Don't Call It Army Street

Another prominent political figure has fallen from cultural grace: Cesar Chavez. The celebrated civil rights icon is accused of abusing “young women or minors,” per a statement by the United Farm Workers. The organization also disclosed they are severing ties with their late co-founder. “The UFW has learned of deeply troubling allegations that one of the union's co-founders, Cesar Chavez, behaved in ways that are incompatible with our organization's values. 

“Some of the reports are family issues, and not our story to tell or our place to comment on. Far more troubling are allegations involving abuse of young women or minors. Allegations that very young women or girls may have been victimized are crushing.” 

The UFW explains they have neither “firsthand knowledge” of these allegations nor received any reports thereof. For now, one can only assume the UFW’s response corresponds to his offenses. Whatever the nature of his crimes, heavy implications assure Chavez’s legacy is already sunk. In the meantime, a new debate: what to do with the San Francisco thoroughfare bearing his name? 

This piece isn’t about defining Cesar Chavez, but the best way to right a wrong, even if we meant well. It starts with informed consensus. While the Standard and Chronicle recognize the de facto distancing from the blacklisted activist, an argument to revert is emerging. Would it be right to go back to Army Street?

Longtime residents and SF history buffs know that not long ago, Cesar Chavez was once named Army Street. It was not the thoroughfare we know today. The street was half its present width at one point and had a streetcar line. Before that, Army Street didn’t exist—Navy Street did, running parallel to it. By 1875, Navy Street became 26th, and Army Street paved a few yards to the south. Army ran east-west, capping the freshwater Precita Creek that once fed a bayshore mudflat near its confluence with Islais Creek.  

The city widened the street throughout the 1930s and 40s, eating up the yards of houses facing traffic. Interestingly, only the Mission District stretch of Army Street (Guerrero to Potrero Streets) got overhauled. The wealthier, whiter Noe Valley segment escaped similar treatment. Odd, since concrete-crazy freeway developers aimed to transform Army Street into a busy boulevard linking freeways proposed in 1948. If plans succeeded, Army would become an artery between 101 and another north-south freeway built over Mission Street. 

Noe Valley would boast a Lombard-esque surface street that jogs north from Army onto Clipper, continuing to yet another expressway. Well, not boast. That might be why it never came to pass. Wealthy neighborhoods can fund loud campaigns against invasive, public systems like freeways or homeless shelters. Another reason it likely fell through is the failure of the Southern Crossing, a second SF–Oakland bridge, to materialize. Thank goodness none of this became our reality. A cloud of smog would eternally wreath Bernal Heights. 

In the debate to rechristen Cesar Chavez, may a freeway never re-enter the conversation.

Leading the opposition against renaming Army Street after Cesar Chavez (1927–1993) were the residents of Noe Valley, often called a family neighborhood. “Longtime residents of mostly white Noe Valley—up in arms over the change—have placed an initiative on the city’s Nov. 7 ballot that would erase Chavez’s name from street signs along the three-mile roadway.” (LA Times, 1995) It seems the neighborhood felt his wasn’t a name befitting its character. However, at the time, that couldn’t be less true for Latino residents of the Mission District.

The Mission and Noe Valley straddle Army/“Cesar Chavez” Street (rebrand TBD) like two feuding schoolmates on a see-saw. In my simile, Latino residents of the Mission District are stuck on the ground, feet in the dirt. “‘The meaning of having Cesar Chavez Street is that it signifies we have a place here too,’ said Mission Street grocer Maria Payan in Spanish. ‘If they change it back now that they’ve already made the switch, it’s like saying, You don’t have a place here. You don’t have any value here.’” (LA Times) 

Others, like Army-turned-Chavez Street resident and property manager Diane Withelder, were not pleased. “‘Army Street’s part of my identity, my name and my address,’ she said. ‘And also I have nothing against the Army like a lot of the people seem to.’” (Times)

When I reject “Army Street,” it’s partly to spite people like Ms. Withelder. She seemingly gets why identity is important but cannot extend that understanding beyond herself. More to her chagrin, I have plenty against the Army and the military industrial complex. If the idea is to rename Chavez after a non-rapist, is ‘Army’ fair when “62% of [military] women and 57% of men reported that the most serious sexual assault they experienced happened at a military installation?” 

Who or what should we name this unfortunate street after? Surely not the Army, especially if the goal is divorcing from a legacy of sexual violence. Civilian and military worlds are patriarchal, so rape is a plague in both. People commit sexual assault in the military disturbingly often. In 2024, a Brown University study indicated the volume of sexual assaults in the US military may be up to four times higher than government estimates. 

“During and beyond the 20 years of the post-9/11 wars, independent data suggest that actual sexual assault prevalence is two to four times higher than DoD estimations — 75,569 cases in 2021 and 73,695 cases in 2023.” (NBC, Phil Helsel, Courtney Kube)

Renaming Cesar Chavez Street is not about political correctness but our ability to unequivocally state that rape is wrong. It doesn’t have to bear the name of anyone in particular. Maybe we can resist the temptation to immortalize people through trafficways. Call it Calamity Avenue for all I care. Even the Chronicle joked about calling it Chuck Norris Avenue or whatever (please God no). But whatever you decide, the institution that brought you Abu Ghraib is not the one I’d go naming things after.