Caesar Chavez National Monument Inaugurated

The National Ch????(R)?vez Center in Keene, Calif., was officially designated as the C????(R)???(C)sar Ch????(R)?vez National Monument on October 8, 2012. "C????(R)???(C)sar Ch????(R)?vez gave a voice to poor and disenfranchised workers everywhere," President Obama told the crowd that came to pay homage to the labor leader. "La Paz was at the center of some of the most significant civil rights moments in our nation's history, and by designating it a national monument, the Ch????(R)?vez' legacy will be preserved and shared to inspire generations to come."

 

The National Chavez Center was the national headquarters of the United Farm Workers (UFW) and the home and workplace of C????(R)???(C)sar Ch????(R)?vez and his family from the early 1970s until his death on April 23, 1993. His grave is in the memorial garden in front of the centerpiece fountain. The fountain's five weirs symbolize the deaths of five UFW members during strikes and marches. The fountain sculpture is quarried adoquin stone from near Guadalajara, Mexico.
Photo: Erik Skindrud, 2005

Roses festoon the C????(R)???(C)sar Ch????(R)?vez National Monument, with cypress trees and views of the foothills of the Tehachapi Mountains in the background. Photo courtesy of Dennis Dahlin, ASLA, landscape architect for the Cesar Chavez Foundation.

On October 8, 2012, President Obama traveled to Keene, Calif. to officially announce the establishment of the C????(R)???(C)sar Ch????(R)?vez National Monument www.chavezfoundation.org. The monument has been years in the making (see "Grassroots Design at the National Chavez Center," by Dennis Dahlin, ASLA, June 2005 LASN https://landscapearchitect.com/research/article/5274). The 100-acre site, established on the property known as Nuestra Se????(R)????ora Reina de la Paz, served as the national headquarters of the United Farm Workers (UFW), and was the home and workplace of Ch????(R)?vez during the last two decades of his life. Fittingly, he is buried on site.

C????(R)???(C)sar Ch????(R)?vez was born in Yuma, Arizona on March 31, 1927. His family owned a grocery store and a ranch, but lost their home and land during the Great Depression. The family moved to California, where the parents and children become migrant farm workers. C????(R)???(C)sar left school after the 8th grade.

C????(R)???(C)sar joined the Navy in 1944 at 17 and served two years. He'd hoped to learn a skill, but noted Mexican-Americans were only delegated to work as deckhands or painters. After the service he married and moved to San Jose, Calif., where he continued to do field work until 1952.

In 1962, C????(R)???(C)sar Ch????(R)?vez and Dolores Huerta founded the National Farm Workers Association, later rename the United Farm Workers. If you grew up in the 1960s, the fight for civil rights was on and two names were prominent: Martin Luther King Jr., and C????(R)???(C)sar Ch????(R)?vez. People were aware that California's Central Valley supplied a quarter of the U.S. food supply, but it was Ch????(R)?vez who pointedly made us aware of the "braceros," people mostly from Mexico who came north to labor in the fields of California to bring produce to the nation's tables. In the early "70s in California, you didn't buy lettuce or grapes when you went to the grocery store"?uor felt bad it you did"?ubecause you wanted to be in solidarity with UFW's strike against the grape and lettuce growers.

Today, Helen Ch????(R)?vez, the widow of C????(R)???(C)sar Ch????(R)?vez, writes that farm workers and many other immigrants still do important work many American workers wouldn't do for the low pay and miserable conditions. She recalls the demeaning names given to farm workers back in the '60, hateful words bantered about rather freely then, but which we won't repeat here. In today's political correctness, those words have largely been replaced with the generic term "illegal immigrants." "Some day not long from now," says Helen Ch????(R)?vez, "people will look back and ask, "How could people call other people names like illegal?'"