Celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month

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https://www.hispanicheritagemonth.gov/about.html

 

"Each year, Americans observe National Hispanic Heritage Month from September 15 to October 15, by celebrating the histories, cultures and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America.

"The day of September 15 is significant because it is the anniversary of independence for Latin American countries Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. In addition, Mexico and Chile celebrate their independence days on September 16 and September18, respectively. Also, Columbus Day or Día de la Raza, which is October 12, falls within this 30 day period." All this according to the official site, https://www.hispanicheritagemonth.gov/about.html.

Many of us never learned the history of Americans who were not colonists or immigrants from elsewhere, but there were many people living in what is now the USA when colonists arrived, and many in what we now call the US Southwest who had lived there for thousands or tens of thousands of years. If we are going to do complete research, it's good to know that published research is very rich in the context we need to do excellent family history. In addition, there is more and more record sets, especially church birth, marriage and death records and some early governmental records from Mexico and central and south America.

Making Hispanics cover
There is some controversy about the naming of this month, outlined in this post from NPR: Yes, We're Calling It Hispanic Heritage Month And We Know It Makes Some Of You Cringe. 
This piece quoted Christana Mora who "wrote about the adoption of the term Hispanic in Making Hispanics: How Activists, Bureaucrats, and Media Created a New American." She found that "use of the umbrella categorization is inextricably linked to the U.S. Census and its attempts to identify and quantify different groups of people." This short discussion is worth the read for researchers, because government-created official records are the skeleton around which we often organize our family history. The linked article describes Mora's research in the book of the same name.

Colin* says, "Being a queer Latinx/Latine person who does not have a relationship with most of my relatives, my Latinx/Latine heritage has given me a connection to something I sometimes feel I have lost. All my early memories are with my Mexican family and my abuela, and having lost a relationship with those people and that culture over the years for various reasons, reconnecting to my heritage has given me more of a sense of self. Losing a connection to my relatives as a child and growing up detached from my culture made me always feel a little out of place, and reconnecting to my heritage has helped.

"After my abuela died, I fully lost any ability to learn more about my family and family history. Finding records online and distant relatives' family trees has given me confirmation of stories I remember and so many details I had lacked. I would love to complete my family tree and travel to the regions of Mexico my family is from." 

Colin's tattoo of a Mayan 13 for Friday the 13th



* Colin is Valorie's first-cousin once removed. 

Note on the The Meaning and Importance of Sugar Skulls.


Valorie Zimmerman


Colin

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