(The Lion) — New sexual abuse allegations against iconic labor leader Cesar Chavez are causing states to cancel observance of the holiday in his honor and are rocking the union community.

Chavez allegedly forced Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the United Farm Workers union with him, to have sex with him on two occasions, both of which resulted in pregnancy.

The allegations corroborate a decades-long pattern of abuse of women and girls – some as young as 12 – documented in a multiyear investigation released by The New York Times on Wednesday.

Chavez died in 1993 at age 66 and fathered eight children with his wife, Helen. His name graces schools, buildings and streets in many California cities and elsewhere, and President Barack Obama declared a national holiday in his honor in 2014.

Now, Huerta and others are speaking out.

“I am nearly 96 years old, and for the last 60 years have kept a secret because I believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for,” she wrote in a post Wednesday on Medium.

“As a young mother in the 1960s, I experienced two separate sexual encounters with Cesar. The first time, I was manipulated and pressured into having sex with him, and I didn’t feel I could say no because he was someone that I admired, my boss and the leader of the movement I had already devoted years of my life to. The second time, I was forced against my will and in an environment where I felt trapped.”

Huerta said she kept both pregnancies secret and arranged for the children to be “raised by other families that could give them stable lives.”

“Over the years, I have been fortunate to develop a deep relationship with these children, who are now close to my other children, their siblings. But even then, no one knew the full truth about how they were conceived until just a few weeks ago.”

She also said she had experienced abuse and sexual violence before Chavez and believed she had to go through the experiences “alone and in secret.”

Huerta defended the union’s work, even as she condemned the man who helped found it.

“The knowledge that he hurt young girls sickens me. My heart aches for everyone who suffered alone and in silence for years. There are no words strong enough to condemn those deplorable actions that he did. Cesar’s actions do not reflect the values of our community and our movement.”

But officials in Arizona, Texas and elsewhere are already canceling observance of Cesar Chavez Day on March 31, his birthday.

“Reports of the horrific and widely acknowledged sexual assault allegations against Cesar Chavez rightfully dismantle the myth of this progressive hero and undermine the narrative that elevated Chavez as a figure worthy of official state celebration,” posted Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who ordered all state agencies to comply.

Abbott said his goal is to “remove Cesar Chavez Day from state law altogether,” which he plans to pursue in the upcoming legislative session.

If the allegations described by The New York Times are true, Chavez would be not only a serial rapist but also a pedophile.

Debra Rojas said Chavez touched her inappropriately when she was 12 and had sex with her when she was 15.

Ana Murguia said he abused her for years, starting when she was 13. She attempted suicide multiple times by age 15.

The Times investigation, which included more than 60 interviews, “found that Mr. Chavez also used many of the women who worked and volunteered in his movement for his own sexual gratification.”

Huerta and others said they stayed silent because they did not want to hurt the movement or feared they would not be believed, given Chavez’s fame, charisma and power within the union.

“Unfortunately, he used some of his great leadership to abuse women and children – it’s really awful,” Huerta said.

Now his supporters are backing away.

The UFW said Tuesday it would not celebrate his birthday at the end of this month, and California, the first state to commemorate it, is discussing whether to rename the holiday. The California Museum is removing Chavez exhibits, its first such removal.

Obama, who established a national monument at Chavez’s California home in 2012, has not commented on the allegations as of Thursday morning, the Associated Press reported. Neither has Joe Biden, who moved a bronze bust of the labor leader into the Oval Office when he took office in 2021.

Another Democrat president, Bill Clinton, awarded Chavez the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 1994 and has not commented since the allegations were unveiled.

Latinos who once stood with him are turning away.

Mary Rose Wilcox, a former Phoenix city councilor who marched and fasted with Chavez along with her husband, plans to cover a mural honoring him at their restaurant.

“We love César Chavez,” she told the AP. “But we cannot honor him and we cannot even love him anymore.”