What Do We Celebrate in Hispanic Heritage Month?
Posted September 2nd, 2009by Ilan Stavans
Looking at it from an eagle’s perspective our nation’s calendar is an exercise in memory. Days, weekends, and even entire months are turned into occasions for all sorts of diverse eulogies, including those to religious figures (Christmas), love and family (Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day), defining political events (Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Presidents’ Day, Holocaust Day), and even civic duties (Voting Day). In the last several decades, ethnicity has also become a feature (St. Patrick’s Day, the Puerto Rican Day Parade, Black History Month). And so, unfailing in its punctuality, Hispanic Heritage Month is upon us again.
Needless to say, the festivities—at least at the national level—are fairly new. Not because Latinos have suddenly arrived in the country, even though the perception that Hispanics are fairly new arrivals to the American Mosaic is repeated ad nauseam by the media and conservative political pundits. Truth is, our history in these lands is older that the nation itself, dating back to the Spanish Empire, if not even earlier. What has changed, however, is the perception of who Hispanics are. From a series of disparate groups each defined by national background (Mexicans, Salvadorans, Cubans, Colombians, Dominicans, etc.), we have grown, though not fully matured, into a full-fledged community, one exemplified perfectly by the motto e pluribus unum.
Interestingly, whereas African Americans stress history in their Black History Month, ours is about heritage. That is to say, it isn’t the past itself that is at center stage but the heterogeneity of our collective present. The ongoing debate regarding nomenclature—should it be dubbed Latino Heritage Month or instead be referred to as Hispanic—doesn’t obscure the implicit issue at hand: the constant ambivalence between these rubrics is proof of the unfinished business of controlling how others perceive us. And since our heritage is at stake, building the month around October 12 is an opportunity—albeit an explosive one—to define ourselves as bastard children of a misadventure between Europe and the Americas that took place in 1492.
The date is celebrated in the United States as Columbus Day but in Latin America it acquires different connotations. In some places it is known as Día de la Raza, a day to reflect on issues of race, while in others it is featured as Día de la Comunidad, a day of collectivity. (I discuss the topic in full in a forthcoming book, What is la hispanidad?, forthcoming from the University of Texas Press.) In any case, mid October is the center of gravity of Hispanic Heritage Month, which invariably ends up as a hodgepodge of possibilities—indigenous and anti-imperialist voices lament colonialism, Caribbeans proudly parade blackness, Mexicans and Central Americans talk about mestizaje, and radio and TV networks everywhere emphasize the idea of family.
To me it feels like a fiesta and a day of reckoning intertwined. Curiously, individuality ends up becoming the ultimate message. The portraits hanging in libraries and school classrooms offer a sampling of possibilities: César Chávez, Sandra Cisneros, George López, Jorge Ramos. . . . But what does influential mean? A successful career? A life of sacrifice? A commitment to change? How does Hispanic Heritage Month combine the heterogeneity of Latino society as a pozole, or a multiethnic soup, with a measure of individual personality?
There are no easy answers to this question. In fact, let me open the question to our readers: What do we celebrate when we celebrate these role models? In what sense does that individual personify Hispanic Heritage Month? Who is indeed the most influential Latino in the United States? Answers will be posted on this blog. The author of the most insightful one will receive a prize by mail from the Latino American Experience.
