National Chavez Center
The 187-acre National Chavez Center is located in the Tehachapi Mountains, overlooking the San Joaquin Valley. The site known as Nuestra Senora Reina de La Paz is the final resting place for agricultural workers’ rights activist Cesar Chavez. Perhaps most famous for helping promote the Delano Grape Strike, Chavez worked diligently through his leadership in the United Farm Workers (UWF) to promote unionization and higher wages for farm workers.
In 1929, Kern County built the general structures at the site to serve as a tuberculosis sanitarium. The complex later served as the Chavez residence and the headquarters for the UWF from 1971 until Chavez’s death in 1993. In 2004, the National Chavez Center was completed in Keene to honor of the civil rights activist.
In addition to Cesar Chavez’s gravesite, the complex includes Chavez’s preserved office and library, Memorial Gardens, a Visitor Center with large exhibit galleries, and a restored 17,000-sq. ft. mission-style structure where Chavez held community gatherings and meetings with civil rights leaders. In September 2011, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the sites’ entrance into the National Register of Historic Places.
Villa La Paz is open to the public Monday through Friday. The site also offers over-night accommodations for groups of 25 guests or fewer on the grounds of the complex. The National Chavez Center can be reached at 661-823-6271 or through their website at http://chavezfoundation.org.
Researched and written by James Loyd, Undergraduate Student in History, University of West Florida, LAH 3200 Spring 2012.
