California's national park sites are packed with visitors. This one is eerily quiet. |
While road-tripping out toward the southern Sierra Nevada foothills, it doesn’t take long to arrive at a place where the heat and congestion of the city fade into a tall canopy of native trees and a cool alpine breeze tumbles down the hillsides. Off Highway 58, about 30 miles southeast of downtown Bakersfield, is a place of tranquility and reflection — a national treasure that features a fountain, several seating areas and a walking trail tucked into a manicured rose garden.
These immaculate grounds are anchored by an interpretative center that tells some of California’s, if not the nation’s, most important recent history.
Usually, throngs of eager travelers are here, with school buses packing the parking lot this time of year.
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A sign points the way to the exhibit center at the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument in Keene, Calif., on May 8, 2026.
Instead, it’s empty. Dead. On a recent Friday afternoon, the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument in Keene was — with the exception of a handful of employees — a private oasis just waiting for a guest, any guest, to arrive.
The empty hallways of the interpretive center were filled with exhibits, flags and memorabilia from the days when it served as headquarters of the United Farm Workers. The gift shop saw nary a customer perusing its selection of “Sí, se puede” T-shirts and keychains. And the highlight of the monument, the outdoor garden spaces that lead to Chavez’s final resting place, could be taken in and observed in solitude.
On March 18, the New York Times dropped a bombshell investigative report laying out decades of alleged sexual abuse and misconduct by Chavez involving at least 12 girls and women, including Dolores Huerta, the labor leader and activist who has spent seven decades in the public eye fighting for the rights of farmworkers and women.
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A fountain sits empty in the heart of the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument in Keene, Calif., on May 8, 2026.
The report detailed multiple allegations of rape........