Neither Erase Nor Enshrine: Toward a Collective Memory Beyond César Chávez, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D., April 9, 2026

Neither Erase Nor Enshrine: Toward a Collective Memory Beyond César Chávez

by 

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.
April 9, 2026

I offer this reflection with care—and with urgency. I have spent a great deal of time reflecting on this question—not in the abstract, but as a consequence of direct involvement. 

I served on the committee that met regularly to plan and ultimately establish the César Chávez statue that now stands prominently on the West Mall at the University of Texas at Austin. That process was deeply intentional: it was about recognition, visibility, and affirming a history too often pushed to the margins of public memory.

Today, that work is being revisited more broadly. Across cities and campuses, communities—especially within Mexican American and farmworker communities—are debating whether to remove street names, rename schools, and alter murals tied to César Chávez. 

While, to my knowledge, there is no current effort at the University of Texas at Austin to remove the Chávez statue, it is important to anticipate such debates and invite reflection on its presence and meaning within our own campus landscape.

César Chavez statue—UT-Austin

The terms of the debate are stark: preserve or erase, honor or condemn.

But this binary is not only intellectually insufficient—it is politically dangerous.

It flattens complexity at precisely the moment when complexity is most needed. And it unfolds within a broader context in which the machinery of erasure is already accelerating—across public education, libraries, and curriculum. In such a moment, we must be especially vigilant about what—and whose—histories are made to disappear.

The question before us is not simply what to do with monuments to César Chávez. The deeper question is who controls memory—and to what end. Because if we are not careful, the debate over Chávez will not remain about Chávez. 

It will become yet another opening through which the broader history of the Chicana and Chicano movement—and the farmworker struggle in particular—can be quietly, systematically erased.

We are living in the midst of an aggressive political project—aligned with Christian nationalist and right-wing agendas—that seeks to narrow what can be taught, remembered, and valued. From book bans to curricular restrictions to the policing of “controversial topics,” we are witnessing an effort not just to contest history, but to discipline it.

In this context, calls to simply “remove” Chávez risk being folded into a broader logic of disappearance—one that does not stop at individuals, but extends to movements, communities, and entire histories and epistemologies.

And yet, let us be equally clear: uncritical celebration is untenable.

To enshrine Chávez as beyond critique is to betray the very movement he helped lead. It replaces history with mythology. It silences those within the struggle—particularly women and rank-and-file workers—whose experiences complicate the narrative. It insulates power from accountability under the guise of reverence.

If we are serious about justice, then we must be equally serious about truth.

History has never required perfection to warrant remembrance. Figures such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson—both enslavers—remain central to the national narrative, not because they were without contradiction, but because their historical significance is institutionally secured. Their legacies have not been erased; rather, they have been increasingly contextualized.

But Chávez’s legacy does not occupy the same protected terrain.

Unlike Washington or Jefferson, the history of the farmworker movement remains fragile—its presence in curriculum, public memory, and institutional recognition still contested. To collapse that movement into Chávez—and then to dismantle Chávez without preserving the movement—is to risk losing the very history that made possible labor rights, dignity, and collective struggle for generations of Mexican American and immigrant workers.

The farmworker movement was never the work of one man.

It was built through the labor and leadership of countless individuals—many of them women, undocumented workers, and community organizers whose names remain far less known, but whose contributions were indispensable. To engage Chávez critically should not narrow our historical lens; it should widen it.

And this is where the current debate must evolve. The choice is not between erasure and enshrinement. It is between a politics of disappearance and a politics of transformation.

In this moment, I do not support removing the Chávez statue.

Not because it is beyond critique—but because the conditions into which it would be removed are already structured by erasure. To take it down now, without a clear and collectively grounded plan for what replaces it, risks creating a vacuum into which the broader history of the farmworker movement may also vanish.

But neither should the statue remain as it is—unquestioned, uncontextualized, and singular.

Instead, we should treat this as a transitional moment.

We should keep the statue in place until we are prepared to replace it with a representation that more fully and accurately reflects the collective nature of the farmworker movement itself. 

There are exquisite representations to choose from. 

That future representation might take the form of a broader memorial—one that honors the movement as a whole, rather than centering a single figure. It could include the iconic imagery of the United Farm Workers, such as the Aztec eagle, a symbol of collective struggle, resilience, and self-determination.

Such a shift would not erase Chávez. It would situate him—properly—within a larger history.

It would move us away from hero worship and toward collective memory. Away from individualization and toward movement-building. Away from static commemoration and toward living history.

This is the work of recontextualization—not erasure.

It requires community engagement, especially with farmworker communities themselves. It requires curricular and institutional commitments to Ethnic Studies and labor history—fields that are themselves under threat. And it requires political clarity about the moment we are in.

This decision does not occur on neutral ground.

In another time, removal might function as accountability. But in this moment—when the state is already engaged in a broader project of historical narrowing—we must ask: What will be lost? And who benefits from that loss?

Rejecting erasure is not the same as defending harm. It is a refusal to allow critique to be weaponized against communities whose histories are already precarious.

The task before us is harder than choosing sides.

It requires us to hold contradiction—to recognize that Chávez can be both consequential and flawed, that movements are always larger than their most visible leaders, and that public memory is not fixed, but contested terrain.

But this is precisely the work of education.

If we do this right, the result is not silence, nor mythology, but a richer and more democratic public memory—one that tells the truth, honors collective struggle, and resists the forces that would prefer we forget.

Because the greatest danger is not that we will remember Chávez imperfectly.

It is that we will stop remembering the movement at all.

References

Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association. (n.d.). George Washington and slavery. https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/george-washington-and-slavery

Thomas Jefferson Foundation. (n.d.). Slavery at Monticello. https://www.monticello.org/slavery/introduction

"You can't rewrite history that is staring you in the face" Take it from the descendants of Thomas Jefferson himself.

Powerful statement. No, one cannot rewrite a history experienced in the flesh and that stares at you daily in the face. Take it from the descendants of Thomas Jefferson himself. They are living legacies to our nation's past. Clearly though, our future can be hopeful, charting a new and different path.

And that's exactly what Critical Race Theory, a legitimate research approach, offers. Once we see that we are all not only human, but that others—regardless of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or creed—are extensions of ourselves, can we then make our world anew.

-Angela Valenzuela

You can't rewrite history that is staring you in the face:The folly of the right's obsession with the 1619 Project

By Lucian K. Truscott IV | May 21, 2021· 

"You are looking at a photograph of me and my cousin Shannon Lanier. It’s a photograph that illustrates why the 1619 Project is such a white supremacist’s nightmare, teaching that racism and slavery played a major role in the founding of this nation. It’s a photograph of the truth exposed, at least in part, by critical race theory, an academic discipline that teaches the same thing. It is not only a photograph, it is a fact. It is history staring you in the face, history in flesh and blood, history that cannot be rewritten, cannot be buried, cannot be denied, because we are alive to tell it.

That’s Thomas Jefferson’s grave we’re standing on. We are 6th great grandsons of Thomas Jefferson, the nation’s third president long idolized as a founding father of the United States. Shannon is descended from Jefferson’s 36 year relationship – if relations between an enslaved person and a slave owner can be called that – with Sally Hemings, who is his 6th great grandmother. I am descended from Jefferson’s relationship with his wife Martha, who is my 6th great grandmother.

Shannon’s great grandmother was enslaved by my 6th great grandfather. We are tied together not only by blood but by the stain of slavery on our family and our country. We are cousins, and we are also blood brothers. We carry in our souls the legacy of the slavery that brought our great grandparents together. We are descendants of slavery. It lives within us.

In that way, we are like tens of millions of other Americans who also carry the legacy of slavery within them, as descendants of slaves and slave owners. It’s a legacy that has long been put away and hidden, living only in the shadows.

Shannon and I helped bring it into the light 22 years ago when I invited several dozen of my cousins in the Sally Hemings family to be my guests at the annual family reunion of the white descendants of Jefferson who belong to the Monticello Association. We attended the annual cocktail party on the west lawn of Monticello. We mixed together as we wandered freely through both the public and private spaces of Jefferson’s house. We gave interviews to dozens and dozens of members of the media who were there from all over the world to cover the first time that descendants of a slave had been invited to a social occasion at the home of the man who owned their ancestor – in this case, Sally Hemings.

It was quite a scene. My white cousins in the Monticello Association were not happy. Their cousins from the Sally Hemings side of the family had never been invited to the family reunion before. In fact, the descendants of Sally Hemings were not members of the family association, which identifies itself as descendants of Jefferson. Over the next few years, the Monticello Association would consider whether to invite our cousins to join our membership.

In 2002, the members of the Monticello Association voted against admitting our Hemings cousins as members. The vote was 96 to 6. Five of those voting yes were Truscotts – me and my brother and three sisters.

I have a very strong memory of a confrontation I had with one of the employees at Monticello, a docent who led visitors on tours of the house. He approached me at the reunion red-faced and stopped within a foot of me and said, “You have ruined the whole thing.”

“What have I ruined?” I asked him. “How?”

“You don’t know what you’ve done. You have brought disgrace on a great man. It’s never going to be the same after this.”

The next morning, I appeared with Michelle Cooley, one of my Hemings cousins, on the Today Show. Shannon and Michelle and I gave interviews to television crews from places like Bangkok and Paris and Moscow. And that afternoon, the death threats started. They came by email and by phone at first. Later, they would come in the mail to my home in Los Angeles, more than a hundred them.

One I remember very, very well because somehow this man had gotten my phone number, and he called me in the middle of the night. He threatened me, told me he knew where I was staying in Charlottesville and where I lived in California. When his threats had finally sputtered to a stop, I asked him why, and it led to a conversation that lasted about five minutes. He called me a traitor to my race and several other things involving the “N-word.”

I asked him why he felt so strongly the way he did. He told me I was trying to change the way things had always been, that Black people were inferior, that they didn’t deserve to be treated the same way as whites. I asked him if he thought Black people should have the right to vote. He said, of course not. They weren’t real Americans. He said something like, “you don’t know it yet, but one day we’ll get things back to the way they used to be, before n-----s had rights and everything went to hell in this country.”

Today on its front page, the New York Times informs us that the state of Texas is entertaining “a flurry” of laws that would “reframe Texas history lessons and play down references to slavery and anti-Mexican discrimination that are part of the state’s founding.” The states of Idaho, Louisiana, New Hampshire, and Tennessee are all considering bills that would ban teaching about slavery and segregation and ban using the 1619 Project in state school curriculums. One Texas bill would “promote patriotic education” by omitting the introduction of slavery when Texas achieved independence from Mexico in 1836. Another bill would ban exhibits at the Alamo that show major figures in the Texas Revolution were slave owners. Another bill would constrain teachers from discussing how racism determined the legal system in Texas. The bills do not address how to teach about the Texas state constitution which legalized slavery the day it was passed, but “playing down” references to slavery isn’t going to help.

Earlier this week, the University of North Carolina refused tenure to Nikole Hannah-Jones, last year’s recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for commentary for her role in creating the 1619 Project. She had been hired by the university’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media to be Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism, a position which in the past had come with tenure. Stories in the Times, The Hill, the Charlotte Observer and elsewhere attributed the refusal of tenure to “a backlash among conservatives” on the UNC Board of Governors. Ms Hannah-Jones accepted a five year contract as a professor with an “option” for tenure review on completion of the contract.

This kind of stuff has been going on for a long time and it’s not stopping. But it is folly. They can pass all the laws they want, but they’re not going to erase the fact that slaves built Monticello, slaves built the United States Capitol, slaves built the White House, and slaves built practically every capitol building in every southern state, not to mention most of the county courthouses throughout the south. They can ban the 1619 Project from public schools, but they cannot hide from what it says about slavery being a part of the founding of this country.

Look at Shannon Lanier. He knows who he is. No law in Texas or Tennessee or Louisiana or anywhere else can change the fact that when tourists visit Monticello today, they are taken through the room where Shannon’s 6th great grandmother lived and where she gave birth to Madison Hemings, Shannon’s 5th great grandfather, and they are told about Thomas Jefferson’s other children with Sally Hemings, and they are shown the furniture that Sally’s brother John built that Thomas Jefferson designed, and they are told about the lives of Jefferson’s slaves and how they made his life as one of the “founders” possible.

History is alive in us. It flows through Shannon’s and my veins. It is in the DNA of my children and Shannon’s children. History lives in who we are and how we live our lives. They can tell all the lies they want, and they can ban all the books and teaching materials they want, but they can’t ban us. We are the legacy of our nation’s tainted past in flesh and blood, and we are evidence that racism and white supremacy and slavery may be in our past, but we are the future."

Johns Hopkins University adjunct professor, Dr. Michele Cooley-Strickland, and descendant of Thomas Jefferson, calls for reasoned, balanced dialogue on the founding of this country such as what occurs in history or Ethnic Studies courses mischaracterized today as "wokeness" or indoctrination.

According to Dr. Cooley-Strickland, reasoned dialogue would recognize Jefferson's "'tremendous contributions in America's history' as well as the adverse impact he had on an entire race of people." We should all want to know this history and knowing the founders' flaws makes it more interesting because they become more human and less iconic and thusly, unassailable.

Since, to date, republicans have offered no evidence that Critical Race Theory is actually getting taught in our K-12 schools, we must therefore conclude that the attack is on the teaching of these truths of history and perspectives like CRT—among others—that are so essential to the expansion of our collective awareness and compassion, as well as the healing of our divided nation.

Especially for the educated class, don't we all want to know this history in its complexity? Don't we all want our children and grandchildren to know such things? Why would we not seek to deepen our understanding of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation if it promises to answer important questions that bewilder not just children, but also adolescents and adults? 

Do you not know that saying "no" to the study of race and ethnicity in the current political context is the same as saying "no" to the study of gender and sexual orientation?

I ask these questions in light of the recent, anti-CRT tumult by a divided Eanes Independent School District located adjacent to Austin who parents are among the most highly educated in the state. Austin American-Statesman journalists, Luz Moreno-Lozano, but especially Sarah Asch, are is covering this right now, as follows:

Eanes school board hires DEI consultant Mark Gooden back for a second year

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts at the heart of fraught Eanes school board election

Eanes board wraps summit with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion set as a priority

Eanes hires consultant to address racism, social justice

I hope that Eanes parents listened last week to the words of General Mark A. Milley who testified in Congress who said that he wants, as a white man, to learn about Critical Race Theory. He extolled the value and virtues of being widely read and informed. Why aren't Eanes parents similarly disposed?

Heck, if the truth of American history is good enough for the U.S. military, it should be good enough for us all.

-Angela Valenzuela

Jefferson Was 'Tremendously Flawed' but Should Inspire Change, Descendant Says

Jenni Fink June 30, 2020 | Newsweek

Instead of letting President Thomas Jefferson's record on race diminish his contributions to America, Michele Cooley-Strickland said people should use her ancestor's imperfections as an inspiration that they can change the country as well.

Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, was an integral part in the founding of America, but his blighted past has called his legacy into question. Students at the University of Virginia, a school he founded, pushed for years to remove him from his pedestal, and in the wake of George Floyd's death in police custody, protesters toppled a statue in Portland, Oregon, while New York City Council members want Mayor Bill de Blasio to remove a statue from City Hall.

Cooley-Strickland, who can trace her lineage back seven generations to Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings, told Newsweek those who make significant contributions to history are not uncomplicated. Therefore, it's up to us to determine the balance of their contribution and decide if it's worthy of celebration.

"It's an assessment in total," Cooley-Strickland said. "So yes, there were significant detractors of Jefferson, but weighing each of those factors in the plus and minus column, the plus column is the larger of the two."

Jefferson's life is marked by contradictions in what he practiced and what he preached. He penned the famous words "All men are created equal," but owned more than 600 slaves. In Notes on the State of Virginia, he wrote about the injustice of racial superiority and the emancipation of slaves but also expressed racist views on what he saw as Black people's' inferior abilities.

Some consider Jefferson ownership of slaves as reason enough to knock him off his pedestal, as it's seen as a symbol of the oppression and degradation of millions of people. But Cooley-Strickland encourages people to use Jefferson's imperfections as an inspiration. Jefferson, she said, worked tirelessly to make America a better place and can be an example that shows all of us have the ability to make more of the world we live in.

"This man who is tremendously flawed helped found our nation," she said. "That should be the inspiration to you to think about what you can do even with your flaws, because none of us are perfect."

A portrait of Thomas Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale, circa 1805. Michele Cooley-Strickland, who can trace her lineage to Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings, says his imperfections should inspire people to try to change the country despite their own flaws.GETTY/NATIONAL ARCHIVES

Cooley-Strickland, a project scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University, acknowledged the conflict surrounding Jefferson's legacy, both because he owned slaves, which she said she recognized was not unusual in his era, and because he had the power to make more changes than he did. But, she said, when statues are presented in a balanced way, they can start a dialogue that recognizes Jefferson's "tremendous contributions in America's history" as well as the adverse impact he had on an entire race of people.

Being able to view Jefferson through the necessary complex lens requires education. America, she said, likes things "clean and easy," and the country has approached slavery from the point of view of "that was then, this is now, let's move on." But totally overlooking a person's faults prevents the country from growing. As a clinical psychologist, Cooley-Strickland said, there's no "true moving on" if people don't process the trauma and pain and the cascading results of it.

"There needs to be the recognition that our country treated a whole people egregiously, and there needs to be a recognition and a reparation of the wounds that continue," she said. "When you don't give the weight that each perspective is owed, there's an imbalance that prohibits true growth from that experience."

Jefferson isn't the only historical figure whose place is now being questioned. At least 15 statues and monuments honoring Confederacy figures were taken down in 2020, the Army will rename bases honoring Confederate heroes, and the Mississippi Legislature passed a bill to remove the Confederate emblem from the state flag.