Posted on 02/13/2004 8:32:36 AM PST by chance33_98
Advocates push for Cesar Chavez school
EUGENE, Ore. (AP) - A coalition of Hispanic advocates is gaining support in its effort to name a new elementary school in honor of Cesar Chavez, the labor union organizer who led successful boycotts in support of migrant farm workers in the 1970s.
The name is one of five under consideration for the building under construction next to Ida Patterson Elementary School on the city's south side. The Eugene School Board will hear from the public next Wednesday before naming the school in March.
Jim Garcia, diversity coordinator at Lane Community College, said he's never seen local Hispanics energized around an issue as much as this one.
He said the momentum stems from the explosive growth of Hispanic in Eugene and the widely held perception among Hispanics that the public schools have failed to adequately respond to their needs.
"People are missing the point if they think this is a Latino issue," said Garcia, who has lived in the Eugene area for 25 years. "This is an American issue, unless we're coming from the perspective that only whites are Americans. This is a way to say that brown Americans are Americans, too."
The city's renaming of a boulevard in honor of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. last year is also a factor.
"That was a powerful statement acknowledging that African Americans are here and a part of our community," said Jose Luis Alonso, a Eugene educator and community activist. "I believe the same holds true by naming a school after such a wonderful American hero and leader as Cesar Chavez."
A citizen committee considering names for the elementary school didn't add Cesar Chavez to the list until numerous supporters spoke in favor at a meeting last month.
The failure to initially consider Chavez in the final names and a guideline suggesting that the committee choose a name that's easy to pronounce raised red flags among some Hispanic leaders.
"Criteria like that already suggests a bias," Garcia said.
District spokesman Kelly McIver, who helped guide the naming committee process, said that criterion isn't aimed at names requiring a culturally preferred way of pronunciation.
Principals at the elementary schools that will feed into the new school have said that "Blue Heron" appears to be the favorite among their students. In one third-grade classroom at Westmoreland Elementary, Blue Heron won in a landslide with nary a vote for Chavez.
The other three names are "Chinook," "Discovery" and "Rosa Parks" the latter in honor of the black woman who helped spearhead the civil rights movement when she refused to take a seat in the back of a bus.
Committee members said they liked the Rosa Parks name in part because, after the closure of Ida Patterson, no school in the district will be named for a woman.
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