9/15:

Hispanic Heritage Month begins on September 15, the anniversary of

independence for five Latin American countriesCosta Rica, El Salvador,
Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. In addition, Mexico declared its
independence on September 16, and Chile on September 18.
The term Hispanic or Latino, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, refers to
Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin
regardless of race. On the 2010 Census form, people of
Spanish/Hispanic/Latino origin could identify themselves as Mexican, Mexican
American, Chicano, Puerto Rican, Cuban, or "another Hispanic, Latino, or
Spanish origin."
9/16: https://staugustine-450.com/
The City of St. Augustine will celebrate its 450th anniversary on Sept. 8,
2015, but there have been events leading up to that date to commemorate
the multiple influences our city has had on the nation. This includes the 200th
anniversary of the Spanish Constitution in 2012, the 500th anniversary of the
discovery of Florida by Ponce de Len in 2013, and the 50th anniversary of
the Civil Rights Act in 2014.
The mission of the St. Augustine 450th Commemoration is to share the
important role St. Augustine played in the making of America, tell the story of
St. Augustines 450 years of rich multicultural history and enduring people,
and create engaging programs for residents and visitors alike.
9/17:
54 million: The Hispanic population of the United States as of July 1, 2013,
making people of Hispanic origin the nation's largest ethnic or race minority.
Hispanics constituted 17 percent of the nation's total population. In addition,
there are 3.7 million residents of Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory.
9/18: http://www.harvardhispanic.org/commentary-what-would-america-be-likewithout-hispanics/
From the Cuban rhythms in South Florida to the Puerto Ricans, Dominicans,
Peruvians, Bolivians, Columbians and other cultural influences in New York
City, Chicago and Boston to the Mexican culture found in the great
Southwest, Texas and California, Americas cultural history would not be the
same.
9/19: http://www.diversityinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/National-HispanicHeritage-Month-Timeline.pdf
National Hispanic Heritage Month Timeline
9/21: http://americansabor.org/

Salsa. Mambo. Rumba. Cha-cha-ch. The very names of Latin music genres
suggest an irresistible, unmistakable rhythm. And through the decades, these
distinctive musical styles have continuallyand profoundlyinfluenced
American popular music. Latino musicians helped shape many traditional
genres of music in the United States, including jazz, R&B, rock n roll, and hip
hop.

9/22: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/04/latinos-contributions-to-us-historyindependence_n_3545899.html
Latinos have been in North America for longer than English speakers. The
Hispanic influence can be felt everywhere from the names of our cities and
states, to the food we eat.
Few people, however, know what a major impact Latinos have had on the
course of U.S. history. Hispanics have played a role in several key events
since the War of Independence itself -- helping to establish and preserve the
union, defend the country in war, and strengthen the national economy
during peace.
9/23: http://www.pbs.org/latino-americans/en/
Latino Americans is the first major documentary series for television to
chronicle the rich and varied history and experiences of Latinos, who have
helped shape North America over the last 500-plus years and have become,
with more than 50 million people, the largest minority group in the U.S. The
changing and yet repeating context of American history provides a backdrop
for the drama of individual lives. It is a story of immigration and redemption,
of anguish and celebration, of the gradual construction of a new American
identity that connects and empowers millions of people today.
9/24: http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/03/living/hispanic-latino-identity/
How do you know which term to use? "Hispanic" and "Latino" are often used
interchangeably and aim to describe the same group of people, but
technically they do not mean the same thing.
9/25: http://www.livinglanguage.com/blog/2011/12/02/latin-american-literaturenobel-prize-recipients/
Did you know that Latin America boasts six Nobel Prize in Literature
winners?
9/26: http://mentalfloss.com/uk/language/27674/12-english-words-derived-from-anextinct-caribbean-language
When Columbus landed in the New World in 1492, the first humans he
encountered were the Taino, an Arawak people, then the most numerous
group in the Caribbean, inhabiting what are now Cuba, the Dominican
Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. They were skilled

navigators and farmers with complex social systems, art, music, and poetry.
But within half a century, diseases brought by the Spanish wiped out most of
the Taino population. Traces of their civilisation are preserved in words
adopted by the Spanish that passed into English and other languages.
9/28: http://www.livescience.com/38647-mexican-culture.html
The culture of Mexico has undergone a tremendous transformation over the
past few decades and it varies widely throughout the country. Many Mexicans
live in cities, but smaller rural communities still play a strong role in defining
the countrys collective vibrant community.
9/29: http://www.loc.gov/poetry/hispanic-writers/?loclr=pin
Spotlight on U.S. Hispanic Writers features emerging and established
American poets and prose writers of Hispanic descent who write
predominantly in English. In each segment the featured poet or writer
participates in a moderated discussion with the chief of the Hispanic Division,
as well as reads from his or her work.
9/30: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0933896.html
Famous Firsts by Hispanic Americans
10/1:
http://www.nps.gov/history/heritageinitiatives/latino/latinothemestudy/food.htm
Latino foods are the historical product of encounters between peoples from
many lands. Some of these meetings took place in the distant past; for
example, Spanish settlers and missionaries were exchanging foodstuffs and
recipes with Indian women in New Mexico and Florida decades before the first
Pilgrim Thanksgiving at Plymouth. Other encounters have been more recent,
as with the arrival of Afro-Caribbean and Chinese-Cuban migrants to New York
City, who imparted Latino influences to the "soul food" of the Harlem
Renaissance in the 1920s and 1930s. Latino foods thus grew out of the
migrations of diverse people from the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia.
Their history has been shaped by the common experience of Iberian culture
that spread widely in the centuries after Columbus.
10/2: http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/belpremedal
The award is named after Pura Belpr, the first Latina librarian at the New York Public Library.
The Pura Belpr Award, established in 1996, is presented annually to a Latino/Latina writer and
illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an
outstanding work of literature for children and youth.

10/3: http://www.nps.gov/nr//feature/hispanic/2002/index.htm
The National Register of Historic Places is pleased to help foster the general
public's awareness, understanding, and appreciation for Hispanic culture
during National Hispanic Heritage Month. As part of the celebration, this site
highlights various publications, properties listed in the National Register, and

National Parks that deal directly with the ingenuity, creativity, cultural, and
political experiences of Hispanic Americans.
10/5: http://hispanicheritagemonth.gov/collections/
Hispanic Heritage Month Exhibitions and Collections
10/6: http://latino.si.edu/
The Smithsonian Latino Center was created in 1997 to promote Latino
presence within the Smithsonian. The Center is not represented in one
physical location; rather, it works collaboratively with the Institution's
museums and research centers, ensuring that the contributions of the Latino
community in the arts, history, national culture and scientific achievement
are explored, presented, celebrated and preserved. We support scholarly
research, exhibitions, public and educational programs, web-based content
and virtual platforms, and collections and archives. We also manage
leadership and professional development programs for Latino youth,
emerging scholars and museum professionals.
10/7: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/18-major-moments-hispanichistory_55f70275e4b042295e370d3c?utm_hp_ref=hispanic-heritage
From the first explorations into North America nearly a century before
Jamestown to the banning of Mexican-American Studies in Arizona, here are
18 Latino historical events that every American should know.
10/8: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/valerie-tejeda/young-adult-authorshonor_b_5833152.html?utm_hp_ref=hispanic-heritage
Diversity is the reality of our world. In order to teach our children
acceptance, we must show them what exists beyond their own front door.
What better way to do that then through the magic of words and our own
actions?
10/9: http://www.miaminewtimes.com/arts/project-enye-puts-the-focus-on-firstgeneration-latinos-7716704
Earlier this year, she launched Project Enye. The endeavor a series of
web-based micro-documentaries explores the lives of what Soler-Cox calls
enyes, a term drawn from the phonetic pronunciation of the Spanish letter .
But an enye is more than a witty play on words. According to the filmmaker,
it's "a first-generation, American-born Latino who has at least one parent
from a Spanish-speaking country." But to her, what it really means to be an
enye is "to cook and eat arroz con habichuela or arroz de gandules pernil, to
have all of these Puerto Rican instruments in my house and the sounds of
salsa and merengue but to also know all the words to Madonna.
10/10: http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21645996-one-american-sixnow-hispanic-up-small-minority-two-generations-ago

IN THREE TERMS representing Colorado in Congress, John Salazar got used

to angry voters calling him a Mexican and not a proper American. During
fights over the Obamacare health-insurance law, a constituent told him to go
back where you came from. The attacks were misplaced. Mr Salazar is proud
of his Hispanic heritage, but he comes from a place with deeper American
roots than the United States. One of his ancestors, Juan de Oate y Salazar,
co-founded the city of Santa Fe in New Mexico. That was in 1598, some 250
years before it became American territory (and the best part of a decade
before English merchant-adventurers splashed ashore at Jamestown,
Virginia). A laconic man in denims and cowboy hat, Mr Salazar is a fifthgeneration Colorado rancher, farming the same corner of the San Luis valley
that his great-grandfather settled 150 years ago, just when Mexico ceded the
territory to America. As families like the Salazars put it, they never crossed
the border, the border crossed them.
10/12: http://www.aauw.org/2014/09/30/connected-by-a-common-thread/
Being Hispanic means Im part of a community connected by a thread of
traditions that transcend generations. Its about food and the arts, dancing
and singing usually all happening at the same time. Its about my
grandmothers pasteles (a doughy mass wrapped in plantain and filled with
chicken, peas, and garbanzo beans), the salsa three-step that I am still
learning to master, and the melancholy but hopeful stories sung by my
favorite Latino artists.
10/13: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eduardo-vilaro/hispanic-heritagemonth_1_b_4138742.html?utm_hp_ref=hispanic-heritage
For me, being Latino is a complex and personal experience that cannot be
neatly branded. It is not a color, a mood, a look, an interjection or a language,
even though those are all a part of my complex identity. Rather, it is a
narrative that changes from person to person, and that is informed by the
claims that each person (and their family) have to the rich histories brought
to our country by Hispanics.
10/14: http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/
The Hispanic Reading Room serves as the primary access point for research
relating to those parts of the world encompassing the geographical areas of
the Caribbean, Latin America, and Iberia; the indigenous cultures of those
areas; and peoples throughout the world historically influenced by LusoHispanic heritage, including Latinos in the U.S. and peoples of Portuguese or
Spanish heritage in Africa, Asia, and Oceania.
10/15: http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/hispanic-heritage-month/hhm-quiz-1n424861
Its the end of 2015s Hispanic Heritage Month, so celebrate by taking this
test to see what youve learned!