Search for national park site to honor Cesar Chavez is urgent

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.dailybulletin.com/ci_9447867

Ron Sundergill
Article Created: 06/01/2008 04:02:03 PM PDT

During his lifetime, Cesar Estrada Chavez led a national movement to improve the lives of migrant farm workers; today, legislators and others consider ways to honor the man who helped to lead that struggle for more than three decades.

One way the government is considering honoring Chavez is through a recently passed federal bill which permits the Secretary of Interior to study sites that honor the life of Cesar Chavez for possible inclusion in the National Park System.

Although few Americans realize it, the National Park Service is actually one of the largest curators of Asian, Latino, Indian, and African-American history and culture. Yet not one of the 391 units in the National Park System honors the legacy of an individual contemporary Latino.

The drive to create a site to honor Chavez is increasingly urgent because with each passing year, landmarks and cultural resources significant to telling the story of Chavez's life are being lost to development and degradation.

Chavez's work as an activist, environmentalist and crusader for nonviolent social change shaped the consciousness of this nation and played a crucial role in creating and expanding both the migrant-labor and civil-rights movements. Chavez's place in history as a social-justice advocate has such significance that he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994.

FULL story at link.