From 1960s farm worker and union veterans to young high school students, 800 people in Delano, Calif. witnessed the dedication on Monday, Feb. 21 of the farm worker movement’s "Forty Acres" as a National Historic Landmark, the highest honor the U.S. government can bestow on a place. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar toured historic sites there before declaring that the Forty Acres "helped define 20th Century American history." We noted that giants walked–and still walk–those Forty Acres, names like Chavez and Kennedy and Reuther and Huerta. It’s where Cesar Chavez’s first and last long public fasts were conducted in 1968 and ’88, over nonviolence and pesticides respectively. It has been the place where over five decades we have gathered to organize, serve people, gain inspiration, celebrate and mourn. But we honor the legacy of Cesar and our movement every day when farm workers come to the Forty Acres for organizing meetings and to get help with their grievances and health and pension benefits. For all those who joined the United Farm Workers and the Cesar Chavez Foundation to make possible this historic event on these hallowed grounds, thank you.
Arturo S. Rodriguez, President
United Farm Workers