California Politico: Don’t Name Ship For César Chávez

A California politician ripped the Navy this week for deciding to name a cargo ship in honor of longtime civil rights activist and organizer César Chávez. Republican Duncan Hunter of the San Diego area, this Duncan Hunter, is the son of the other Duncan Hunter, who helped usher through things like San Diego border fence and was generally making a ruckus about immigration in the mid-2000s. While his argument here pretends to be reasonable, that’s only so if you want a 34 year-old guy from the nice part of San Diego to be making decisions about what types of history we should be celebrating as a nation.

Duncan junior’s comments about Chávez speak to his ignorance about the importance of this man not only in the history of Latinos in this country, but how Chávez was instrumental in changing the course of American history. He was more than a Navy veteran, he was a man who forever altered the way we think about ourselves as Americans, the way we think about where Latinos fit in this country and how we should think about our future as a nation that’s been built upon the life, blood and labor of Latinos.

The junior Hunter said that the Navy’s decision was political pandering and that there were other ways the Navy could have honored Latinos:

“Naming a ship after Cesar Chavez goes right along with other recent decisions by the Navy that appear to be more about making a political statement than upholding the Navy’s history and tradition,” said Hunter…

Hunter said a better choice for the last of the 14 Lewis and Clark-class cargo ships would be Marine Corps Sgt. Rafael Peralta, who was nominated for the Medal of Honor for action in Iraq – or World War II Medal of Honor recipient John Finn, a lifelong San Diego resident.

“If this decision were about recognizing the Hispanic community’s contribution to our nation, many other names come to mind,” said Hunter, a former Marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So, while Hunter is looking at the naming of this ship as an opportunity to make a name for himself outside of his father, he’s ignoring an even larger part of his country’s own history and showing, instead, how narrow-minded and blind, really, he is not only about the importance of Chávez and Latinos, but U.S. history in general.

Follow Sara Inés Calderón on Twitter @SaraChicaD