The Washington Post
By Felicia Fonseca
The National Park Service is recommending that Congress create a historic park to honor farm labor leader Cesar Chavez. It would be made up of four sites in California and a former church hall in Phoenix where the famous rallying cry “Si se puede” was popularized.
The recommendation came last week after a multi-year study of sites that are significant to the life of Chavez and the farm labor movement. Congress authorized the study in 2008, and the Park Service narrowed a list of about 100 sites to five for a two-state national historic park.
Marc Grossman, Chavez’s longtime spokesman, speechwriter and personal aide, said including sites in Arizona and California would be fitting because it would recognize the length and breadth of Chavez’s work.
As head of the United Farm Workers (UFW), the Arizona-born Chavez staged a huge grape boycott and countless field strikes, and forced growers to sign contracts providing better pay and working conditions to the predominantly Latino farmworkers. He is credited with inspiring millions of other Latinos in their fight for more educational opportunities, better housing and more political power.
