Cesar Chavez home to become national monument when Obama visits

GlobalPost

Cesar Chavez’s home is set to become a national monument on Monday when President Barack Obama visits central California on a campaign swing.

The 105-acre property where the farm labor leader is buried will join the National Park system, NBC Bay Area reported.

Known as La Paz, or "the peace," it’s where Chavez helped organize growers under the United Farm Workers movement famous for a 1960s grape boycott.

Chavez helped organize farmworkers in the early 1970s and taught them how to negotiate with farm owners for better pay and conditions.

“He showed people that, if you work hard and never give up, you can make a difference,” Chavez’s son, Paul, told NBC.

“You take the weakest and poorest element of society, and they were taking on the biggest and the strongest industry in the state.”

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Paul is now president of the Cesar Chavez Foundation.

Chavez is a hero among America’s Latino community, and Obama’s announcement helps shore up support ahead of the November 6 election, The Associated Press said.

Chavez, who was born in Arizona, died in 1993.

It was during the George W. Bush presidency in 2005 that work to make La Paz a national park began.

The Cesar E. Chavez National Monument in Keene, California is to become the 398th National Park.

“The whole purpose of the National Park System is to speak of what it means to be American and tell the stories of Americans,” Tom Kiernan, president of the National Parks Conservation Association, told the AP.

“The Latino culture and stories are not adequately told and interpreted throughout the park system, and this designation helps fill that void.”

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