Sunday marks the start of Hispanic Heritage Month. What it means and how to celebrate it

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Sunday marks the start of Hispanic Heritage Month, a celebration honoring the contributions and histories of Americans with roots in countries including Mexico, Venezuela and Cuba.

The observance spans two months honoring a long-established community whose influence is felt throughout the country.

“It celebrates a vast community of Americans who have made invaluable contributions to the United States for over 300 years,” the executive director of the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico Margie Huerta said. “Hispanic and Latinx people are making important contributions to American arts, culture and humanities, and all aspects of society, every single day.”

Here's what you need to know:

Who started Hispanic Heritage Month? From newly arrived immigrants to native communities that have called these lands home for centuries, the community has gained considerable cultural and political clout since the occasion began in 1968 as a weeklong commemoration under President Lyndon Johnson. The legislation was sponsored by California Rep. Edward Roybal of Los Angeles, an Albuquerque native whose family moved to California when he was 6.

In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed into law a bill sponsored by Illinois Sen. Paul Simon expanding National Hispanic Heritage Week to 30 days. Reagan used the moment to praise Hispanics and their cultural pillars of church and school, but most of all to extol the virtues of "familia."

“As the great poet Octavio Paz has said: ‘In Hispanic morals, the true protagonist is the family,’” Reagan said in his address. "I fear that too often, in the mad rush of modern American life, some people have not learned the great lesson of our Hispanic heritage: the lesson of family and home and church and community.”

When is Hispanic Heritage Month? Hispanic Heritage Month is between Sept. 15 and Oct. 15.

The month’s starting date is significant because it’s the independence day for Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Mexico, Chile and Belize mark their celebrations on Sept. 16, Sept. 18 and Sept. 21, respectively.

Starting in the middle of the month also encompasses, on the celebration’s latter end, Oct. 12. Known as Columbus Day in the United States, the day is referred to in Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries as Día de la Raza, honoring the countries and peoples conquered by Spain and other European nations.

How is Hispanic Heritage Month celebrated? Gabriela Baeza Ventura, a professor of Spanish at the University of Houston, previously told USA TODAY that Hispanic Heritage Month pays respect to a population with deep roots in the United States and a wide range of ancestral origins.

“It’s a wonderful and important opportunity for the general public to visualize the contributions and presence of a community that has been in this territory since before the U.S. was formed as a nation,” Ventura said. “It’s a community that encompasses so many different nations, so many registers of Spanish and so many experiences.”

Though many celebrations revolve around fiestas, Mexican or Latin American food and popular images of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo and Day of the Dead, Ventura said it’s time to commemorate other notable figures, both historical and those in our midst.

She cited Jovida Idar, an early 20th-century Mexican American journalist and activist from Laredo, Texas, whose image will be minted as part of the American Women Quarters Program, as well as Colombia-born Lina Hidalgo, who at age 27 became the first woman – and first Latina – elected as county judge in Texas’ Harris County in 2018.

“We’re seeing other characters come to life,” Ventura said.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Hispanic Heritage Month: What you need to know about the celebration

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Sunday marks the start of Hispanic Heritage Month. What it means and how to celebrate it

Sunday marks the start of Hispanic Heritage Month. What it means and how to celebrate it

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