Los Angeles –  The Cesar Chavez Foundation’s National Chavez Center at Nuestra Senora Reina De La Paz in California, where the founder of the United Farm Workers is buried, has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

"I’m very happy because (inclusion in the registry) proves that my father’s work really is part of the U.S. social fabric," Paul Chavez told Efe.

On May 19, the nine members of the California State Historical Resources Commission nominated the site to be included in the national historic registry.

The National Chavez Center is a complex of buildings and cabins for the training of leaders that extends over 187 acres in the Tehachapi Mountains near Keene, California.

"I want to confirm that the National Chavez Center at Nuestra Señora de La Paz is part of the National Register of Historic Places as of Aug. 30, 2011," Adam Fetcher, the spokesman of U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, told Efe.

"We hope soon to be able to formally announce this important step to preserve the site where Cesar Chavez lived and led the farm workers union movement for the last 22 years of his life," he added.

Born on March 31, 1927, in Yuma, Arizona, Cesar Estrada Chavez died of heart failure on April 23, 1993.

"Being part of the National Registry of Historic Places means more protection on the part of the state for the care and preservation of the site," said Paul Chavez.

"People of color have been left out of the history of this great country," Jose Zapata Calderon, a sociology professor at Pitzer College in Claremont, California, told Efe.

"Therefore, this space and the life of Cesar Chavez truly signify for me bringing to center stage those people who have been left out and who often contributed even more than those we consider to be the great heroes in this society," he said.

Zapata Calderon organizes student visits to Villa La Paz with the aim of making them aware of the history of the farm workers’ movement.

Early this year, the spot where Cesar Chavez held his first hunger strike and later founded the UFW was dedicated as a National Historic Landmark. The site known as "Forty Acres" is located west of Delano in California’s Central Valley.