President Obama to Establish Cesar E. Chavez National Monument

President Obama traveled to Keene, California to announce the establishment of the César E. Chávez National Monument. Known as Nuestra Sonora Reina de la Paz, or La Paz, it is recognized worldwide for its historic link to civil rights icon César Chávez and the farm worker movement.
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.
FILE - In this Sept. 16, 1975 file photo, head of the United Farm Workers Union Cesar Chavez speaks at the headquarters for the state Agriculture Labor Relations Board board to call for the resignation of Walter Kintz, legal counsel for the board, in Sacramento, California. Chavez was born near Yuma, Arizona on March 31, 1927 and died in 1993. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - In this Sept. 16, 1975 file photo, head of the United Farm Workers Union Cesar Chavez speaks at the headquarters for the state Agriculture Labor Relations Board board to call for the resignation of Walter Kintz, legal counsel for the board, in Sacramento, California. Chavez was born near Yuma, Arizona on March 31, 1927 and died in 1993. (AP Photo, File)

Yesterday, President Obama traveled to Keene, California to announce the establishment of the César E. Chávez National Monument under the Antiquities Act. The monument, known as Nuestra Sonora Reina de la Paz (Our Lady Queen of Peace), or La Paz, is recognized worldwide for its historic link to civil rights icon César Estrada Chávez and the farm worker movement. Per the White House press release,

The site served as the national headquarters of the United Farm Workers (UFW) as well as the home and workplace of César Chávez and his family from the early 1970's until Chávez' death in 1993, and includes his grave site which will also be part of the monument.

"César Chávez gave a voice to poor and disenfranchised workers everywhere," said President Obama. "La Paz was at the center of some of the most significant civil rights moments in our nation's history."

From this rural headquarters in the Tehachapi Mountains of Kern County, California, Chávez played a central role in achieving basic worker protections for hundreds of thousands of farm workers across the country, from provision of drinking water and toilets to workers in the fields, to ending forced stoop labor with a short-handled hoe and exposure to dangerous pesticides , and helping establishing basic minimum wages.

The United Farm Workers of America, the César Chávez Foundation and members of César Chavez's family donated the properties to the federal government for the purpose of establishing a national monument commemorating César E. Chávez and the farm worker movement. The union headquarters, La Paz, is significant for its role in the 20th century labor, civil rights, Chicano, and environmental movements, and for its association with César Estrada Chávez. The 187-acre property lies just north of Keene, California. On it rest 26 historic buildings and structures, as well as the César Chávez Memorial Garden and burial site. La Paz continues to serve the UFW in its struggle to improve farm workers' subsistence -level earnings and to stop their dying from heat in the fields.

Around 1918, California opened a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients on the Kern County property that La Paz now stands. Over the next fifty years, the county built dormitories, hospitals, a schoolhouse for young patients, and administrative buildings. Around 1967, the sanatorium closed. n 1970, the UFW learned that property was up for public auction in Keene, California. Though the county refused to consider the UFW's offer to buy it, with Cesar Chavez's brother Richard as his driver, a wealthy supporter of the new union, a movie producer, visited the property and managed to buy it at auction. The union supporter leased and later sold the property to the UFW. In January 1972, the sanatorium became the UFW headquarters.

César Chávez grew up during the Great Depression. In the 1930s, his family lost their homestead near Yuma, Arizona and traveled to California to become migrant workers, sometimes living out of their car. Like hundreds of thousands of other farm workers, the Chavez family faced low wages and unsafe working conditions. In 1944, Cesar Chávez enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served until his honorable discharge at the end of World War II.

After the war, Chávez returned to California and to migrant agricultural work. He married Helen Fabela and together they had eight children. During the 1950s, Chávez wanted to improve the working conditions of farm workers. He joined the Community Service Organization, but left CSO when the organization refused to focus on the heinous living conditions of rural labor. In 1962, the Chavez family moved to Delano, California, and with his wife Helen, his brother Richard, Dolores Huerta and Gilbert Padilla, founded the forerunner to the United Farm Workers of America.

The new union participated in the Delano table-grape workers strike of 1965, which Filipino farm workers initially led, and his contribution to Mexican-American and Filipino-American unity during the strike is part of his legacy. In 1966, the organized farm workers purchased 40 undeveloped acres in Delano and built a labor community there from the ground-up, Forty Acres, the headquarters of the newly-formed United Farm Workers Organizing Committee before the organization moved to Keene in 1972.

As president of the UFW, Chávez helped the organization build La Paz to create a peaceful refuge and homes for the farm workers and supporters. During the 1970s, over 200 volunteers lived at La Paz while Cesar attempted to encourage farm workers to unionize. The residents lived and worked together, sharing meals, gardens and worship services as a community. From La Paz, the UFW led national grape and lettuce boycotts and fought to pass the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975, the first law in the United States to give farm workers the right to organize and collectively bargain.

The monument, Nuestra Sonora Reina de la Paz, which will be managed by the National Park Service in consultation with the National Chávez Center and the César Chávez Foundation, will be the fourth National Monument designated by President Obama using the Antiquities Act. He previously designated Fort Monroe National Monument in Virginia, a former Army post integral to the history of slavery, the Civil War, and the U.S. military; Fort Ord National Monument in California, a former military base that is a world-class destination for outdoor recreation; and Chimney Rock, which is located in the San Juan National Forest in southwestern Colorado, and offers a spectacular landscape rich in history and Native American culture. First exercised by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 to designate Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming, the authority of the Antiquities Act has been used by 16 presidents since 1906 to protect unique natural and historic features in America, such as the Grand Canyon, the Statue of Liberty, and Colorado's Canyons of the Ancients.

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot