Navy ship to retain San Jose activist Cesar Chavez’s name

The name of San Jose activist Cesar Chavez will stay on a U.S. Navy ship, after a local lawmaker pushed the federal government to continue honoring his name and legacy.

An Aug. 1 letter from U.S. Secretary of the Navy John Phelan confirmed the federal government will not rename the USNS Cesar Chavez, a ship recognizing the historic figure. The letter is in response to a call from Reps. Sam Liccardo and Gil Cisneros last month to preserve the ship’s name in recognition of Chavez as a veteran and civil and labor rights movement leader. The letter said the future naming of all ships and pre-commissioning units in the ship-building pipeline “will reflect the Commander-in-Chief’s and (Secretary of Defense’s) priorities, our Nation’s history and the warrior ethos.”

Liccardo said the name’s preservation provides some relief against the presidential administration’s actions, adding the decision could be an appeal to Latino voters President Donald Trump lost support from due to recent immigration raids and deportations. Liccardo said Chavez, who lived in San Jose, is a local hero whose name deserves to be honored. Chavez is known for organizing the country’s first successful farmworkers union, now known as the United Farm Workers, in the early 1960s. He also led strikes and protests in the Central Valley, along with national boycotts.

“It’s important for the community and for a nation that holds Cesar Chavez as an aspirational symbol for what we can become — that Chavez, in his fight, reflected the victory of our better angels against more sinister forces,” Liccardo told San José Spotlight.

The U.S. Navy named the ship after Chavez in 2011, to the delight of thousands of Latino naval shipyard workers. Before Chavez was a local activist, he enlisted in the Navy at 19 and served from 1946 to 1948 in a segregated unit in the Western Pacific.

Keeping the ship’s name means a lot to Andres Chavez, Cesar Chavez’s grandson and executive director of the National Chavez Center. He wants the honor given to his grandfather to extend to other American heroes, especially with the federal government already renaming other ships. The federal government recently renamed the USNS Harvey Milk, named after the first openly gay elected politician in California. Milk served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors until he was assassinated in November 1978.

Andres Chavez said the ship is one of the ways Cesar Chavez’s legacy lives on outside the family.

“I hope that this means that we can (honor) folks from all backgrounds who’ve made significant contributions, that we’re not looking at just folks that fit a certain political ideology but that have really worked on behalf of the American people and have worked on behalf of ensuring that all those in this country are treated with fairness and equal opportunity,” he told San José Spotlight.

Jeffrey Rosales, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan a couple years after 9/11, plans to continue advocating for Latino veterans as someone involved in the American Latino Veterans Association. He said Chavez’s work benefited braceros like his family, Mexican laborers who were allowed into the country temporarily for seasonal agricultural work.

Rosales said while the decision not to rename the ship is a small victory, there’s still work to be done.

“I’m glad that we have now stood our ground and let them know that our history will not be erased,” he told San José Spotlight. “But I don’t think we should let our (foot) off the gas.”