What’s in a Name?

Hispanic Heritage Month AKA Latino/x/e Heritage Month: What and Why We Celebrate, and How Far There Still is To Go

BY ANNIE MARTÍNEZ

As we kick off Hispanic Heritage Month, celebrating the history, culture, and accomplishments of Latinidad, there are always some questions that arise:

How, and why, we as a nation try and lump together over 65 million diverse peoples under a single umbrella term?
And, How did that umbrella term get chosen?

We also ask questions surrounding which peoples and what accomplishments get honored during this month. Typically lauding the happier, more palatable sides of Latino history in the United States, excluding the deeper conversations of the struggle towards equity and the work still yet to be realized.

With those daunting questions identified, this article will address these questions and encourage the reader to dig deeper than this article can. There will be references as well as links to documents, ideas, and activities, to engage with during this month, and hopefully year long.

History of Hispanic Heritage Month

Every year since 1988, we commemorate the heritage of and contributions and achievements by Hispanic Americans.[1] The celebration originally was a weeklong, beginning in 1968 by President Johnson, but was expanded to 30 days in 1988.[2] The month time span starts September 15^th and runs to the 15^th of October. This timing may seem odd at first glance but makes perfect sense. The nations of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica declared their independence from Spain on September 15, 1821, Mexico on the 16^th and Chile the 18^th.[3] This is why we start the month on the 15^th of September.

Hispanic, Latino, Latinx, Latine

Hispanic is typically used as a common, umbrella term in the United States to identify Spanish-speaking peoples whose heritage stems from a Latin American country.[4] However, it is important to note that while many use the term “Hispanic”, there are also many for whom Hispanic is not the preferred term of identification. Some prefer Latino, Latinx, or Latine.[5] Others reject a monolithic term altogether and prefer to be identified by their Country of origin or heritage such as Cuban, Peruvian, Boriqua (Puerto Rican descent), or Chicano (Americans of Mexican descent).[6] While it is human nature to want to use a phrase that can function as a catch-all, it is nearly impossible, and the best practice would be to enquire as to a person’s preference as we do with pronouns.

The use of “Hispanic” began in the United States in the 1970s, when organizations, including Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) lobbied the federal government to establish a distinct ethnic category for Hispanic/Latines.[7] Prior to that, Latines were counted as white on the census. This was problematic as Latine-Americans were working to expand civil rights and make policy changes had a lack of census data to reflect their portion of the population.[8] The 1980 census included a translated question asking if the person was of “Spanish/Hispanic origin or descent” and the U.S. Census Bureau engaged in a first of its kind collaboration with Univision, the first national Spanish-language television network to release PSAs and advertisements to explain the term.[9]

The term Hispanic is generally accepted to include Spain in its umbrella as its basis for identification is coming from or having heritage from a Spanish-speaking nation.[10] This means it excludes countries in Latin America that do not speak Spanish such as Haiti and Brazil.[11] Latine is an identifier for those who are from or whose heritage hails from a Latin American country, which includes Mexico, Central and South America, as well as islands in the Caribbean.[12] In the eyes of many peoples of Latin American descent, there is more commonality and shared heritage and struggles with our Brazilian and Haitian brothers and sisters, than with those who colonized our nations.[13] Many also believe that in using the term Latino/x/e, it creates space to recognize the vast racial diversity within the community.[14] While Hispanic places the emphasis on the roots of those that colonized us, Latino/x/e makes space for Black, Indigenous, Asian, and other racial heritages in the diaspora on equal terms with European ancestry.[15] It is for that reason that there is a growing movement to use the term Latino/x/e in place of Hispanic, though not universally accepted.

In the utilization of the word Latino, discussions abound regarding its inclusivity. Latino, with the ending “-o”, denotes masculine.[16] Some purists of the Spanish language believe that the “-o” in Latino is not denoting masculine or feminine, but that it can be neutral, such as man for mankind in English. Others disagree and believe that a gender-neutral version of the word, such as Latinx or Latine, is more appropriate. As Dr. Johanna Fernandez explains:

Latinx emerges as a term that is more inclusive of gender fluidity… It challenges the gender binary and it’s aware of folks in the community who might not identify as men or women, but it also challenges the masculinist characteristics of the Spanish language, which uses the masculine to identify the collective.[17]

The newer gender-neutral term in the space is Latine, which has grown in its use in Latin America. The difference with this term versus Latinx is that it has the benefit of being easier to pronounce in Spanish and is using the concept of “ -e” as gender neutral in the Spanish language, such as estudiante (student).[18] The use of these terms is growing in younger populations in the United States but is not universally accepted either.

What are we Celebrating and Why

It is important, as a nation comprised of peoples across the globe, weaving the fabric of what makes up the United States, to recognize the contributions of peoples who are not the majority of our populace and have been (and continue to be) marginalized. This 30-day period is the time for Latine/Hispanic Peoples of the U.S. to be uplifted in a targeted, direct manner. Notably, Johns Hopkins did a study that reported 87% of vital topics in Latino history were not covered or mentioned in five or fewer sentences in history books.[19] Collectively, the book examined mentioned ONE Latine breakthrough moment of the last 200 years, the appointment of Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor. Ensuring that our history and contributions past and ongoing are acknowledged and celebrated is an important element in the fight against xenophobia. To build respect for the contributions Latines/Hispanics have made and continue to make in the forming and molding of our country. Latine history IS American history.

That Johns Hopkins study also noted that texts failed to cover important aspects of the modern civil rights movements and racial segregation.[20] This shallow teaching of Latine history is also frequently seen in the celebration of Hispanic/Latine Heritage Month by many organizations and the media. We typically share stories of Abuelita’s cooking, our rich and amazing music, or our athletic prowess on the baseball or fútbol fields. While these stories are important, and I could talk about the cultural phenomenon that was Celia Crúz for hours, it is also important to highlight the other impactful, but more controversial parts of our American history. Some of these include:

Chicano Civil Rights movement in Colorado: In the 1960s and 70s activists fought to secure civil rights and gain political and social power in Colorado, led by Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales and others. In fact, many cite that Denver was the birthplace of the American Chicano movement.[21]
The Young Lords: Modeled after the Black Panther Party, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez established the Young Lords Organization (YLO) in 1968, out of one of the most impoverished neighborhoods of Chicago, Illinois, Lincoln Park. The YLO grew from a Puerto Rican gang to a community organization. The YLO led a series of protests, building occupations and free breakfast programs that helped standardize current federal children’s nutrition program, establish free medical clinics and created Puerto Rican cultural centers.[22]
DREAMERS: This is a modern-day civil rights movement, led prominently by Latines. In the early 2000s proposed legislation entitled the Dream Act would have permanently protected certain immigrants who came to the United States as children but were vulnerable to deportation. Many young Latines demonstrated and lobbied in support of the Dream Act. While the Act itself did not become law, the hard work of DREAMERS and their supporters pressured then President Obama to establish Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals in 2012, allowing individuals who entered the United States unlawfully as minors to receive renewable protections against deportation and eligibility for work permits.[23]

Our history and impact are as varied and diverse as the peoples trying to fit under one umbrella term. We would benefit from understanding and honoring it more.

The March Towards Equality

While we celebrate this month it is also important to recognize that there is more work to be done for equity for the Latino community. Disparate, inequitable treatment towards the Latine community continues despite the efforts that have been and continue to be made. Here are some examples, including some specific to Colorado and the Denver area:

Data from the Colorado Prosecutorial Dashboard Project Indicate that:
- Hispanic people were arrested at a disproportionately high rate compared to their population in the state.
- A higher percentage of cases where Hispanic people were defendants resulted in guilty pleas.
- In some jurisdictions a larger percentage of cases involving Hispanic people resulted with incarceration sentences.
- In Denver almost 60% of white defendants were likely to have their sentences reduced, compared to 52% for Hispanic individuals.[24]
Data from Campaign Zero confirms what many anecdotally already knew, that Latinos are more likely to be killed by law enforcement compared to their white counterparts.[25]
Data analyzed by the Colorado News Collaborative and the Denver post in 2023 revealed that while poverty rates have generally declined in Colorado:
- Latine Coloradans were twice as likely to live in poverty compared to white Coloradans.
- Colorado’s Latine children were about three times as likely to live in poverty compared to their white counterparts.[26]
The Commonwealth Fund issued a report that Latine Coloradans are more likely to die of preventable causes, be uninsured, or forgo healthcare because of cost than their white counterparts.[27]
While nationwide, Latine children are not disproportionately in foster care – they are in Colorado, at a rate nearly 30% above their rate in the Colorado child population.[28]
While individuals identifying as Hispanic or Latino in Colorado makeup approximately 22.52% of the population, per the office of attorney regulation report, we make up only 7.86% of licensed attorneys in Colorado (noting this is self-report, and not mandatory).[29]

Looking Forward

As we reach the end of our article, some may ask: what is the point of celebration and acknowledgment when we still don’t have equality? Do heritage months like this serve to placate and stifle the movement towards progress, make us complacent, or forgetful of the difficult struggle it took to achieve what has been attained? My response to that would be:

every achievement made in the face of systemic adversity is worth celebrating, every element of our vast and varied culture is deserving of acknowledgement and the act of finding joy in who we are, where we’ve gone and where we are going feeds the soul to continue to fight, to break down barriers and advocate for equality.

Just because la lucha sigue, does not mean we can’t stop and celebrate the accomplishments along the way, in fact it means we must.

ENDNOTES:

[1] https://www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/hispanic-heritage-month.html#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20observation%20started%20in%201968,and%20ending%20on%20October%2015.

[2] Id.

[3] Id.

[4] https://www.facinghistory.org/ideas-week/latinx-vs-hispanic-history-terms

[5] id

[6] id

[7] Id.

[8] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/hispanic-latino-heres-where-terms-come-from

[9] Id.

[10] id

[11] Id.

[12] id

[13] https://latino.si.edu/learn/teaching-and-learning-resources/hispanic-heritage-month-resources/hispanic-heritage-month