Section of Pecos Road receives ceremonial title for Cesar Chavez

On Sept. 20, a section of Pecos Road between Charleston Boulevard and Owens Avenue was ceremonially named Camino Cesar Chavez. Pecos will remain the name on maps, but a brown sign declaring the ceremonial name was added below the traditional green street name sign.

“It’s the first ceremonial name in that area and the first major arterial to be ceremonially named,” said Bob Coffin, city councilman for Ward 3, which includes the section of Pecos Road honoring the founder of the United Farm Workers. “The neighborhood it passes through is 65 to 70 percent Latino.”

Members of the Chavez family were on hand for the ceremony, including his niece, Noemi Perez, grandson Eric Chavez and great-grandson Cesar Antonio Chavez.

Eric Chavez took the podium and touched on the many honors his grandfather had received posthumously, including a Presidential Medal of Freedom, a commemorative stamp, buildings, streets and a U.S. naval ship. The recent Las Vegas transplant cited the streets that are named for Cesar Chavez as one of his favorite honors bestowed on his grandfather, in part because he spent many years driving his grandfather around small-town America, seeing the mom-and-pop restaurants and places where people worked and gathered.

“It’s a great honor to celebrate my grandfather in such a special way in the community with so many special people,” Eric Chavez said.

Several local politicians and community leaders spoke at the ceremony, including Lucy Flores, assemblywoman for District 28, which includes the section of Pecos Road ceremoniously named. She said the name would stand as a symbol of hope for people who lived in the area.

“In neighborhoods where opportunity and hope feels like a bit of a stretch, what better way to remind people that anything is possible?” Flores said. “To remind them that one person can change a community, can change a state and can change a country.”

If all goes according to plan, the naming will be ceremonial only for a while. Coffin hopes to begin the long and complex process of fully renaming the well-established street. He recognizes that there are several roadblocks in the process, including dealing with the different entities the street passes through and the many businesses along the approximately 17 miles of Pecos Road that would need to change addresses.

Coffin cited several reasons the permanent name change would be appropriate, including the large Latino population in the valley, the fact that the major arterial would be fitting for a major public figure and the lack of local import in the name Pecos.

“The name Pecos doesn’t have any special connection to any history here, other than the name of the street,” Coffin said.

Pecos Road is one of several streets that were given names evocative of the Old West at a time when the area embraced and marketed its tenuous cowboy roots. The name comes from the Pecos Indians, which is derived from the Keres Pueblo people’s name for the Pueblo people, “P’e’-a-ku.” The Pecos are most closely associated with land in the current states of Texas and New Mexico.

The ceremony drew about 200 people who were vocal in their support of the change, although perhaps none so effusive as pre-teen Cesar Antonio Chavez.

“I’m glad that they’re making the street,” he said. “I’m glad that the nation hasn’t forgotten about my great-grandfather.”

Contact East Valley View reporter F. Andrew Taylor at ataylor@viewnews.com or 702-380-4532.