California speaker announces effort to change Cesar Chavez Day to Farmworker Day

Andrew Graham, The Sacramento Bee on Mar 19, 2026

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California Legislature will move to change the name of state holiday Cesar Chavez Day following allegations of rape against the legendary labor leader, including from two women who said the assaults occurred when they were minors.

Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, a Hollister Democrat, took to the floor of his chamber Thursday to announce he would work with Senate President pro-tem Monique Limón, a Santa Barbara Democrat, to change the name of the holiday honoring Chavez to Farmworkers Day.

“I am shocked, I am angry and I am deeply, deeply disappointed,” Rivas said.

The speaker’s personal history is steeped in the farmworker movement. He is the grandson of Mexican immigrants and grew up in farmworker housing on a winery where they worked. His online Assembly biography refers to watching his grandfather stand with Chavez in labor fights.

The chamber leaders intend to introduce the legislation quickly, fast track it through votes and have it passed by next week. Cesar Chavez Day is on March 31 — the union leader’s birthday. It is both a federal holiday and also a state one, established by the Legislature in 2000. The initial bill will change the name of the holiday but likely not the date, which is an action that could be taken down the road, according to officials familiar with the effort.

With the announcement, the Legislature moved to join local government officials, university presidents and labor leaders across California in a scramble to cancel parades, change the names of municipal parks and remove statues and other memorabilia in the wake of a New York Times investigation published Wednesday.

That investigation included allegations from two women who said Chavez began to abuse them at age 13 and 12. It also included allegations from Dolores Huerta, who at 96 years old remains an icon in the California labor movement and Democratic circles, that Chavez pressured her into a sexual encounter on one occasion and raped her on another.

The choice of Farmworkers Day is an effort to shift focus to the labor rights movement Chavez led and away from the man himself. The Legislature in 2018 also established Dolores Huerta Day in 2018, honoring Chavez’s co-founder who is now one of her accusers.

“I am nearly 96 years old, and for the last 60 years have kept a secret because I believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for,” Huerta said in a statement Wednesday. “I carried this secret for as long as I did because building the movement and securing farmworker rights was my life’s work.”

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