Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated and observed between September 15 and October 15.
The date Hispanic begins is important because it coincides with the Independence Day celebrations of many Latin American nations: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. They declared their independence from Spain on September 15, 1821. September 16, 1810, is the day that Mexico got their independence.
According to the National Museum of the American Latino, Hispanic Heritage Month is significant because it provides an opportunity to celebrate the integral part the Hispanic and Latino communities have had in growing and strengthening our democracy.
Freshmen Julissa Gonzalez-Pedroza and Valeria Cruz like to talk about their Hispanic heritage and celebrations. Cruz celebrated this month by going to Mexico to visit family, staying for a month and meeting new family members.
Cruz’s family is from Loma Bonita in the state of Oaxaca. Cruz and her family also honor Día de los Muertos by having a big family gathering, lighting candles, and putting pictures out of family members they have lost to pay their respects, remember them,and pray.
There are also specific foods they eat that day, like tamales, a Mesoamerican dish made of masa, a dough made from nixtamalized corn,which is steamed in a corn husk or banana leaves, and champurrado, which according to Cruz is a creamy warm drink like chocolate milk.
Gonzalez-Pedroza said she does not really celebrate Hispanic Heritage month in her household, but she does celebrate Día de los Muertos by also putting out candles and paying her respects to the ones she lost in her family and have different food like red pozole, a soup that has pork shoulder or shanks, red chiles and hominy corn. For dessert, they have calabaza en tacha, which is candied pumpkin.
In 1968 under president Lyndon Johson started Hispanic Heritage Month, but it was later expanded by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 to cover a 30 day period. Latinas and Latinos have always had significant roles throughout our country’s history, dating all the way back to the American Revolution, according to the National Museum of the American Latino.
In the morning announcements for Hispanic Heritage Month, many of these figures were cited and detailed.
Hispanic Heritage Month is not just about the culture it’s also know for some famous Celebrities like Sofia Vergara, Adrienne Bailon-Houghton, Gina Rodriguez, Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, Salma Hayek are all female celebrities who are hispanic in the world when back in the day women wouldn’t be able to be this famous like they are now where they can show off their culture by playing in big rolls or performing from the type of background they are coming from.
