My Dear Family and Friends:

Paul and I are planning to send a letter to the editor that objects to efforts to stall the renaming of Durango St. to Cesar E.Chavez Blvd. I am emailing you my written thoughts and am asking that you too write your own letter to the editor. Paul and I would like to hear your ideas on what action we could take to demonstrate our support for the renaming of Durango St. to
Cesar Chavez Blvd. Please let us know your ideas on how we might go forward together on this issue. Below are my thoughts:

It breaks my heart and soul to see how the four non-Latino city council members chose to use pretty if not veiled excuses to so easily and unjustly attempt to stop the re-naming of Durango St to Cesar Chavez Blvd.

Cesar Chavez was an American labor leader and the pre-eminent non-violent voice for social change in our nation for over 50 years. He was an American role model for all God-fearing and hard working peoples, particularly the migrants and the working poor who do back-breaking work every day to put vegetables and other goods on American tables.

Rather than object to the kinds of economic and social abuses Chavez fought so hard against, the four non-Hispanic city council members chose to show their disrespect not just Cesar Chavez's legacy but the Latino community in general. We cannot and won't allow others to see and treat Hispanics as second class citizen, or view their contributions to our nation and our community as unimportant? And, we will come together, Black, Brown and White to say--"ya basta"--enough" with this vieled hypocracy disguised as reasonableness.

We will we fight for this cause and causes like it and we will stand together to stop any effort which seeks to roll back the clock on finally naming a prominent street in honor of Cesar Chavez. Can anyone really believe that these same tactics could have been used against efforts to rename street in honor of our beloved brother Martin Luther King some years back and get away with it? We have seen these kinds of tactics and excuses used in other communities all too often in the past and we refuse to roll back the clock on this one issue!

Beyond, their vieled excusess, why was it that the four non-Latinos on council were the only ones voting against this name change? Their vote, it turns out, was not so much against Cesar Chavez's legacy as it was a vote against San Antonio's Hispanic community in general.

It is sad, it is a disgrace in deed, that the only objectors to renaming Durango St in honor of Cesar Chavez were the four non-Hispanic council members. All this in 20011. Is it that the four non-Hispanic council members' vote against this pro-community proposal speaks volume about how little they respect San Antonio Hispanics?

Bigotry is alive and well on San Antonio's City Council! These four council members
may very well succeed in debunking this effort this time. But the future is not on their
side, it does not hold well for their brand of anti-community politics. Open-minded
San Antonians will not allow the clock to be rolled back on this issue!

God Bless you, margie vasquez-ruiz

Judge Blocks Naming San Antonio Street For Cesar Chavez
by Jim Forsyth | 5/24/2011

A judge on Monday blocked the city of San Antonio from renaming a street after the late labor activist Cesar Chavez.

The temporary restraining order from State District Judge Antonia Arteaga came just days after the City Council voted along ethnic lines to approve the name change.

The proposal to rename Durango Street, one of the city's main streets, has divided a city where 61 percent of residents are Hispanic.

"It is very important that we protect the integrity of our history, and that includes objecting to changing street names," said Bill Oliver, who represents the San Antonio Conservation Society, which sued to oppose the name change.

But Jaime Martinez, a longtime San Antonio labor leader and a former associate of Chavez, who died in 1993, disagreed.

"We've been waiting for fifteen years to get the renaming of a street, a major street, for Cesar Chavez," Martinez said. "There are over 200 streets in the last 10 years that had their names changed, and there was no problem."

Chavez, a founder of the National Farm Workers Union, was best known for calling on Americans to boycott buying grapes to press his demand for higher wages and better working conditions for migrant workers. Many of the workers were undocumented immigrants who worked the California produce fields.

Chavez was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in recognition of his civil rights and labor activism.

The seven Hispanic members of San Antonio City Council all voted in favor of the name change last week, while the two Anglos, the one African-American and the one Asian-American member voted no.

Durango Street was named after the Mexican city and state of Durango as part of an 1880s housing development that catered to immigrants from Mexico.

Mayor Julian Castro, who voted in favor of the name change, is vowing to try to overcome the unexpected divisions the issue has created.

"We look forward to hearing everybody's comments," Castro said. "As we consider big issues for the city, we will continue to look out for folks."

A hearing on the name change is set for June 3, when Oliver says the Conservation Society will seek to make Monday's temporary injunction permanent.

Martinez, who was shot down when he proposed naming another street for Chavez, said he is prepared to continue to push for San Antonio to honor the labor leader's legacy.

"We're going to fight this," he said on Monday. "This is the wrong decision for our city."

(Editing by Corrie MacLaggan and Greg McCune)

--
-Alberto Ruiz
Writer4Life.com
2012 J.D. Candidate

written to justify the disenfranchisement of Latinos, despite being American citizens and veterans.