Almost every day, I drive along a street named after Cesar Chavez, past a mural of Cesar Chavez that shows the labor leader, who died in 1993, clutching the billowing flag of the United Farm Workers with one arm and a group of anonymous laborers with the other. For years, I’ve been struck by the work’s ardent theatricality: Chavez appears sturdy and powerful, whereas the figures look like they’ve fainted. In Los Angeles, where I live, Chavez is everywhere. Within a mile of that mural are two others. A multitude of municipal sites, both grandiose and mundane, bear his name. The transfer station downtown where I wait for the bus is named for Chavez. So is a city park in San Fernando, on the northern fringes of L.A., where a naturalistic bronze statue always looked as if it was about to break into a rally speech. I now look on those tributes with horror and dismay. Late last month, The New York Times published an investigation that detailed harrowing allegations of sexual abuse by Chavez, …