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FILE – National flags from Latin American countries are displayed on the field during a celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month before an NFL football game between the Baltimore Ravens and Dallas Cowboys in Arlington, Texas, Sept. 22, 2024.<\/p>\n
Gareth Patterson\/AP Photo\/Gareth Patterson<\/p>\n
Members of the Guadalupe Dance Company perform at a kick off for Hispanic Heritage month in San Antonio, Texas, Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026.<\/p>\n
Eric Gay\/AP Photo\/Eric Gay<\/p>\n
FILE – Lydia Rioss of Sacramento, poses for a portrait during King of the Streets, the world’s first televised and streamed lowrider parade planned as part of National Latino-Hispanic Heritage Month, in San Francisco’s Mission District on Sept. 20, 2025. (Yalonda M. James\/San Francisco Chronicle via AP, File)<\/p>\n
Yalonda M. James\/Yalonda M. James\/San Francisco C<\/p>\n
Celebrations across the U.S. are expected in observance of National Hispanic Heritage Month, showcasing the vast diversity and culture of Latinos.<\/p>\n
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Marked each year from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, the month is an opportunity for many in the U.S. to learn about or be reminded of the contributions of Hispanic people. The nation\u2019s largest racial or ethnic minority, over 70 million ethnically Hispanic residents make up one-fifth of the total U.S. population, according to the census. The group includes people whose ancestors come from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America.<\/p>\n
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Heritage month honors the cultures and legacy of Latinos<\/p>\n
National Hispanic Heritage Month started as Hispanic Heritage Week. Mexican American U.S. Rep. Edward R. Roybal of Los Angeles created legislation for it and President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it into law in 1968.<\/p>\n
It wasn’t until two decades later that it expanded into a month under President Ronald Reagan.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was clustered around big celebrations for the community,\u201d said Alberto Lammers, director of communications at the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute. \u201cIt became a chance for people to know Hispanic cultures, for Latinos to get to know a community better.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Sept. 15 was chosen as a tribute to the anniversary of \u201cEl Grito de Dolores,\u201d or the \u201cCry of Dolores,\u201d which was a call to battle issued in 1810 in Mexico’s war for independence from Spain. Several Central American nations including El Salvador and Guatemala also celebrate their independence in September.<\/p>\n
Labor movement ties into Latino observance<\/p>\n
The festivities spotlight the interconnected struggles of Latin and Caribbean nations \u2014 including Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador \u2014 and a history of fighting for the rights of Indigenous people, said Paul Ortiz, a professor of Latina\/o labor history at Cornell University.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe centrality of family, mutual aid, and community is very important to us because our parents, our grandparents, we\u2019ve had to struggle to really make it in this country,\u201d said Ortiz, a former president of the United Faculty of Florida AFL-CIO union.<\/p>\n
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Coming from collectivist cultures is partly why Latinos join labor unions at a higher rate, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe understand the importance of collaboration, collective struggle in terms of improving wages and working conditions,\u201d Ortiz said.<\/p>\n
With the U.S. Latino consumer base growing over the past decade, historians say there’s an expanded curiosity and appreciation for the Latino community, especially during fraught political times. It also may be a time to reflect on the history of colonialism within Latin America.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are long trajectories of the racialization of people from Latin America in the U.S. but it\u2019s also the same contributions of these people who made the U.S. what it is,\u201d said Diego Javier Luis, a historian and assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University.<\/p>\n
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Hispanic versus Latino label<\/p>\n
The Hispanic label was created by the federal government for people from Spanish-speaking cultures. But for some, the identifier inherently carries political conservatism and emphasizes a connection to Spain. It sometimes gets mistakenly swapped with \u201cLatino\u201d or \u201cLatinx.\u201d<\/p>\n
Latino reflects ties to Latin America. So some will celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month as Latinx or Latin Heritage Month.<\/p>\n
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Latin Americans are not a monolith. From Mexican American to Colombian American to Salvadoran American, each culture in the diaspora has unique differences when it comes to food, art and music.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe history of Latinos is U.S. history, Latino cultures are U.S. culture, Latino foods are U.S. foods, and our music is U.S. music,\u201d Luis said. \u201cIt\u2019s also about the people holding these communities together \u2014 the mothers, midwives, barbers, bodega owners, artists, poets.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FILE – National flags from Latin American countries are displayed on the field during a celebration of Hispanic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[151375,88427,150,152,151,151373,151374,1820,151372,9922,4808,1468,23681,59373,59370,86795,59371,59372,14636,35444,9611],"class_list":["post-436843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-alberto-lammers","tag-ap-test","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news","tag-diego-javier-luis","tag-edward-r-roybal","tag-guatemala","tag-hispanic-heritage-month-explained-info-latinos","tag-los-angeles","tag-lyndon-b-johnson","tag-mexico","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","tag-product-30109-ap-texas-state-news-no-weather","tag-product-30117-ap-washington-dc-state-news-no-weather","tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","tag-product-31998-ap-online-national-news","tag-ronald-reagan","tag-south-america","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}