[November 21st, 2007]

“We want to be recognized, yes, but not with a glowing epitaph on our tombstone.”— César E. Chávez to the U.S. Senate, 1969.

At this stage in the endless and ongoing debate at City Hall over renaming a street after César Chávez, the winners and losers are finally clear.

Chávez loses. Nobody’s talking about the late labor organizer’s cause—farm workers’ rights—but rather about where to place his epitaph.

The local Latino activists who wanted to rename North Interstate Avenue after Chávez lose, too. They resented the City Council’s proposal to rename Southwest 4th Avenue, which runs by City Hall, instead. Here, again, were white men deciding they knew best.

Only Mayor Tom Potter , declaring his “affinity with the Latino community,” voted against the Southwest 4th Avenue proposal last week. Potter also lost whatever lingering goodwill he had on the council by implying his colleagues were racially retrograde. But Potter, who has more than a year left in his term, appeared satisfied in the company of martyrs who refused all compromise. The mayor called the 4th Avenue proposal “a dishonor” to the committee’s “hard work.”

“We have lost a lot of causes before. But we have not lost our dignity,” says Jesus Estrada, summing up the activists’ reaction.

Potter had the Chávez committee’s gratitude because he deferred to their judgment on every point—even after it became clear that Interstate Avenue was a non-starter after four months.

“In our community, it’s very important that when you say something, la palabra , you must stay with it,” says Marta Guembes , the activist who led the Chávez committee.

Guembes says the defeat has primed the “community of color” to unite around candidates who would challenge Commissioners Randy Leonard , who’s seeking re-election, and Sam Adams , who is running for mayor. She wouldn’t say who might run against Adams or Leonard.

“The important thing for us to do now is to make sure we register more people to vote,” Guembes says. (Portland is 74 percent white.)

For his part, Leonard calls the less-than-subtle allegations of racism leveled at Interstate opponents a form of “emotional blackmail.”

“I think they developed a strategy to try and intimidate people,” Leonard says.

If Leonard is right, get ready for a season of Mau-Mauing between now and the May election.

Aside from animosity from the Guembes crew, Leonard has managed to emerge relatively unscathed for what looks to be an easy re-election. The same goes for the usually attention-seeking Adams, the mayoral front-runner who last week proved he could keep his mouth shut.

Commissioner Dan Saltzman , who pushed the renaming of Northeast Portland Boulevard to Rosa Parks Way a year ago, had been pretty quiet, too. He finally showed his hand Nov. 14, when he put forward the motion to rename 4th Avenue instead of Interstate. The Oregonian pegged Saltzman as the brains behind the proposal. He was certainly a co-conspirator.

The day before the council vote, Saltzman discussed the idea with Commissioner Erik Sten , then took it to Potter, hoping the mayor would convince the Chávez committee that 4th Avenue was a better option.

That plan backfired. The mayor told the committee—but his staff also leaked the plan to the O . The new proposal was front-page news the next morning. The Chávez committee was furious commissioners had sidestepped them.

Sten apologized at the Nov. 15 council meeting. He was the real architect of the 4th Avenue plan and may emerge from this mess cleaner than anybody.

When Saltzman introduced a substitute motion Nov. 15 to rename 4th Avenue, Sten, surprisingly, voted against it. He said after hearing public testimony he’d rather rename Interstate. But that was just a procedural vote. When the time came, Sten voted to rename 4th Avenue, calling it a “good and fitting tribute” to Chávez.

Basically, Sten was against his own idea, until he was for it. The maneuver allowed him to show support for the Chávez committee’s proposal, while securing an outcome that they opposed, and that he had planned—the renaming of 4th Avenue.

More Council Video

Latino Network director Maria Lisa Johnson speaks of racism and urges the council not to frame this situation so that they are "some kind of heroes":

Commissioner Sam Adams asks why no other streets in Portland are worthy of being renamed, and says (to jeers from the crowd) that in many ways, 4th Avenue is an "upgrade."

Commissioner Randy Leonard says the 4th Avenue solution is an "honorable solution" to a problem the city council has created. He says having children step off a school bus in front of city hall, at 1221 SW Cesar Chavez, would be quite an honor.