César E. Chávez National Monument
In 2012, President Obama signed a presidential proclamation creating César E. Chávez National Monument to mark the extraordinary achievements and contributions to the history of the United States made by César Chávez and the farm worker movement. On the same day that President Obama created César E. Chávez National Monument, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced the designation of the Nuestra Señora Reina de la La Paz site as a national historic landmark.
Widely recognized as the most important Latino leader in the United States during the twentieth century, César E. Chávez led farm workers and supporters in the establishment of the country's first permanent agricultural union. His leadership brought sustained international attention to the plight of U.S. farm workers, and secured for them higher wages and safer working conditions.
Under the leadership of César E. Chávez and others such as Dolores Huerta and Larry Itliong, along with support from millions of Americans, the farm worker movement joined forces with other reform movements to achieve unprecedented successes that greatly improved working and living conditions and wages for farm workers. During the 1970s the United Farm Workers of America (UFW) grew and expanded from its early roots as a union for farm workers to also become a national voice for the poor and disenfranchised. The enduring legacies of César E. Chávez and the farm worker movement include passage of California's Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975, the first law in the U.S. that recognized farm workers' collective bargaining rights.
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Mailing Address:
PO Box 201
Keene, CA 93531
(Link: https://www.nps.gov/cech/learn/historyculture/index.htm)