers harvesting fruit in South Texas (Starr County, I think) in the mid-1960s. Also, the City of Dallas has officially designated Labor Day as Labor Day/Cesar Chavez Day.
Final Answer!!! -
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Martin Luther King and Malcolm X did nothing of historic importance in the city either. Let’s dump those names too.
Heck, let’s name every street after some old fat white guy.
“Old Fat White Guy”
Name the important streets after the people who made the city’s development possible by their hard work and dedication to civic involvment to the City of Dallas. If they are fat white men, or black men and women or hispanic or asian…it doesn’t matter- if they deserve it due to their impact on the city-name it after them. If not, then don’t.
People ask what Cesar Chavez did in Texas. Go to the Texas Handbook online, a web site managed by the Texas State Historical Commission. Place Cesar Chavez into the search engine there and you get 9 hits relating to his name and/or his work relating to Texas. Put Harry Hines (you know – that major north/south street going by Parkland) and you only get three hits. I challenge anyone to google all the personal names on Downtown Dallas streets and see if the number of hits even averages three. Chavez has 9. Ok Sam Houston has many but that is a different issue……
Jim Schutze has a wonderful opinion piece on the Cesar Chavez street naming chaos at http://www.dallasobserver.com/2008-…-s-in-a-nombre/. I only disagree with him slightly. The move of the name to Ross Avenue from Industrial, while it may have started as an “accommodation,” is ultimately resulting in a much better solution for many reasons. Here are some, most of which were included in letters sent to the mayor and city council:
Minority leaders were virtually ignored for Dallas street names prior to 1960. That must be corrected!
Last year 70% of Kindergarten students in Dallas ISD were Hispanic. They are the future Dallas must build for.
Ross Avenue runs along the southern edge of what was once called Little Mexico. It is only 6 blocks from the old St. Ann’s school which was in the heart of Little Mexico and is one of the few buildings preserved from that history. (See photo at http://www.studentmotivation.org/littlemexico/index.htm which also shows southwest tip of Ross.)
Today the northeast end of Ross is majority Hispanic, as are many locations since 43% of the total Dallas population is Hispanic.
Hundreds of thousands of workers in Dallas (myself included) from all ethnic groups grew up working in conditions that Cesar Chavez successfully worked to change in Texas and across the nation.
Ross Ave is the largest Hispanic gathering place in Dallas on Sunday mornings. They attend multiple masses by the thousands at the Cathedral of Guadalupe each weekend on Ross. Also, the Virgin of Guadalupe played a significant role in the daily life of Cesar Chavez.
Ross Avenue was the gathering place for the largest Civil Right march in Texas history! From 10:00 AM to well past 2:00 PM on April 9, 2006, Ross Avenue was filled with people walking most of it’s length downtown, peacefully filling the street from sidewalk to sidewalk. (See 2 PM photo I took that day, and others linked down the page at http://www.studentmotivation.org/littlemexico/index.htm.) It is estimated over 500,000 people were present in the march. Most were Hispanic. It is certain Cesar Chavez would have loved the non-violent nature of this huge march!
Many of the businesses on Ross are either Hispanic (62%), or want to reach out to the Hispanic community for business reasons, and will support this change.
A historical marker is being planned for the most-walked Ross Avenue intersection at North Market in the West End. It will document the history of the Ross brothers in Dallas and possibly also the Carondolet name which was originally on that section of the street for over 70 years. The Ross Avenue name was expanded and the Carondolet name deleted from maps sometime between 1930 and 1938. It is very appropriate that this naming process will lead to a historical marker that will better record the history of Dallas and bring almost forgotten pioneers back into public record and awareness.
Both school and church were the center for life for Cesar Chavez. Ross has both the Cathedral and the DISD Central Offices on it. This is especially appropriate.
Due to this process history will publically recorded in more accurate detail on a historical marker in the West End. People can now know the Carondolet name, and more details about the Ross brothers. In the same process a downtown street name will reflect the presence of an ethnic group who have literally helped build, and continue to build, our city.
To always push minority names outside downtown, as many have suggested, is a simple continuation of the “accommodation” scandals Jim Schutze painfully documented in the 1986 book, “The Accommodation: The Politics of Race in an American City.” (Copies of his book are in the Dallas Library.)
Anyone who is interested in being involved in these efforts to rename Ross Avenue may want to go to http://www.cesarchaveztaskforce.com for more current information.
The one thing this street renaming process has underlined is the absolute need to better educate Texans about their own history. I was born in Texas 59 years ago and was only elsewhere for 4 years. For full transparency – I am a certified history teacher. Our true history, not necessarily the recorded one, is powerful, and when not written it is due to political reasons. We endanger our children and grandchildren to ignore that unwritten history, usually one of prejudice and mistreatment of minorities and the poor.