LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to approve the renaming of a Boyle Heights street after legendary Mexican ranchera singer Vicente Fernandez, who died in December at age 81.
“Today, our city council took the rare action to recognize ‘Chente’ for his cultural contributions by memorializing him at one of our city’s most cherished venues, Mariachi Plaza,” Councilman Kevin de Leon said at the meeting, according to City News Service. “Through his music, he has etched his place in history and on the hearts of fans who will forever cherish him.”
The street to be renamed is one block of what’s currently Bailey Street, to the east of Mariachi Plaza and north of First Street.
Objections to the renaming had been brought up through a committee reporting to the Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council. After the motion was made, a small number of residents and activists raised concerns. They noted a homophobic remark the singer had once made — he said in an interview that he refused a liver transplant because he didn’t know if it came from a homosexual or a drug addict — plus allegations that he had inappropriately touched women.
Some of those who objected also did so in part because De Leon hadn’t consulted with the neighborhood council first before making the Jan. 12 motion to rename the street.
“Kevin de Leon’s office ignored us and instead reached out to mariachis and mariachi businesses and got a really skewed perspective of what the community wanted,” David Silvas, the neighborhood council’s vice president, told the Los Angeles Times earlier this month.
However, De Leon’s communications director, Pete Brown, told CNS after Tuesday’s vote that the councilman had received “an outpouring of support” from the Boyle Heights community.
Councilman Mitch O’Farrell, who is gay, spoke in favor of the renaming at last Wednesday’s Public Works Committee meeting, Channel 4 NBC Los Angeles reported. O’Farrell said that celebrating anyone in a public space is “always fraught to some extent because of the imperfection of people.”
And Carlos Montes, another neighborhood council member and longtime Boyle Heights resident, told the L.A. Times recently, “To not name the street after Vicente would be an outrage, honestly, and make us look bad locally and internationally.
“We support LGBTQ+ rights, but there are better ways to do that than to just throw away the accomplishments of a major cultural hero who is beloved here,” Montes added.
It is unclear when the renaming will take place. Streets signs will need to be replaced and addresses will need to be changed, plus emergency-response agencies will need to adapt.
Fernandez, often described as the Mexican equivalent of Frank Sinatra, started singing on the streets of his hometown, Guadalajara, and rose to record more than 50 Spanish-language albums and sell tens of millions of copies. Nearly half of them were sold in the U.S.
He had three Grammys and eight Latin Grammys to his name, as well as a variety of health issues in recent years, including liver and prostate cancer. Fernandez performed his final live show at Mexico City’s Azteca Stadium in 2016, and died Dec. 12 in Guadalajara.
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