[From the Pub Page of the July Street Edition] Usually I use this space to talk about North and Northeast Portland. This month I had every intention of being brief ... and then came Chavez. Last year the City Council said it would name a street after Cesar Chavez. On July 7 the council is supposed to vote on whether or not to rename 39th Avenue after Cesar Chavez.  
 

There is a difference between my opinions, which are printed here with my name attached, and Sentinel editorials, which require the support of the staff/editorial board. While The Sentinel supported the renaming of Portland Boulevard after Rosa Parks in 2006, the paper remained silent and divided on the Interstate/Chavez issue when it came up the following year.

Having said that, my personal view is that I have witnessed the Chavez debate from all sides  for two years now. I often hear from longtime locals who do not want the streets changed because the names are familiar and perhaps fused with their sense of communal identity.  I have heard from residents who come from other U.S. cities where ethnic neighborhoods often rename streets after their heroes and historic figures.  To these local and national perspectives I would also like to add a slightly  global view.
 

Paris has four streets named after American presidents: Washington, Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and Kennedy.  Montreal also has a street named after Kennedy.  Mexico City in turn has streets named after French writers Moliere, Jules Verne, and Voltaire, and political leaders such as Churchill and Gandhi. Cardiff, the capital of Wales, has a street named after Nelson Mandela.  Hong Kong has a street named after American engineer Robert Fulton. The list goes on.
 

Did the Mexicans cast about looking for a neighborhood filled with French playwrights before renaming a street after Moliere?  Probably not.  Certainly any street in Paris has more history and probably more people living and doing business on it than any in Portland, yet Paris manages the disruption of street renamings.  

The point is that the renaming of streets is a global tradition onto itself. 

In my view great cities venerate and make concrete their values and traditions (see North Precinct decommissioning ceremony front page).

While I can’t speak for Paris perhaps, other cities sometimes rename streets,  not to placate some special interest, but because certain streets are just as pervasive in the minds and lives of residents and visitors as statues and monuments. 

City Council has put the question to Portland not whether or not to name a street after Chavez, but which street to name after him. Simply changing the number 39 to the name of an Arizona-born activist won’t enshrine Portland in a fraternity of ‘great global cities’. But renaming a street as large and axial as 39th Avenue seems a monumental gesture.   Ultimately, the council  will have to weigh the financial and political costs of doing so.  But when considering such matters, it never hurts to “think globally and act locally.”

 

~ Cornelius Swart