SF to change name of street associated with anti-Asian politician

SCREEN CAPTURE / CBS

THE SINS of the son led to changing a San Francisco street named after his father.

Phelan Avenue, a nondescript street several blocks long bordering the City College of San Francisco’s Ocean Campus, will be renamed as Frida Kahlo Way following a unanimous vote by the Board of Supervisors June 19.

The half-mile long street was originally named after James Phelan, a 19th century real estate and wheat mogul, around 1906. But over the years it has become more closely associated with Phelan’s son, James Duval Phelan, who served as San Francisco’s mayor from 1897 to 1902 and later in the U.S. Senate.

The younger Phelan promoted racist and anti-Asian policies throughout his career, including the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Immigration Act of 1924, which limited immigration from China and Japan to the U.S. 

In his unsuccessful campaign for a second term in the Senate, James Duval Phelan campaigned on the infamous racist slogan, "Keep California White," riling up the racist voters to stop or slow immigration from Asia.

Frida Kahlo is a Mexican artist who along with her husband, muralist Diego Rivera, was part of the post-revolutionary Mexicayotl movement, which sought to define a Mexican identity, Kahlo has been described as a surrealist or magical realist.

"This is part of an increased movement locally and nationally to honor figures who sought to oust racism and the increased movement nationally and globally to recognize women's role in history," said Supervisor Norman Yee, who led the effort to rename the offensive street name.

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Drive to change San Francisco street named after anti-Asian politician

James Phelan ran for U.S. Senator with an anti-Asian message.

ASAM NEWS

FORMER SAN FRANCISCO Mayor James Phelan left a racist legacy for opposing Asian immigration and speaking about a “yellow peril.”
A street bearing the mayor’s family name runs by City College of San Francisco and into a residential neighborhood.

Supervisor Norman Yee is now pushing for a name change and is seeking input from the neighborhood as well as City College, which had independently also taken up the idea,” reports the San Francisco Examiner.

Yee says once there is consensus, he will bring the proposed new name to the Board of Supervisors.

Does a racist deserve a street named after him?

Phelan Avenue is actually named for the mayor’s father, but many feel the association is enough to strip the family of the honor of a street name.

“At a time when the country is rethinking who deserves to have statues and parks named after them, having a “street that an institution like City College is on named after someone whose family left a legacy of racism, doesn’t reflect [our] values,” City College English professor Alisa Messner told the Examiner.

According to the SF Weekly, names under consideration include Chinese/American historian and activist Him Mark Lai; African/American dancer and writer Thelma Johnson Streat; the Muwekma Ohlone tribe that first settled the region; or just “Freedom.”

Phelan ran the city from 1897 until 1902. He also ran for the Senate using the slogan “keep California White.”

He was also quoted as saying “California is a White man’s country, and the two races cannot live side by side in peace, and inasmuch as we discovered the country first and occupied it, we propose to hold it against either a peaceful or a war-like invasion.”

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