By Gretchen Cochran

An effort to name a segment of Grand River Avenue in Old Town after the Cesar Chavez appears to be stuck for the moment.

Dueling Facebook pages give some clues as to why. But nearly everyone polled said they wanted to find some way to honor the late founder of the United Farm Workers’ union — if not a street, then perhaps a public gathering place in Old Town, or even the new Lansing City Market.

The Lansing for Cesar E. Chavez Committee set out nearly a year ago to re-name a 2.8 mile stretch of Grand River Avenue between Oakland Avenue and Pine Street for the activist. But the Old Town Commercial Association opposes the street name change.

The OTCA executive committee and the Chavez committee met June 16 to seek a compromise but the OTCA would not budge.

“We’re waiting now to hear back from the Chavez committee,” said Brittney Hoszkiw, executive director of the OTCA. The committee is scheduled to meet again June 27.

“I just don’t know what to expect,” Elva Reyes, the Chavez spokeswoman, said of her board.
Fourth Ward Councilwoman Jessica Yorko tried in May to bridge the developing crack between the two groups by hosting a gathering at Perspective 2 in Old Town.

“Lansing’s history is starting to repeat itself,” she said sadly, referring when in 1995 citizens voted to rescind the Chavez name for Grand Avenue only a year after the Council had approved it.

“It was devastating,” said Reyes. “It left a black cloud over our community. First we were feeling embraced, then we were rejected.”

Now 15 years later, the Latino group hoped the climate would be better, so members began talking with business owners along Grand River Avenue. Then in December, Lansing City Council passed a new ordinance simplifying the process. A group or person can change a street name by filing an application and paying for postage to notify the affected. The application would go to the city’s Memorial Review Board. But if the body does not act within 90 days, the application goes to Council. Council holds a public hearing and then make a decision.

“The Memorial Review Board has not had a quorum for a couple of years,” City Clerk Chris Swope said. Some say the board has not had a quorum because there have been no nominations. Though, at Monday’s Council meeting, Maria Starr was a new appointee.

The Chavez proposal could be referred to Council at its first meeting in July. Council must hold a public hearing within 60 days. After that, Council may make a decision.

First Ward Councilman Eric Hewitt, who represents Old Town, did not return a phone call seeking comment. But Yorko (after the street crosses the Grand River, it enters into the Fourth Ward) expressed concern for both sides. Her preference would be for the street to have both names, as was the case during a transition between Logan Street and MartinLuther King Jr. Boulevard.

But the two sides are not listening to one another, so there is an assumption of disrespect, she said.

Summer Schriner, 31, proprietor of Grace, said the Old Town store owners felt blindsided.
“Businesses are hanging on by the skin of their teeth,” she said, noting the expense of reprinting business cards, stationery and other materials.

Regarding Yorko’s street signs with both names, Schriner said she thought Old Town could do better. She liked the idea of renaming the parking area now called Lot 56 in which various festivals take place.

“We can find something positive,” Schriner said.

If Facebook is a barometer, Chavez Avenue is in trouble. On June 21, 700 people “liked” the Michigan for Preserving Grand River Avenue page compared with 160 for Lansing Citizens in Favor of a Cesar Chavez Avenue in Old Town. On the other hand, Reyes says she has nearly 500 letters or signatures of support for the street name change.

But there is another idea.

Buried in the discussion pages of the Preserving Grand River Avenue site is a comment from Liz Homer, former curator of the Turner Dodge House. She took part in the nationwide grape and lettuce boycotts led by Chavez in the 1960s.

“As an activist volunteer weekly going around to markets checking and reporting on the origin of their grapes and lettuce for the boycott committee, somehow I think Chavez should be remembered for that — for his fight on behalf of agricultural farm workers.

“The Lansing City Market fits in with what he stood for…(Imagine) a memorial set up in a way to remind all those entering, including the school children, of this history and the deeds of Chavez and the farm workers involved in bringing the agricultural products to them.”

Market manager John Hooper said he had not heard of the idea but would be open to a discussion, particularly the naming of the outdoor pavilion between the market and the river.

In his letter of support for the street name change, Pablo’s Panaderia owner Pablo Maldonado referred to Chavez’ history.

“Americans today continue to eat healthier fruits and vegetables because of his efforts to reduce the use of high level toxic pesticides in our food sources, that I use daily in my restaurant,” Maldonado wrote.

The issue is a sensitive one, particularly when an Arizona “copycat” immigration law is before the Michigan legislature that would particularly affect Latino migrant farm workers. Reyes had already been to see House Speaker Andy Dillon seeking his opposition.

“We want everyone to know this is so much bigger than the street,” Reyes said. “It would be an acknowledgement we worked here, lived here and we died here.”

Source: City Pulse

By Rodolfo F. Acuña

In Arizona and elsewhere in the country, xenophobes react negatively to the word racism, not so much that they deny its meaning, but that it does not apply to them. They accuse the accusers of trying to raise a smoke cloud. Xenophobes even quote Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” For validation, some claim to have walked with King that day.

Reporters advised me that I should not call the racists, racists, and try to educate them instead. However, there is a point that people do not want to listen, for if they admit that they are racist that would mean that they would have to change their behavior and support a rational policies that would bring about a civil society.

I have been an educator for just over fifty-five years, and I recognize the difference between the classroom and reality. Students explore ideas and, as they should, they ask inane questions—that is learning and I have a duty to answer them. However, there is a point when people want to take you for a fool. Show you up. I remember when I first got to Northridge in 1969, I walked into the faculty cafeteria, and a historian called me over, and in front of his gaggle of friends told me he had a question for me. Smugly he asked, “The Jews, the Irish and the Italians have made it, what is wrong with the Mexicans and the blacks?”

I quietly began to walk away, and he repeated the question more emphatically, as if I did not know the answer, insisting that I respond. I slowly turned to him and said that I was going to go out and bury one of the peas on my plate that represented his brain and then urinate on it, perhaps it would germinate it.

People say that I was caustic, unprofessional, that it was a simple question. However, this was not a student; he was a PhD, a historian. In 1955, I bought my first home for $8500, no money down, qualifying on a janitor’s salary. Would it be fair, reasonable, to turn around to any working class 22-year old and ask him today whether they owned their own home? If they did not, are they dead beats? You expect a certain amount of critical thought from your peers.

The truth be told, we think and speak in sound bites. We react and most of our questions are meant to justify what we think we know. We cannot criticize the United States but hate the government. We do not vote out of self-interest as much as to justify our biases or dare I call it racism. Workers in Ohio vote Republican because they hate gays and rationalize that they are protecting the sanctity of the family.

Not wanting to offend so-called Arizonans, many of whom have recently migrated to the state, I will not call their attitude toward Mexican and Latino immigrants racist but irrational and contrary to their interests. Any historian will tell you that the three “C’s” that build Arizona were climate, copper and crops. However, they forget to add federal subsidies and Mexican labor. They are the machine that has kept the state going—Mexican labor built copper mining and agriculture—without it Arizona would not be what it is today.

This probably does not mean much to the snowbirds and the other white refugees from other states. However, out of self-interest they should know about the the contributions of the Mexicans.

My cousin Oscar died decade ago—he was a paraplegic—a drunken 23-year old white lady hit my cousin’s car as he was driving home from bingo. Oscar was assimilated. He believed in the American Dream—called himself Ozzie. He was proud of his Mexican heritage and voted Democratic—otherwise he probably would have been a heretic in our family. However, now this athletic man was shunted from nursing home to nursing home—warehoused until he died. In one of my many visits, Oscar told me that the only thing that made life bearable was the Mexican cleaning ladies and aides. Paid often below a minimum wage, they were always smiling and singing. They had that soft edge that is so distinctive to Mexican women.

A lot of the snowbirds and retirees are one step away from these nursing homes—and there are not hoards of white people standing in line for these jobs.

Mexican birth rates have declined from nearly 3 percent annually in the late 1990s, to 2.31 percent in 2010 and the assumption is that fertility will level off and will stabilize at 1.85 children per woman by 2050. Given the proper support and job creation instead of “irrational” U.S. policies, Mexico has the potential of being a job producing country. But if that happened, who would pick the crops in 120 degree heat? Who would take care of the aging American population?

No matter what you want to call what is happening in Arizona, i.e., opportunistic, irrational behavior or racist, it amounts to the same thing. People gotten killed and race relations have been setback 50 years. These “irrational” people are presumably adults who, according to their mythology, have had every opportunity to succeed. Mexicans and other brown skinned people are not taking anything away from them.

There are varying degrees of racism. Certainly, more than anything else, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and John McCain are opportunists—they know better—but they want to get elected at any price. Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne are a combination of opportunist and racist. Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Phoenix is a racist; he knowingly lies and acts out sadism. The Tea Baggers are just part of the mob—they are swayed by the emotions of the moment. The lesser degrees are represented by the historian, who asked me, why haven’t the Mexicans made it?

It took my cousin Oscar a long time to love himself and those ladies who cared for him in his last moments. Oscar is representative of many Mexican Americans and Latinos who go along with the mob.