Cesar Chavez and Douglas Adams
The latest chapter in the Cesar Chavez Blvd debacle finds our hapless city council trying again to please all parties by renaming 4th Avenue Cesar Chavez Blvd. The tale thus far has been filled with good intentions laid waste by bad faith and incompetence. It’s been often told, but here’s a quick recap (and somebody please correct me if I’ve gotten anything wrong here):
A group of Portland Latinos proposes to pay tribute to Cesar Chavez by renaming Interstate Avenue Cesar Chavez Avenue. The mayor, without consulting residents and business owners of that part of town or going through already established protocol for street renaming basically tells the group that he will make it so. Residents and business owners of Interstate tell the Mayor and the city council that a rename might be a major pain in the ass for them. Members of the Latino Network play the race card, calling residents and business owners of North Interstate racist for not agreeing with their plan. The City Council discusses prolonging the procedure to discuss alternatives and get more public input, causing the mayor to walk out of the proceeding. City council then comes up with a compromise - renaming 4th Avenue, home to city hall, to Cesar Chavez Avenue. This angers the Latino Network, who apparently feel that the only suitable way to honor Mr. Chavez is to rename Interstate Avenue. A spokesperson for the Latino Network gets nasty, calling it “one of the whitest days in Portland history”.
So, bad blood and racial epithets notwithstanding, disaster averted, right? Maybe not.
The city council, in all their thoroughness, neglected one minor detail - 4th Avenue runs through Chinatown. Now people in the Chinese community are pissed. And the decision is also silly from a practical standpoint. Let’s say you’re giving an out-of-towner directions from East Portland to Chinatown: “Okay, you wanna go West on Burnside. Cross the bridge (if it’s open) and go across the river. Now, turn right on Cesar Chavez Avenue, and you’ll be right in the heart of Chinatown. Yeah, I said Cesar Chavez Avenue - right in the heart of Chinatown…”
So, the mess continues. And now that the Portland City Council has apparently decided that renaming a street is the best way to honor persons worthy of honor, a movement is afoot to rename 42nd Avenue Douglas Adams Avenue.
Don’t forget to bring a towel.
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You forgot the part about how my white neighbors started saying things like “why don’t *they* just go somewhere else,” (they being the resident Spanish speakers) and shouted down the organizers at neighborhood meetings.
From my perspective, those things preceded anybody “play[ing] the race card.”
That doesn’t mean all of the opposition was racist. But I happen to know first-hand that some of it was.
I’m seriously through arguing about this (as if anybody could logically argue that I *haven’t* personally observed more overt inter-communal hostility in my neighborhood in the last several weeks than in the previous seven years).
The process was botched from the outset, and it’s finally degenerated into a farce. I think we can all agree on that.
My apologies for neglecting to mention the “shouting down” at neighborhood meetings. There was bad faith and racial ugliness on both sides, but I could have been clearer about that in my post.
And we can most definitely on your last sentence.
Let ‘em rename streets and mix it all up - it’ll be straight outta “Blade Runner” then. Then, we’ll be on to hovercars…
This has gotten out of control. I am against street naming in general on the grounds that it creates undue work and expense. It also causes confusion. Why the hell can’t we just leave them alone?
If this continues, I am going to be mad because there is no street named after a gay activist. The Russian community will be mad because no street is named after a Russian activist. The Chinese community will be mad because… The purple people with green spots will be mad because… ad nauseum.
LOL I find this whole thing to be a bit humorous. I hear many in Chinatown now want the city council to consider renaming 4th after Sun Yat-sen. This saga will never end!!
It is stupid. Cesar may be a legendary person but we do not need a street named after him.
Why is that they always choose the more lower income areas that have more crime in them to name streets after people like Cesar and MLK?
I would love to see the morons on the city council and a few hispanics try to rename a street in the West Hills.
Why don’t they focus on something useful like fixing the illegal alien problem and booting them out?
That’s what I’m talking about.
There was Jack Bog’s idea to name
a street in the west hills after Malcolm X
Our Chavez Blvd. in Los Angeles goes thru Chinatown. Nobody gets confused.
Just remember when you walk down “42″ you’ll need 6 pints and peanuts. ;-)