Joseph B. Frazier, AP, July 8, 2009
The City Council voted Wednesday to rename 39th Avenue as Cesar Chavez Boulevard after a two-year debate that brought charges of racism and government heavy-handedness, and groans from residents who wanted the late Hispanic labor leader honored elsewhere.
There are about 650 homes and many small businesses along the street that runs seven miles through areas ranging from blue-collar neighborhoods to the busy Hollywood district and the posh Laurelhurst area, none heavily Hispanic.
A city survey showed 39th Avenue residents who responded to a poll opposed the renaming 694-91.
Wednesday’s 5-0 council vote may leave bruises on largely white Portland, but the tone was less anti-immigrant than when a 2007 attempt to rename multiethnic and blue-collar Interstate Avenue was scrapped. Property owners there said, among less polite things, that it would cost them heavily to change stationery, advertising and more. A poll there turned up opposition roughly equal to the dissent along 39th.
But Hispanics are easily Portland’s fastest-growing minority, and nothing had been named after their heroes until now. About 25 other cities have streets named after Chavez, and eight states mark his birthday as a holiday.
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The city planning commission had voted 7-1 in favor of renaming 39th Avenue. “We have to make decisions that will hurt people emotionally,” commissioner Lai-Lani Ovalles said at the time.
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In 1989, Portland renamed Union Avenue after Martin Luther King Jr. after a racially tinged debate. It remains Union Avenue today in some more traditional minds.
More recently and with less fuss, the city renamed a street Rosa Parks Parkway.
The attempt to rename Interstate Avenue, championed by former Mayor Tom Potter, ran into other trouble when it end-ran the process for doing so.
To launch the process, Portland now requires the signatures of 75 percent of the affected residents, which would have been at least difficult on 39th Avenue, or signatures of 2,500 residents citywide, rarely a problem in a town plump with activists.
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Original article
(Posted on July 13, 2009)
City of Portland [Oregon] Bureau of Planning and Sustainabilty
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Lai-Lani Ovalles joined the Planning Commission in July 2008. She works with the Native American Youth and Family Center as the Indigenous Organizing Coordinator. She coordinates Native professional development, leadership initiatives and networking events, as well as the Native Leaders Roundtable. Lai-Lani believes in the power of culture, creativity and indigenous knowledge to guide in the creation of a just and peaceful world.
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Lai-Lani Ovalles.
Original article
Comments
This is great to hear! Thank you sister Ovalles for your efforts!
Caesar Chavez worked in California. American citziens and long time Oregonians need to oust the people in government and on these idiotic commitees who are “hurting you” emotionally. Don’t just sit there like stupid Californians and take it all!!!
“We have to make decisions that will hurt people emotionally.” And also hurt them financially. Here in Louisville KY a minority councilwomen suggested that we rename a highway after MLK just in the city limits. Of course, all our cowardly council members then agreed. The news never mentioned how much the new signs, with the new name, cost us but I wish it all came from the councils personal pockets.
During the very public debate in Portland, this Lai-Lanni Ovalles was asked if they would be satisfy to simply rename one of the bridges in Portland after Ceasar Chavez. She answered that this may be a good idea to pursue after they finish with renaming the street after Chavez.
Chavez fought for the right of farm workers who came as guest workers, not illegals who interlope in American business. I think he is rolling in his grave.
Portland and Oregon’s problem is that they want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to be an exclusive wonderland with all the services they require, but they don’t want to pay taxes for them. They want to appear to be for progressive ideals of justice and such, but wish it to be realized in someone else’s backyard - or literally, street.
A city survey showed 39th Avenue residents who responded to a poll opposed the renaming 694-91. AND THIS “Hispanics are easily Portland’s fastest-growing minority
How did the citizens of Ore let this slip past?? And further clear evidence that politicians don’t GAS about what we voters think. I hope voters remember this come elections, I know I will. Weapons are our friends.
“we have to make decisions that will hurt people emotionally,” commissioner Lai-Lani Ovalles said at the time.
And that is because, why??
Just another example that majority rule is a joke, that the peoples’ will means absolutely nothing in this country. Money and corruption rules - and nowadays rules flagrantly.
“She works with the Native American Youth and Family Center as the Indigenous Organizing Coordinator.”
That they even have such a racist position speaks volumes about how far Portland has sunk into the abysmal quagmire of political correctness.
Portland has a bufget shortfall this year, which is going to be FAR worse in 2010 and the year after.
Here’s hoping they go bankrupt paying out good money for useless, contentious positions that should never have been created in the first place.
I wonder if the restless natives will riot when there’s no more money to pay them to keep quiet?
Miss Ovalles neglected to mention that it’s only OK to hurt people emotionally when they are WHITE.
This is only the beginning. And once again, White America takes it lying down like the collective cowards we have become.
What? Che Guevera not good enough for you? Actually it should be named Hernado Cortez street.
39th Avenue cuts right through one of the most well-off parts of town here in Portland. Now they’re going to live on “Cesar Chavez Blvd”? Could there be a name more likely to decimate property value than Cesar Chavez Blvd? Living on Cesar Chavez Blvd is an “epic FAIL.” People go to college and bust their humps to avoid living at such an address.
Politicians and corporations are amoral, they just go where the votes and the money are. Spaniards are the fastest growing demographic? Well then press “1” for spanish and watch their butts get kissed. Politician and corporations don’t lead - they follow.
Portland is the epitome of a city that is so white it keeps giving and giving and giving. One day the golden goose that makes Portland so great is going to end up on the wrong end of the 49/51 divide between who’s the old boss and who’s the new jefe…
But Hispanics are easily Portland’s fastest-growing minority, and nothing had been named after their heroes until now. About 25 other cities have streets named after Chavez, and eight states mark his birthday as a holiday.
More minority-pandering! In this case, call it Hispandering.
First, make a left at MS-13 Drive, then continue on Pablo Escobar Freeway, then head into Portland on the Manuel Noriega Tollway.
What could be easier.
It is pretty much a proven fact that streets named MLK or Rosa Parks are going to be nearly poisonous to businesses. Both of these names have an unconsious connotation of being in high crime area and customers will turn away and go to a business in a neighborhood that they feel is safer. It may or may not be statistically true that crime is higher in such neighborhoods but with customers perception is everything, who wants to get robbed, raped or otherwise attacked when going to a business? I do not know if Cesar Chavez has the same connotation but this whole thing smacks of some sort of a shakedown. First you get businesses to pay big money changing ads in the yellowpages, letter heads and signage and then the propriators have to worry about losing business and then going out of business. After all of the White business owners are run out of town then the immigrant and Black businesses subsidised by government grants can move in and take over.
Gresham is a Portland suburb that is brimming with Hispanics. They should have renamed 181st Ave for Chavez. It runs right through Gresham, and the local residents would no doubt have been thrilled to pieces.
They should just rename all the streets after famous minorities to appease all and any future minorities that may come to the city. How about George Washingtion Carver Blvd or Sitting Bull Dr? Maybe Ghengis Khan Ave or Saladin Parkway? There’s plenty of good names out there to for Portland to remake it’s city into a multi-cultural mecca. Besides if they refuse, then we can just call them racist and they’ll roll over.
Just another way to denigrate the heritage of freedom and democracy in this country.
many of these white liberals believe in ‘diversity’ as long as it happens somewhere else; bring in illegal aliens and give them amnesty but stay away from my neighborhood, in parts of the West Los Angeles area they believe in ‘diversity’ so much they allow illegals to hang out at the local warehouses, but as long as they stay away from their beautiful million dollar homes; hypocrites all of them.
Cesar Chavez was not entirely stupid. He was organizing the mostly Mexican fruit and vegetable pickers as the United Farm Workers labor union. He was totally opposed to illegal aliens crossing the border and upsetting the labor market.
What is the City of Portland going to do when they find out that Cesar Chavez was more totally opposed to illegal aliens than your garden variety white “racist”?
It is very appropriate that the Cesar Chavez Boulevard includes very few Hispanics….but everyone will get a wide grin when they find out who the “hispanic hero” really is.
2 — Bobby wrote at 6:53 PM on July 13:
“Caesar Chavez worked in California. American citziens and long time Oregonians need to oust the people in government and on these idiotic commitees who are “hurting you” emotionally. Don’t just sit there like stupid Californians and take it all!!!”
> Let me tell you about “Stupid Californians.” We passed two billed by vote in 1989 that would have prevented free health care or school admission to illegals. What happened? La Raza and MECHA sued and overturned the will of the people. People like me had our businesses and homes broken into and ruined. Our kids got beat up and raped at the schools. White flight from California began after that. But Oregon, Washington and in fact just about every state I can think of are pursuing policies, now backed up by a federally funded La Raza and others - that will make this happen even faster in those states. Just as in California a few elected and NON-ELECTED people make decisions that lead to streets being renamed and neighborhoods being taken over, while federally funded housing policies that give preferrence to immigrants help out too.
We tried to prevent all this in California, but we got no help from Whites in other states either. You guys were too busy hunting and fishing or watching football and drinking beer - AND critizing (out of jealousy) California. Now it is lost and you are next. GEt a clue and support Whites wherever they are!
Whitplight#20, I am from California and have attended city council meetings, voted on Prop. 187, and in general never cooperated,as far as I could, with the illegal alien invasion. You are absolutley right that most Californians were too busy doing the things you mentioned to be concerned about the fate of the state of California. But don’t worry, the same will happen with other states because if there is one thing most citizens can be relied upon to do, it’s take flight,take off. Then when they land in another state, they write their worthless opinions, as to why they left such and such a place, they used to call HOME.
I would think that by now, most Americans are tired of advice from the essentially COWARDS among us, those Eurpean Americans who won’t even stand up for the places they called home and built up with their hard earned taxes, but instead flee to another State, where they are going to be cowards all over again. That’s my wholehearted opinion. If Americans would throw away a jewel like the State of California,which was involved in the most fantastic progress of the 20th Century, while being a virtual paradise as far as climate, scenery, open spaces, and other advantages, than why would anyone expect them to be different in any other state they move to?
I live in Portland. This particular renaming was a hassle. First they wanted to rename Interstate, a major convenient thoroughfare, after Chavez. There was enough resistance to prevent it. Then they tried to pawn that name off on some other well known major streets like Broadway. There has been a lot of resistance to renaming any well known street after Chavez. finally they pushed it through on 39th. Caesar Chavez Bl will be just as clumsy a rename as Martin Luther King Bl, which everyone abbreviates as MLK Bl. It’s rediculous to make street names so cumbersome.
Lai-Lani Ovalles.